Curious how long you guys should expect these to work for.
$150 tablet
$150 headphones
$150 ext hard drive (2TB in 2013)
$150 office chair (home use)
$150 microwave
Typically warranties are 12 months.
Anyone had issues getting these replaced beyond 1year (under 2) under the ACL consumer warranty reasonable time clause?
^^^
This is the biggest problem with your statutory warranty - getting someone to actually comply with it.
Very few people are going to voluntarily take something back outside of its purchase warranty without being forced to and how many people will go to court to force them to unless the item is worth major $$$?
I don't see any reason why most of those items wouldn't last at least 2 or 3 years with reasonable use.
At least 5 years normal usage for all those listed items
At the end of the day, it really comes down to how well you treat your products.
If you're going to throw your tablet around, run your hard drive in a server environment and use the microwave 20 times a day, they're not going to last you anywhere near 5 years.
Australia has no consumer laws. The ACL is a piece of paper that has NO backup.
This is how it goes…
You have faulty product & contact the retailer. The retailer gives you the flick.
You lodge a complaint with your state govt consumer org, they approach the retailer and get the flick as they have ZERO enforcement powers.
You then PAY to take the matter to a consumer tribunal where the matter is heard on its merits. There is no guarantee that you will receive satisfactory solution to your faulty product claim.
There are no straight out consumer protection laws in Australia, there are guidelines, but they are rarely enforced.
The best protection is to buy from a retailer that stands behind their customers or a manufacturer that does the same. Most are pretty feeble but there are some good ones.
That's odd because the Fed parliament enacted new consumer LAWS in 2010 which came into effect 1/1/2011 and there's dedicated ACL website http://www.consumerlaw.gov.au/content/Content.aspx?doc=home.…. The gist of your comment is true though.
In the above case given the prices I'd say max 24 months on all the items bar the tablet with careful "average" use (say a few hours each day). The tablet would be less imo given it's likely heavier and more varied use. Fortunately I've never had to test the waters.
As XY says, if you buy good products from reputable manufacturers and retailers you'll probably have a better chance of things lasting and being sorted out if they don't.
Statutory Warranty is a bit of a sham. There are some success stories here and on Whirlpool, but the issue is that nobody takes responsibility, neither the store nor the manufacturer and when you complain about it, it's very unlikely that anything would be done.
It's also a subjective thing to prove that your item should have lasted for X amount of time, which goes back around to saying that statutory warranty is something people around here love to throw around, but I doubt many, if any at all, have ever managed to make a successful claim.