amp meter wanted

[AstonHill]

For a charger to do that, it can't detect if the terminals have been connected the correct way around. I know the old dynamo would work without a battery, and some special alternators like those used on Cat tractors, but most alternators will not charger with out a battery being connected to give excitation through the warning lamp. I have actually travelled around 150 miles round trip to renew the warning lamp bulb on a compressor as it would not charge. It was my first helicopter trip, so not likely to forget it.

Moving forward from my above deleted post
As I have been told that there is a charge switch circuit system simular to what you have stated on a car altenators that wiring up to a lamp/ bulb would do the trick a to bypass it (so I was told)

 

[AstonHill]

Pardon our interruption...

www.ebay.co.uk

But that is on ebay! and while it is sold as a UK delivery point sale seller; the seller (once agian hellow) is based in China!
Meaning that the order is taken from seller in China: the order is sent though to a warehoues in UK; then despatched.; then buyer gets there item

Then if afer 90 days of say ebay so called cooling off period or what ever has passed and the item then fails; then what do you do? I mean what do you do next?

 

[ebee]

Well under UK Law if you buy from a UK seller you have certain rights for a normal sale (meaning not an auction and possibly a few other things too) , so sale of goods, being fit for purpose, as described etc etc still apply and your rights to refunds etc etc for up to 6 years would still apply.
Enforcing those rights, whether you bought online or on the main street, however might not be as straightforward as it should be, even with a high brand name.

Two instances spring to mind in the last 20 years or so.
1/ A well known seller (example Dixons/Currys etc) sold a couple an appliance (possibly a washing machine) and it broke down after 18 months. They approached the seller for a free repair under warranty. The seller informed them, sorry no there is a 12 months guarantee with an optional 5 year warranty you could have bought at the time but decided not to. The customer was a member of "Which" and their membership included a small amount of legal services. Which drafted a letter for the customer to send to the seller quoting UK Law White Goods 6 years warranty. The seller refused so the customer took them to court. Judge said , UK Law White Goods 6 years and ordered them to repair or refund free of charge. I have little doubt that the next customer to follow this route would face a similar reluctance unless they enforced their rights.
2/ Something similar, I was asked to attend an elderly couple, their cooker grill was not working, I thought element gone, it was a little over the "warranty" period , perhaps similar to the above scenario. I informed them that probably the element had failed and advised them that if I attended and repaired it then I would of course charge them and in my opinion it should not have failed so soon. They rang me to say the manufacturer had offered a free element and they would have to get their own electrician (me) to fit it. I advised them to run this thru Trading Standards, the trading standards contacted the manufacturer on their behalf and very rapidly the manufacturer sorted out the whole repair and replacement free of charge.
Despite laws and the perceived good name of major suppliers and manufacturers you still quite often find you need to enforce your rights, small claims court is pretty easy, I`ve used it a few times (and threatened to a few more) and out of approx 20 times I have never lost.

Note - I said I have never lost, but I only won 19 times, the other one was a draw. In court the judge could not find a compelling argument either way so awarded on a 50/50 basis. Thing is, it didn`t help that I was drawn up in a feud between two parties and the other party in my case assumed I was on the opposing side of the argument against him even though I assured him that I had at least some sympathy for his point of view. Tragically the person I got the 50/50 judgement against blew himself up under mysterious circumstances, I always wondered if perhaps he had been careless mixing "strange chemicals" which perhaps were intended to blow up the property of the other party he`d assumed I sided with. I was right old long running vendetta and my personal opinion was that both of those parties had probably wronged against each other and probably each had wronged the other one too.

 

[AstonHill]

Well under UK Law if you buy from a UK seller you have certain rights for a normal sale (meaning not an auction and possibly a few other things too) , so sale of goods, being fit for purpose, as described etc etc still apply and your rights to refunds etc etc for up to 6 years would still apply.

I'm not sure if it means it must last for 6 years though

 

[AstonHill]

Two instances spring to mind in the last 20 years or so.
1/ A well known seller (example Dixons/Currys etc) sold a couple an appliance (possibly a washing machine) and it broke down after 18 months. They approached the seller for a free repair under warranty. The seller informed them, sorry no there is a 12 months guarantee with an optional 5 year warranty you could have bought at the time but decided not to. The customer was a member of "Which" and their membership included a small amount of legal services. Which drafted a letter for the customer to send to the seller quoting UK Law White Goods 6 years warranty. The seller refused so the customer took them to court. Judge said , UK Law White Goods 6 years and ordered them to repair or refund free of charge. I have little doubt that the next customer to follow this route would face a similar reluctance unless they enforced their rights.

Do you know where I can find this please?
Reason is I bough a Makita angle grinder from screwfix that packed up 18 months after purchase. Screwfix are now saying they only offer a 1 year warrenty with them selfs and say that as you failed to register it with Makita you are not covered with there 3 year warrenty

 

[JohnW2]

... Reason is I bough a Makita angle grinder from screwfix that packed up 18 months after purchase. Screwfix are now saying they only offer a 1 year warrenty with them selfs and say that as you failed to register it with Makita you are not covered with there 3 year warrenty

Have you read the bit which exists in most warranties which says something along the lines of "This does not affect your Statutory Rights" (those Rights being the ones to which ebee has referred)?

Kind Regards, John

 

[ebee]

No it does not mean that everything must last 6 years.
White goods has always been 6 years (well for ages though).
Since that case I mentioned, another law was brought in that things must last an acceptable time too.
Each category might be different though.
As an example for instance lets say that it is pretty universally accepted that the life expectancy of a TV is 3 years then yes it should last 3 years, any less and in effect you have an auto guarantee of that. Trouble is that without many precedence's in court then in reality you might need to press hard or even go to the small claims court as things regarding life expectancy of categories are not very well defined.

As a contractor I`ve always given my own guarantee to my customers, on house rewires 10 years labour and materials, intruder alarms etc 5 years, small things varies. If I supply proper materials and install them properly my guarantee's cost me nothing because things do not usually fail anyway unless due to external influences such as abuse or accidental damage.
A manufacturers guarantee/warranty does not limit peoples right to having a decent product with a decent life expectancy.

One well known advert I see is something like "Our tradesmen are so good that they give a one years guarantee!" mentally I substitute so good for so bad, I think that is absolutely terrible and might induce peoples opinion of life expectancy limits of goods supplied.

As an anecdote I really need to take to task one of my suppliers, a few years back my kitchen fluoro went kaput so I changed it to an LED light with emergency light add on unit. The supplier had a choice of two readily available, two different prices . He advised me the cheapest one had a 12 month guarantee and likely would last that period and probably not much over whereas the other one was better made and should last a lot longer. I bought the cheaper one. It`s been used very frequently and suffered the abuse of many very short duration switch on/off as well as many long duration activations too. I am thinking of giving him a rolloking because it`s still working perfectly more than 6 years later. Him and his twelve months guarantee!

 

[AstonHill]

Have you read the bit which exists in most warranties which says something along the lines of "This does not affect your Statutory Rights" (those Rights being the ones to which ebee has referred)?

Kind Regards, John

No, because i never agreed to the warranty in the first place; so no contract there!

So what are my "Statutory Rights" in this case?

 

[AstonHill]

No it does not mean that everything must last 6 years.
White goods has always been 6 years (well for ages though).
Since that case I mentioned, another law was brought in that things must last an acceptable time too.
Each category might be different though.
As an example for instance lets say that it is pretty universally accepted that the life expectancy of a TV is 3 years then yes it should last 3 years, any less and in effect you have an auto guarantee of that. Trouble is that without many precedence's in court then in reality you might need to press hard or even go to the small claims court as things regarding life expectancy of categories are not very well defined.

But what bases do you have to make this presumption?
I mean say in a county court, I present my case to "judge". well its just a presumption based upon some kind of natural law with no meet or bone

 

[robinbanks]

Him and his twelve months guarantee!

"Mean time before failure" doesn't preclude the possibility that there are units that will last inceedibly long times.

Yours is lasting well; somewhere out there is a unit that blew up after 5 minutes. Your supplier might have been quoting the average that works out to these things dying after 12 months

The only good judge of that would be how many of each the suppliers sells and sees returned failed

 

[robinbanks]

you failed to register it with Makita you are not covered with there 3 year warrenty

Seems reasonable; buy another identical model and give it 9 months, then return the broken one to Scrwfix using the receipt from the one 9 months ago. No one's done out by this; Scrwfix will merely ship it to makita, who will receive a model less than 3 years old that they would have covered anyway. As the cost of repair is likely prohibitive to operating profitably, they'll merely recycle it

 

[ebee]

"Mean time before failure" doesn't preclude the possibility that there are units that will last inceedibly long times.

Yours is lasting well; somewhere out there is a unit that blew up after 5 minutes. Your supplier might have been quoting the average that works out to these things dying after 12 months

The only good judge of that would be how many of each the suppliers sells and sees returned failed

It was my sense of humour suggesting it lasted a lot longer than he said, turning usual phrases sort of upside down. He was giving an honest opinion that in his view that I could expect it to last 12 months but maybe not so much longer. The wholesaler was being as honest as he could be in his opinion.

I would not expect the "Average" (Dangerous word) to be at play here but more like assuming that, in essence, they could be generally expected to last the guarantee then sometimes/often not much more than that. Depending upon which method(s) of determining an average you care to use

 

[ebee]

But what bases do you have to make this presumption?
I mean say in a county court, I present my case to "judge". well its just a presumption based upon some kind of natural law with no meet or bone

I would suggest looking up info on tinternet would be a good start followed by asking Trading Standards

 

[ebee]

But what bases do you have to make this presumption?
I mean say in a county court, I present my case to "judge". well its just a presumption based upon some kind of natural law with no meet or bone

Yes it is awkward that no list was made at the time of gen life expectancy of common things but rather you`d need to ask a judge to make a decision, that might well or might not make a precedent or at least an authorative guidance

 

[ebee]

Seems reasonable; buy another identical model and give it 9 months, then return the broken one to Scrwfix using the receipt from the one 9 months ago. No one's done out by this; Scrwfix will merely ship it to makita, who will receive a model less than 3 years old that they would have covered anyway. As the cost of repair is likely prohibitive to operating profitably, they'll merely recycle it

That is dishonest and possibly traceable via serial number anyway. You ask them, they refuse then you ask again at head office a little more forcefully whilst generally reminding them in a very gentle way that you could give them a little bad publicity about the way you genuinely feel they have treated you unfairly in this instance, quite often this approach does work voluntarily whereas going in all guns blazing has less chance initially until you go to the hassle of taking it to court/arbitration