@tinybits
its very simple (sales of goods act)
within 6 months of purchase, a customer with goods that develop a fault (not wear and tear) should be offered a replacement or refund as it is assumed that the goods were not fit for purpose, with the retailer then having to take their loss up with the distributor.
this second part is irrelevant to the customer, their contract is with the retailer they purchased the goods from. a risk any retailer takes when signing a contract to retail goods from a distributor is that the distributor will back up the goods delivered with a reliable warranty service.
after 6 months of ownership, the customer has to then prove that the goods were not originally fit for purpose, and allow the retailer to send the goods to their distributor or manufacturer for inspection
obviously you need to return the goods by post to CRC for “inspection” but they have a warranty department that can inspect the goods and make a judgement. Allow 1 week for this process. Any more than this is stalling on their part.
a big problem for companies like CRC is that they are often purchasing goods through grey import channels at lower cost, and may not have anyone to actually send the good “back to”.
this is part of the risk they assume when buying goods cheaper direct from off-shore factories or sales agents dumping OE stock into the aftermarket
any shops or companies claiming that they need to “send goods to the manufacturer” for inspection inside of the initial 6 month period, need to educate themselves on retail law in the EU:- its basically a cost-saving blag relying on uneducated customers caving in, when the law is very clear on who is responsible (the retailer)
incidentally, I recently learned the warranty period in the EU is actually 2 years on goods sold, and this supercedes the UK “sales of goods act”.
I have recently used this successfully for electrical goods bought from Argos that failed after 13 months, despite them trying to fob me off with “12 month warranty”. It was only when I showed them the link to the EU laws on my smartphone that their manager started taking my complaint seriously.