XBox Hardware Durability

The DVD drive on my XBox is failing and needs replacing. Microsoft have quoted a price of £80 for the repair job. This is not a price I`m particularly happy to pay as I can pick up a replacement drive on its own for £40.

However, I`m wondering whether I can catch M$ on this on under the Sale of Goods act. The relevant bits of the legislation are covered in this bit I found on another web site.

The sale of goods act 1979 (section14) which notes that goods must be of a †˜satisfactory qualityââ‚à ‚¬Ã¢â€žÂ¢ and implied in this is †˜appropriate durabilityââ ¡Ãƒâ€šÃ‚¬ÃƒÂ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¾Ã‚¢. It also notes that †˜for the purposes of this act, goods are of satisfactory quality if they meet the standards that a reasonable person would regard as satisfactory, taking into account any description of the goods, the price (if relevant) and all other relevant circumstances. Noteworthy also is the †˜sale and supply of goods to consumers regulations, 2002ââ‚ ¬Ã¢â€žÂ¢ which states the consumer has the right to †˜choose repair, replacement, partial or full refund, or compensation if a fault appears within 6 years (5 years in Scotland) and it is reasonable for goods to last that longââ‚ ¬Ã¢â€žÂ¢

The XBox is about 20 months old. Taking into account that it is the DVD drive failing I've been checking out the MTBF for various models and they all have a lifespan much, much longer than 20 months.

In my opinion, the XBox should last longer than 20 months before it suffers a hardware failure. I`m guessing that most people would agree with this, but does anyone actually think that a lifespan of under 2 years for an XBox is reasonable?

My other question is does anyone have a view on whether I could wangle a free repair under this legislation. My take on it is that I could potentially have them over a barrel, as the only way I could see them getting out of this one would be to argue that the XBox actually does have that short a MTBF, something that I couldn`t seem them being happy to do.

Thanks in advance for any comments.

[MovedGoalPosts]

Difficult one. We seem to live in a throwaway age where products all have a limited life. Computer electronics are possibly the worst example of this in terms of how quickly we consider stuff to be out of date and worthless.

Specifically regarding the X-Box, M$ have already admited they are developing he next version, but equally they don't give us any firm release date. My personal view is thus the the expected life of this product should be an equivalent time of it's first launch date to the launch date of the superceeding product.

It's difficult to see how enforceable any case to get M$ to replace the faulty DVD would be. Electronic goods are commonly sold with a 12 month gurantee (I'm not sure if that is just common practice or based in some consumer statute). At time of purchase most stores will try and flog you the overpirced extended guarantee. That suggests to me that there is an accepted implication that the goods may not last that well. That may be the biggest stumbling ground in terms of is the product fit for purpose, as commonly we all accept the extended guarantee is offerred, thus implying the product is vulnerable and may not have a long life without a need for, perhaps costly, repair.

However I certainly didn't buy my X-BOx with the idea that it might fall apart in only 20 months.

[Tezcatlipoca]

I'd phone them up again, dr wadd.

Give them a nice long (& polite ) rant about the Sale of Goods Act, & how it is ridiculous that something made by such a large company should fail after less than two years.

The DVD drive problem was very common with the early XBoxes (crappy Thomson drives, rather than the newer Philips & Samsung drives), & is a problem that M$ know about & have acknowledged.

The drive on my 1st XBox failed after about 14 months, & M$ fixed it for me for free (new drive, plus new hard drive & new motherboard, & free shipping).

I know of people on other forums who's XBox DVD drives died when they were well out of warranty (as old as yours, if not more), & they still managed to get M$ to fix them for free.

Here are are couple of posts I've just found from March this year:

Originally Posted by himji at Britxbox.co.uk

Just ring them back and keep doing so until you speak to somebody that will repair it. SOme agents won't and some will, it's pot luck mate

Originally Posted by Geoggy at Britxbox.co.uk

don't waste your time phoning the unhelpful line.

send an email via the ms official site explaining the problem and how under the sales of goods act the console should last a "reasonable time" - threaten them with trading standards etc etc

i have just had my launch day xbox repaired for free by doing this - they replaced the DVD drive.

ringing the help line will get you nowhere fast.

Good luck.

EDIT:

Noteworthy also is the †˜sale and supply of goods to consumers regulations, 2002â₠¬Ã¢â€žÂ¢ which states the consumer has the right to †˜choose repair, replacement, partial or full refund, or compensation if a fault appears within 6 years (5 years in Scotland) and it is reasonable for goods to last that longâ₠¬Ã¢â€žÂ¢

I didn't notice that bit at first. Definitely worth bringing that up with them, I think.

Thanks for those comments, interesting to see that other people have managed to force Microsoft's hand by using similar arguments. I think I`ll give it a shot, if the results are interesting (and anyone is interested ) I`ll post the outcome here.

[Tezcatlipoca]

Go for it, dr wadd

I hope they listen to reason & fix it for you.

[Tricky]

Take a look for "Bodged" chip installs and find someone selling components of a failed xbox upgrade...

An update as promised.

After a bit of effort I finally got through to someone at Microsoft customer services who understood what customer service is about. Their reasoning, and further digging would indicate that they are right in this regard, is that strictly speaking the legislation is to do with the shop where the product was bought, but if I had no joy with the shop then they would be willing to fix it, free of charge. I suspect that the fact that I got a complete muppet on Saturday and a supervisor who refused to come to the phone helped.

With that in mind I contact the customer support line of the store from which it was bought. At first they attempted to give me the normal line about the warranty only being one year, so they had no obligation to replace it. Fortunately I already had several pages from the DTI website open on my desktop, so I was not able to just quote the relevant legislation to them, but also to point out that their FAQ specifically covers this sort of response from a shop and that their claims about not being responsible after a year were not actually legal. They did attempt to argue about how they interpreted the legislation, obviously I pointed out that I would consider information on the DTI site to be a fairly reliable source.

Anyway, after a bit of back and forth they have finally conceded to replace the XBox with a new one. They argued that they were doing it just to resolve the issue, but I suspect that is merely so they don`t have to explicitly admit they were right and risk setting a precedent. The bonus is that I`ll get the one that came with a fat controller replaced with one with an S-controller.

Needless to say, this has all taken a bit of an effort on my part, but it shows that if you persist you can exercise your legal rights. I'd also like to note that while the customer service representative of the shop did attempt to dismiss the issue at first, they were willing to listen to the issue when I did push my case and dealt with it appropriately, so at the end of the day I`m generally pleased with the service I got there. I would assume that they are trained to respond to queries of this nature with the stock responses, but the fact that they did bother to check up and deal with it is the fact that pleases me.

So, a quick trip in to town tomorrow and I`ll have a shiny new XBox

[Tezcatlipoca]

Good work, dr wadd. Your research & persistance have paid off

[zoombini]

An excellent result.

I wonder how many are off to bust their boxes now?