We were pretty miffed as it was a Bosch and only 8 years old. He said it's not unusual nowadays for white goods to fail when they're not very old. This was confirmed by a bit of Googling. I did write to Bosch just to express my disappointment in the quality of their fridge freezer, and they said "we take the utmost care in the design and manufacture of our electrical appliances. This leads us to believe that aspects other than the quality of the appliance and its components may have played a role. As we do not know how the appliance has been used, we cannot determine the exact cause." I wasn't expecting much, but it almost looks like they're saying we did something to break it. Needless to say we have not bought another Bosch.
Being rather desperate for a new one we thought we'd use a local company as the Google reviews say they are quick to deliver. We ended up ordering a Smeg (a normal one, not the retro style) as it was in stock and was the size etc that I wanted. They said they'd deliver the next evening around 5:30 to 6pm. I had given them a copy of a simple map to our house and they also asked me to send my location by Whatsapp (which always works .... normally). We had explained where we were and we thought all of this would be passed onto their driver. Of course, 6pm came and went, 7pm ..... "we are next for delivery". 7:30 pm .... driver is lost, we'll have to cancel and come tomorrow
. In the end I met the driver at a local petrol station and he said if he'd had the map and knew where to turn off he would have easily found our house. In fact he knew the area well as a relative has land here. By the time he left it was 8:30pm and we thought we'd reverse the direction of the doors as it opens the wrong way for our kitchen. It's a job we've always done in the past. The shop did say if we touched the doors then the guarantee was null and void, but we could see no mention of this in any of the paperwork for it and all the instructions and parts were included.As we start looking at what to do we find that a side panel has been put on badly and so was slightly out of line, so that the bolts for the hinge could not be fitted. So the doors remain on the 'wrong side'. When we contacted the shop they said they wouldn't do anything as we'd tried to change the doors. I sent a photo showing that the doors were not changed and so, 10 days later I am still awaiting a solution from the shop. I thought they would exchange it but are now saying that they will change the doors over but we have to pay 50€. They would have to drill holes for the bolts anyway, which doesnt seem a good idea. To my mind the build quality is not perfect so it should be exchanged. I am not holding my breath ..... it's been a long hot week and I've had enough now
I did email Smeg and they say if we swop over the doors then any componements in the doors will no longer be covered by the guarantee. This certainly is not clear and there is no warning on the instruction book to point this out before you start fiddling around with it. It has a control panel on the front so has electrics to it, unlike out previous machines.
As it's unlikely to last us to the end of our days, I cannot be bothered with it any more, and we just have to faff around with the fridge opening the wrong way (all the work surface is to the right of the fridge so I have to carry stuff around to put it in .... I like things to work efficiently in the kitchen and this annoys me
).So, sorry for the long post. White goods aren't cheap nowadays and the admission that your shouldn't expect anything to last 10 years or more is a bit depressing. My FiL's freezer was bought in 1969 and still going strong!
