When you buy a new product, you should get some form of guarantee or warranty with it. If it breaks during the guarantee period, you will (generally) get it fixed for free by the company. You might have to pay some shipping costs, but the fix will be free. What happens normally is that the product works perfectly well for the duration of the guarantee period and then approximately 1 week later, it will break.

We bought new beds for Esther and Shira last April and the beds had a 1 year guarantee. As you can see, the guarantee for the beds ran out just a couple of weeks ago. I needed to lean on Esther’s bed to reach out of the window to bring the washing in. As I leaned, I heard a big crack. Oops. I quickly checked the bed and noticed that one of the slats (that holds the mattress up) had broken. Now, I realise that I’m quite a lot heavier than a 4 year old child, but I would have thought the bed would be strong enough to take my weight.

Ruth called the shop to find out what could be done. They said that we had two options: 1) bring the broken slat back to their factory and they would just give us a new one, 2) have an employee come out to our house and he’ll replace it for 20 pounds. Obviously we went with option 1. Ruth took the broken slat back to the factory and they gave her a new one.

We also have a problem with a portable DVD player that has barely worked since we bought it. We only just found the receipt and so we got in touch to find out what to do. They responded that we need to send it to them and they would fix it. Unfortunately, we think that the cost to send it to them and get it back again will probably not make it worthwhile. We’re going to see if we can get them to fix it locally! Here’s hoping.

Which reminds me, our car is now just out of the warranty period, perhaps it’s time to get a new one?

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