Glowworm boilers and their leaks through plastic parts

[oldplumber]

Had a friend call on Sunday complaining his 6 year old 30ci combi was leaking again.
On inspection the pump block was seen to have a pin hole leak so looked up the cost of replacement and saw that trade at plumb center was £175 plus vat!!!
So come monday morning called glowworm costomer service and asked if they where having problems with the plastic fittings (as if i didnt know), and was told no, so asked again and was told only the cxi range hydroblocks would be replaced free if they pinholed. Continued to argue the cause and stated that their boilers "where not fit for purpouse" and even tho they guarenteed them for 2/3 years they expected them to last 10-12 to years such that if a non wearing part failed then they were of poor quality and not fit for purpouse. continued to pig about a manufacturers fault and a manger (gave up on the initial lass) eventually offered an engineer vist for £250!!, carried on bitching and got offered an engineer visit for £113 in vat and parts and if the part was a manufacturers fault then it would be free. Engineer turned up this afternoon, stripped out the pump block and popped in a new one for free. He commented that high mains pressure caused this particular problem in the cw feed to the plate heat exchanger, during my discussion with glowworm on the phone their excuse was that a dirty heating circuit caused the pump block failure !! even though it was on the cw side, so as ever trying to blame the installer.

Moral of this diatribe, 40 minutes on the phone bitching and not giving up can win the day, engineer was a nice guy and all i had to do was sit and watch for an hour and a half. Mates happily paying up for 3 hours to cover my costs seeing as he had no parts to fork out for.

 

[Puddle]

Nice one ,oldplumber ,nice to see someone getting the boiler manufacturers to meet their obligations and not lose out in the process

But in fairness seems you got a good engineer that helped you ,fear many are not so lucky

It always makes me wonder how manufacturers get away with so much, I like the way you use the manufacturer quality rule, more should

It is everywhere though, I got a new phone last year, had problems with one ,then the other they sent, said must be me, unlucky, checked on-line ,there were hundreds of people complaining about the same faults

Same as the suprima pcb or Ariston electrodes, everyone knows about it, even on watchdog but they deny it all, they think they can brush it under the carpet, they do not even have the decency to make the faulty parts cheap to purchase !

But were are potterton now, used to be massive ,oh yeh taken over by Baxi, were are Ariston now, ten years back you could not move for Aristons ,builders fav as well, now see no new ones, not even stocked at merchants.....Glowworms taken over by Valliant. who have their own problems ,one of which was buying Glowworm

imho

 

[washer]

Gutted, changed the "sani block" for a friend of mine only on monday morning, couldnt believe the cost of the part, and had pinholed on the DHW side aswell.

They must know it is a common fault, the new block now has copper pipe where it pinholes, rather than plastic.

Wont be telling my mate about glowworn doing it for nought though!