RE: Commission acts to guarantee UK Consumer rights under the Guarantees Directive

["Kenneth Watt" <kwatt@xxxxxxx>]

Actually I'm interested in this as it directly affects my business and
profitability as we do a *LOT* of warranty work and all is not as it
may
seem, especially for the poor old punters. ;)

This is based on opinions from trade bodies and the
whitegoods/browngoods trades in general...

The current EU directive *DOES NOT* automatically give a 2 year
warranty
by way of legislation! It does suggest a 2 year warranty but it is not
enforceable, in fact, current UK consumer law actually extends *beyond*
the terms in the current directive and it is likely to remain that way.

All the customers seem to think that a 2 year warranty is a good thing
-
oh how wrong they are! Prices will be forced up, quality of the goods
will have to rise or alternative warranty arrangements will be found,
probably similar to those in the OEM market where there is, virtually,
no warranty at all. Added to which insurers, for extended warranties
will have to either maintain current pricing for a shorter warranty or
raise the prices and extend to, for example, instead of an additional 4
years, an additional 3 years. All this assuming that a 2 year warranty
came into play.

Bear in mind that the large retailers such as Currys and Comet generate
massive sums from selling extended warranties and you start to se why
this is a problem. If my information is correct the car manufacturers,
such a VW, also poo-poo'd the idea as it would cost them billions every
year and they, and consumer goods manufacturers are going to be stung
with the cost of disposing the old appliances as well eventually by the
looks of it. This will also force price rises.

So in short, yes you probably will eventually get the warranties that
the consumer organisations think is the Holy Grail...but at a cost!

K.

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