About a month ago, I made & fitted a new kitchen for my next door neighbours. As part of the job, they wanted all new appliances including an integrated Washing Machine which I also supplied.
The W/M was the last appliance to be installed and I was away on holiday for a week the following day.
After fitting it, I ran it through a quick 35min program, just to make sure it was filling & emptying correctly, which it was and it completed the program.
A week later, on my return from holiday, my neighbour knocked to say the machine has never completed a program since.
I went In and could see that there was indeed a problem.
I contacted the manufacturers own Service Department, gave them the FD and E-NR numbers from the machine label as they had requested and talked through the symptoms of the problem with the Technician, who then booked an appointment for their engineer to come and look at it.
He duly turned up at the correct time and was clearly very knowledgeable and experienced ( they are not all like this....!)
He also ran it through a quick program, and it went into pause mode halfway through the program, just as the Client had described.
He then ran it through a Test program, that tests all the various components within the machine and they all came back to say they were working correctly and there were no fault codes displayed.
He stated that he had "never seen this scenario before"...... And thought it must be a software problem and that he would need to order 2 new motherboards from Germany, as they didnt have them in stock in the UK......Expected time of delivery and a revisit was 3 to 4 weeks.
I wasnt happy about this timescale, as the Client had already been without the use of a machine for a week already, so I asked if he could recommend a new replacement machine on his Engineers Report.......He said that company policy was to repair, not replace an appliance, even though this machine had never worked correctly straight out of its wrappings.
After speaking directly with the manufacturer who supplies me direct ( I have a Trade Account with them ), I had to order another machine that was delivered 2 days later, for which they sent me another invoice.
I then had to deliver the new appliance, remove the faulty appliance, fit the new one and bring the faulty one back to my business premises, all at my own expense.
After 4 or 5 more phone calls and 2 failed collections where they didnt turn up on the days they said they would, the faulty machine was finally collected on Thursday this week......Obviously, I'm now waiting for a credit note for the faulty machine.
How the manufacturer could think the Client or myself would accept a faulty/ repaired machine straight out of the box, is completely beyond me....?
I will just add,...I have been dealing with this manufacturer for more than 15 years and this is the first time I have ever had to replace a brand new machine from them. The new machine is now working as it should be...
