The AGA saga
Toby Walne was let down by a warranty – now here’s how to turn up the heat...
HE smug middle-class glow that comes from owning an Aga is not cheap – at £10,000 you could buy a decent second-hand car for the same money. But with such a reassuringly expensive price tag you own a high-class hunk of British cast iron art that doubles up as a top of the range cooker.
According to the sales literature ‘uncompromising quality’ is at the heart of the dual control, three-oven cooker I purchased in June 2014 – backed with a ‘peace of mind’ fiveyear warranty.
So it came as a surprise that after less than a couple of years of careful use, a plastic control knob for turning the hob on and off recently became loose. Reassured that my ‘more money than sense’ purchase at least meant that any mechanical fault could be sorted without a quibble, I gave Aga a call.
I was in for a rude awakening when a polite assistant called Lewis revealed that the devil was in the detail of my warranty contract.
Aga would charge me £150 to come out even though the fault was not mine – the only thing it would not sting me for was the cost of a new plastic switch if the old one could not be fixed. The five-year warranty for both call-out and parts actually only lasted for a year. After that I would have to foot the bill for call-outs.
I fired off a couple of emails assuming common sense would prevail. The initial replies did not even acknowledge my specific case or answer questions – and I was given short shrift with cut-and-paste responses that seemed generated from a computer.
For example, Aga offered a less than helpful: ‘Many of our customers can find the answers they are looking for in the frequently asked questions section of our website.’
The company even had the gall to try to sell me an annual ‘Aga Care’ inspection for a further £72 a year as this might help spot future faults – though I would have to wait until the cooker was two years old to qualify for this extra expense.
There was no sign of an apology or recognition that I might expect a warranty to actually cover the full cost of a repair – perish the thought. The knob is still loose and will remain so until the day it falls off.
But I will go to the Retail Ombudsman in a quest for justice.
AGA stated: ‘The knob coming loose on an Aga is not a known fault and we are unable to offer an explanation why this should happen. Your Aga was installed in 2014 and has performed well. ‘Based on this information we are unable to arrange for an appointment outside of the warranty terms. Issues reported after the first 12 months are chargeable.’ Citizens Advice points out that I am not alone in discovering such warranties often fail to meet the standards that customers would expect – and it warns that shoppers must read the small print of any sales contract rather than falling for empty boasts.
The Consumer Rights Act 2015 introduced last October offers protection that can prove more useful than a warranty promise full of holes. It replaces the Sale of Goods Act 1979 that is still enforceable for goods bought before this date.
Kate Hobson, consumer expert at Citizens Advice, says: ‘The Consumer Rights Act already protects consumers if a purchase turns out to be faulty – this is in addition to any retailer guarantees.’ Under the acts, if an item is not of satisfactory quality, fit for purpose or does not match a seller’s description you have a right to free repair or replacement. But items damaged due to wear and tear – or if you change your mind about the purchase – are not automatically covered.
In theory, manufacturers are liable to repair or replace items up to six years after purchase – though in practice successful claims made so long afterwards are few as the onus is on the customer to prove the item had a fault when bought. Hobson suggests those who feel they have a case should contact Citizens Advice for free guidance. If you want to claim on a warranty then it is important to have all the right paperwork. This often includes filling in a registration card at time of purchase and returning it to the manufacturer. If you do not do this, the guarantee may not be valid but you still have consumer rights.
In addition, Section 75 of the Consumer Credit Act 1974 should give credit card users protection if goods are faulty or not as described (although this protection is potentially at risk under a review being conducted by City regulator the Financial Conduct Authority). In such cases you should be able to claim a refund from the card provider if the retailer will not fulfil its duties for purchases of between £100 and £30,000.
Even though warranties are sometimes not as good as they might appear, it has not stopped more than 15million people taking out extended warranties in the past five years on top of any manufacturer’s guarantee. But such peace-of-mind protection has in some cases been branded as nothing short of a rip-off by consumer body Which?
A Which? spokesman says: ‘Extended warranties can be poor value for money as you may already be covered by consumer law or a manufacturer’s guarantee. Some people like the reassurance warranties provide but it is vital that firms selling them give clear upfront information.’
Which? has found that reliability is becoming less of an issue as technology improves – making warranties increasingly poor value for money as they are rarely used. There is a less than one in ten chance a major electrical appliance such as a washing machine will break down in the first five years – and with televisions the odds are one in 20.
In many cases you would be better off putting aside money for repairs rather than spending it on warranties. For example, a five-year warranty for a £300 Hotpoint washing machine bought from Currys might end up costing more than £200 but a repair may cost less than £150.
The website Compare Extended Warranties gives details of warranty providers you can choose – rather than simply buying one pushed by a shop. Issuers include Domestic & General, Argos, Tesco and Currys. Home insurance also often covers electrical breakages, damage or theft but not manufacturing faults or wear and tear.