Does anyone remember the very first video machines? the Philips 1500 and
1501?
When you bought one of these, you used to get a years free service by a
suited bloke with an attache case full of bits. Not only that but every few
months he would make an appointment and come and clean the machine often
exchanging the lacing chord and the pressure roller and cleaning the rewind
idlers etc. He often also adjusted the gain of the head amp to account for
the wear on the heads.

Can you imagine how much this must have cost? Admittedly the machine, which
had a timer directly of a cooker, cost over 300 quid and only ran a tape for
an hour and you could keep your breakfast warm on the top, but it did work
surprisingly well. Indeed when the 1700 came out with a whole 2.5 hours
recording time, and a crisper picture and a digital clock. I had the old
1500 modified to use the same heads and run at the same speed. Later on I
did a home mod for the 1700 to make it run for four hours on the tape that
was originally for 1 hour. It was surprisingly good, though the sound
suffered a bit.
Those were the days of fun.
Its all very boring now, as when stuff goes wrong you often find they just
replace it rather than fixing it.
As for the costs of the warranty. I'm a little disgusted that our old Sale
of Goods act has been watered down so making these extended warranty folk
convince people they have to pay.
In my view you should not be approached for at least 18 months for any
extended warranty.

How long an item lasts really should be defined somehow. Half the aggro is
the argument that a particular bit of gear should have lasted longer than it
did for the amount paid for it.
Strangely, cheap stuff like a tessco cd radio tape player went wrong after
a year and they just replaced it, into argument and it only cost 40 quid.

The cd player went ping one day and shot several little ball bearings into
the works of the unit!
Brian

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This newsgroup posting comes to you directly from...
The Sofa of Brian Gaff...

Blind user, so no pictures please
Note this Signature is meaningless.!
"Bill Wright" wrote in message
news
The new freezer came with an envelope containing the instructions and so
forth. There was a large label on the bag: REGISTER NOW!" This would
'activate the free one year guarantee'. This seems to do no more than
duplicate our statutory rights. In the bag was a glossy brochure offering
'Peace of mind'. Peace of mind is worth a lot so I read on. It turned out
that the peace of mind was limited to not worrying about the freezer
breaking down. But it was so cheap! The three year plan was only £77! But
hang on a minute! The first year is definitely covered by the normal
warranty (and if the freezer died during the subsequent months I'd be
looking at my consumer rights, since it is not a budget freezer.) And the
£77 is not a one-off payment; it is (as the tiny print implies but doesn't
explicitly state) an annual payment. So for £231 I would get warranty for
years two and three. And the price could increase: "We reserve the right
to alter the fee..." If payment is by direct debit there's a £10 per annum
reduction, presumably because you would continue to pay during the second
and third years without really being aware of it.
The warranty includes 'damage caused accidentally' (I just can't imagine a
likely scenario that would lead to a claim, having read through the
exclusions) but not the cost of spoiled food if the freezer breaks down or
there's a power cut. If the freezer is a write-off during the warranty
period and a new one is supplied the customer would have to pay delivery
charges, install the machine themselves, and dispose of the old machine at
their own cost.
£231 would go a long way towards the cost of a replacement freezer. That
would be with a statutory warranty of at least twelve months.
My experience of white goods extended warranties is that if the item
breaks down you have to wait hours for the phone to answer, then jump
through hoops during a very long phone call, then the repair man comes
many days later. We once had to wait ten working days without a washing
machine. That hardly brings peace of mind. It's better to use a trusted
local repair man. My experience of that is that the phone call lasts two
minutes, he comes the next day, and he charges SFA.

Bill