Is that covered by warranty mate?

Warranty is a pretty dull subject, it doesn't matter what product the warranty is on its all the same. Warranty is an insurance policy, so its the consumers job to pay for it and the insurance companies job to take the money and work super hard at not paying it back.

Manufacturers attitude to what is and is not covered by warranty varies enormously. I've worked for manufacturers who seem to get a weird thrill out of voiding the warranty as a matter of principle to others who cant help out enough.

Over the last few weeks of silly season a few people have contacted me with warranty questions asking if I thought their problem should be covered. Its part of my "call Graham Hes an idiot, he will give you free advice service". In pretty much every case the equipment manufacturer was taking the piss. Lets look at a few horrible examples.

No 1: Ever since I was a boy, its been standard practice to condemn an installation because you have installed the wrong communication cable. This is manufacturer speak for "we have no idea what is wrong with your unit, but you are to blame". Trust me you can bet 100% that your fan motor did not fail because the comms cable was the wrong spec. If you use the wrong cable you get Comms errors and the unit doesn't work, that's it. The fan motors, compressors and circuit boards don't fail. This is the manufacturers way of buying time and hoping you will go away. Changing the comms cable will not fix your flow rate problem.

No2: the compressor has failed on 2 identical units, at two different sites after 2 years, both installed as per the manufacturers instructions, but its the fault of the installer.

This looks like the beginning of an issue with the kit itself. Its hard as an installer to see if there is a pattern because they don't have enough units out there to get a good sample. But as a wholesaler or manufacturer you see this coming as a bunch of similar issues all coming in at once. I've seen this sort of issue a fair few times in my career.

In some cases the manufacturer leap in, work out what is going wrong and solve the issue. They can either ship a load of replacement parts and asked the installers to help replace them, or do a software upgrade in the field. Or they can try another idea, fight the installers for a year and deny all knowledge. Its usually easy to work out which route they are taking, if they wont pick up the phone or answer emails you know its the later.

No3 the system volume is too low, void warranty. This one makes my blood boil. An idiot from the manufacturer turns up, takes a wild guess at the system volume and based on that guess voids your warranty. There is no maths, no Science and definitely no testing, just an ill advised guess and boom your end user thinks they have been ripped off.

In an ideal world the manufacturers engineer would watch the water fall in temperature during defrost and calculate the rate of decline. If it was falling in temperature too fast they could say "blimey Charlie, there isn't enough water volume here ". But ive found the preferred method is guess and throw the installer under the bus. I cant wait for someone to try this on me, I will sit them down and teach them some thermo-fluid maths. Then we will agree its under warranty.

This fault angers me because the installer could be warned early before any damage is done, they would see the errors in their installation and would fix it with a volumiser or by opening up some more rads. If they didn't fix the issue that I agree should be good grounds to void the warranty. I still believe its the unts job to warn you of volume problems, it should be a standard test and fault code built into the unit.

Manufacturers need to have a good think before voiding warranty. I agree if the installation is awful the installer should get a beating and no warranty, but If the kit is crap, the techies know this, why not fix the problem? or show your customer how to navigate away from the issues. Don't blame your loyal customers. If you keep doing this they will leave you and go elsewhere.

I've found warranty is one of the best ways to alienate people who you've been working with for years, doing profitable business, which benefits everyone. Sometimes a free fan motor to a loyal customer can heal a lot of arguments.

In warranty departments across the country there should be a big notice saying "try not to be a bastard today" on the wall.