Guarantees

You might think that I'm going to harp on about the problems people have with claiming on them, and that they're not worth the paper they're written on. Well no. In fact, I think they're worth quite a lot.

Guarantees are a clear, un-fakable expression of how much trust manufacturers place in their own workmanship. So the length of a guarantee is a good indicator of the quality of the product.

Then something odd comes to light: How short guarantees are. I've rarely seen a guarantee for a major, pricey product that spans more than five years. So that means most products are only expected to remain intact for a short period of time. Why aren't people extremely angry at this, and why are they not boycotting products? If I buy a vacuum cleaner, or a TV, or a washing machine, I would expect it to last for at least ten years. "Will probably last beyond the guarantee" isn't good enough.

If a long-term product that costs a lot of money is guaranteed to last for fewer than ten years, then I don't consider it a purchase: I consider it a rental.

A purchase is something that should be considered final. Nothing lasts forever, of course, I recognise that. The thing is, the focus should be on the product being built in a decent way, built to last. Less time wasted by things going wrong and less stuff going into landfill. If a product that you'd expect to be qualitative comes with a five-year guarantee, then that's definitely not built to last. It's the manufacturer's way of saying, "we can only risk giving you the assurance that the product will work for five years. After that, god knows. The chances of you possibly needing to buy a new one after five years are so great that we can't afford to cover you beyond that." Quite incredible.

To pick on a random, expensive, common household appliance, let's look at a washing machine. At the time of writing, this one from Hoover is the cheapest one in their range available at Argos. It's just under £270, and it comes with a five-year guarantee for parts (only one year for labour!) This effectively means that you're renting it. It works out at £54 per year. Yes, your washing machine alone is expected to cost £54 per year, for life. Imagine how many other espensive appliances you have, with even more restrictive guarantees (if any) than that.

We need the Minimum Quality of Goods Act, in which specific minimum guarantees must be offered for specific products. That way, companies will be forced to manufacture goods to a better quality so that they don't get stung by masses of claims. As a benchmark, 10 years is a good minimum figure: Even then, your washing machine is costing £27 per year (plus labour costs, if it breaks down). Any less than 10 years should be considered rental by law, and the companies should be forced to advertise the products clearly as "for rental" rather than "for sale."

There is, of course, the old argument that the lower classes go for cheaper products that they can more likely afford. However, if you define "cheaper" in terms of the cost per year (i.e. the total cost of the product divided by number of years guaranteed), "cheaper" products become pretty damned expensive. If they have any guarantee at all, they're likely to be very short and very limited, and the products are much more likely to break down (a probability that would bias the rental cost even more).

Who specifically goes out wanting a washing-machine that will only last for five years? The only people I can think of are dodgy landlords who want to blame the occupants when something breaks down, rather than bear the cost themselves, and I don't really think they have a particularly good case.


So next time you go into Dixons, and a poster proudly states, "Guaranteed for 5 Years!", kindly flag down an attendant and make a statement of your own.
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[Edit: 18.12.11] By astonishing coincidence, I just watched one of David Mitchell's very good rants about precisely the same subject. (WARNING: There'll probably be an advert inflicted on you at the start.) He takes a different slant on the idea, to my relief (as he got there first).