Hi there,
New to this forum but it all looks helpful. Im sure this question has been posed here before but im just seeking clarity on my legal position.
Bought an £800 sony vaio laptop from Currys (for my sins) in Oct 2013. It was the most expensive windows laptop in the shop, sold to me after I explained I use it for work and it gets lots of use so needs to be a machine which will stand up to it rather than a cheap laptop that will struggle to keep pace...
It has been repaired once by Currys already in Summer 2014 (software failure, they reinstalled windows for me and thats about all).
Last week, after 2 years 3 months, it has died completely. I have returned it to Currys for them to asses, but I am expecting it could be a motherboard failure and as such pretty much a write off and time to buy a new one.
I have a friend who works for Currys repair centre, and he has advised me that Currys are obliged to repair or replace under the Sales of goods act regardless of warranty, something he described as retails best kept secret.
Having raised this point with Currys the lady was quite firm in her denial ("in thrity years of working here ive never heard of a free repair to a 2 year old machine" ...etc). She claimed that wear and tear on the key board and case showing it has been used a lot as opposed to someone using it once a week to check facebook has to be considered when assessing what is reasable to expect in terms of the life of a laptop.
While I take the point that number of hours use affects overall years of use, I feel that 2 years 3 months is not a reasonable time for a laptop to fail to the point of replacement, especially not for an £800 machine sold on the basis of its durability. I feel the amount of use is irrelevent given the short time frame, as to support that argument is to say that the laptop was not suitable for business use or capable of being used for anything other than light domestic home use, contrary to advice given at point of sale and contrary to the price tag.
Having read some other threads here I am under the impression I may be entitled to some compensation if not a full repair/replacement, on the basis that the sales of goods act states it must "reasonably not be expected to have failed" which I think is the case. The issue of "fault being present from manfacture" can only be prooved by virtue of the fact it has failed, and would only fail after time not necessarily when first purchased. If an indpendent report was needed I can arrange it, I certainly havent spilled anything or dropped it, or otherwise caused reason for it to be faulty and the nature of it being inside the laptop means its hard to really break a motherboard any other way.
I would appreicate advice on how to approach the issue given Currys known stubborn attitude to these problems and a better understanding of my legal rights. If needs be I will buy a new laptop (elsewhere), but I do feel I am being robbed of at least a couple of years use of a machine and therefore should be compensated towards the cost of a new one.
Many thanks in advance
Jon