On Sat, 26 Mar 2011 12:49:29 +0000, gareth wrote:

Vaillant ecotec 831 boiler fitted less than 5 years ago.

Faults to date ...

Design fault, a rubber ring to be replaced by a graphite ring.

Design fault, a pressure sensor gives up the ghost.

2 weeks after guaranteee expires, the change-over valve fails but
exhibits water leak that has been there for months. Vaillant refuse to
honour under the guarantee.

Vaillant pressure us to take out extended warranty, which we do because
of change-over valve replaced. When the small print comes, it
specifically excludes any faults that existed before the guarantee so
cancel the policy immediately.

Thermostat fails requiring use of manual override.

Yesterday, rubber expansion joint fails. Emergency engineer says that it
is another design fault having a rubber hose next to the heat exchanger,
and that replacement will be a telescoping metal joint.

The emergency engineer says that our experiences both with Vaillant and
with theor boilers are commonplace, and that he always recommend
Worcester boilers.

Moral : Don't buy a Vaillant boiler, not only are they crap but Vaillant
have a predatory attitude towards customers' bank balances.

My experience of Vaillant is

- *extremely* unresponsive technical support line: I once hung on for
over 40 minutes being told how important my call was to them etc and gave
up; I later contacted general customer services who suggested I email
them! (Which actually worked - they did get back to me - but as much use
as a chocolate teapot if you've got a customer's boiler in bits in front
of you and need to talk to someone now.)

- Vaillant engaging in finger-pointing exercise over a fault: a boiler
I'd fitted for a customer was making howling noises from the flue (which
I think they're a bit prone to do) and they got a Vaillant bod out to
look at it who said the primary circuit hadn't been flushed properly,
which didn't seem a likely fault. I powerflushed the system (I'd only
just got the machine after installing the boiler) and not surprisingly it
didn't make a blind bit of difference.

My experience of Worcester-Bosch is
- generally being able to reach tech support on the phone when I need it
(can be a bit busy when everyone's got frozen condensates)
- tech support being generally clueful (can be a bit off with more
esoteric issues)
- being pretty helpful when you do have to call them out, including
attending for free a boiler that was a couple of weeks outside warranty



--
John Stumbles -- http://yaph.co.uk

When I die, I want to go peacefully in my sleep like my father did,
not screaming in terror like his passengers.