tl;dr

Sadly, I have a broken dishwasher. It runs, but the water is cold. I’d assumed the element was broken but after speaking to a repair engineer today he told me that if that was the case, he wouldn’t expect it to run at all — he’d expect to see an error code reported. He guessed it would be the logic board, and that it’d be beyond economical repair, and that he’d want £25 to come and check it out and confirm this.

Damn, I thought to myself, and went searching for someone who’d do me a free estimate before I throw it out and buy a new one. I came across RepairCare. I entered my type of appliance (dishwasher), my make (Siemens), and my postcode and voila — I have a fixed-price any-repair quotation of £104 and a form asking for my contact and credit card details. Now apart from my friend Matt’s suggestion that I remove everything but the cutlery basket and say to the engineer “there it is, please supply all the parts you need”, I thought this sounded too good to be true. A quote I’d had earlier for the element being changed (which I understand is a fairly routine job) was a little under £100, so I had almost nothing to lose by using RepairCare for even a routine repair — and they had almost nothing to gain and a lot to lose for a complex repair. Suspicious, I checked the Terms & Conditions:

11. We reserve the right to cancel a repair if on inspection or during the repair of the product it is deemed beyond economical repair, or when parts are ordered from a supplier and they are unable to fulfil the order. In such instances we will refund (to your credit card) any monies you have paid less a callout charge of £40.00 (inc VAT).

I emailed them to clarify how they decide what constitutes “beyond economical repair” on a nearly five-year-old dishwasher but they did not reply.

I think this borders on false advertising and an excuse to charge a lot of people a £40 callout charge when they have been sold, according to their FAQ:

Q. What’s included in the quote?

A. We use fixed pricing; this means that the amount you are quoted for the repair includes all of the following:

• Call out
• Evaluation by a qualified engineer
• Labour
• All required parts
• Professional safety check
• 3 month guarantee on all work

The FAQ page makes no notice of this beyond economical repair clause. I feel this is deceitful and would advise others to deal with this company cautiously. I understand that RepairCare need this clause to protect themselves from (potentially) completely rebuilding appliances, but I feel it should be much more prominent on the site.

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