This is the warranty which is offered by repair companies such as ourselves. By and large, this comes down to the question of the integrity of the repairer as it is very difficult to pin point what the exact policy of any given repairer is until the crunch comes. Most will not have a written policy and will make decisions based on the situation. This is not necessarily a bad thing as many repairers are very small businesses.

Having said that, there are some points which need to be made. Repairers are dealing with used appliances of a variety of ages and conditions. Often a repair might be made, only to be followed up a week or two later by another fault. From the customer’s point of view, the maching has failed again and the first thing they think of is that the ‘last repair must not have been done properly’. This can be far from the truth. The new fault might be quite different from the original one. No repairer can afford to give a warranty on the complete appliance just because he has replaced a component in it.

On the other hand, replacement parts can fail and a repairer must be willing to give the customer the benefit of the doubt and at least come back and check that all is well. Conversely, the customer should be prepared to pay the technician for his time, IF the problem turns out to be a completely different problem.

Faulty parts are the bane of every repairer and no matter how thorough or experienced a technician might be, he is NEVER going to avoid recalls. If a part is proved to be faulty, what should the policy of the repair company be? Should they wear the full cost of the job, bearing in mind they will most likely be able to claim the part back from the parts supplier? We think they should, up to a point. And here the integrity issue comes into play. There are situations where the only parts available for a certain appliance are of jubious quality. If the customer wants the repair done in such circumstances, he should be warned about this situation.

Different companies will offer different lengths of warranty on their parts, but mostly the whole subject of warranty on parts is very loose.

Another thing which occurs is where the part which fails might have failed because of external factors, in other words, through no fault of the technician or the manufacturer of the part. For example, a washing machine overflows and the motor gets wet and burns out. The part will not and should not be replaced free of charge under such circumstances.