Repaircare are a National appliance repair company offering fixed price repairs. This review was written only several months after they began trading. Things may, or may not, be different now.
Their fixed price appliance repairs include call out, parts, labour and VAT. Repaircare are part of Connect Distribution who are the UK’s largest distributor of appliance spares and accessories.
They supply much of the independent repair trade. Their website is easy to use and features 3 simple steps to get a quote. It’s incredibly simple and well designed.
How do they do fixed repairs? What’s the Catch?
I’m naturally pretty sceptical and not easily impressed – always looking out for a catch. It shouldn’t be possible for Repaircare to be able to include the spare parts in their repair charges but they are the UK’s largest spare parts distributor so they have access to much cheaper parts than most and they obviously think they can.
Repaircare advertised fixed price repairs, but unfortunately the truth is they did not fix every appliance for the price initially quoted. They covered themselves against the more expensive repairs with a clause in their terms and conditions allowing them to charge extra.
They did claim that most repairs should be covered by the amount advertised, but after a few months (of complaints) they were forced to change their terms and conditions to remove their right to charge extra for certain parts. Offering fixed price repairs is a big ask.
But Repaircare should have access to very cheap spare parts because of their massive buying power as part of the UK’s largest spares distributor 4Ourhouse. However, they don’t employ their own engineers.
They instead use a network of independent engineers, which appears to cause some problems at times where people have complained of poor customer service.
Complaints
Repaircare have been accused of washing their hands of some complaints when (presumably) a customer and the independent engineer have been telling them different things.
However, I don’t believe they can do this because a customer’s contract is with Repaircare, and not the engineer that Repaircare subcontracted to do the repair.
It sounds like Repaircare have been frustrated by different accounts from the engineer and customer and want them to sort it out between themselves. But if a customer can’t, then Repaircare must.
Forbes rent appliances and specialise in renting Bosch appliances so they know them inside out. They also rent other brands and many other products – more details at Forbes
Margins must be small and this operation probably relies on economies of scale. As it is covering all of the UK they may be able to achieve the quantities of repairs necessary to be viable. However, they need most repairs to be relatively minor to balance out the expensive repairs.
If only people suspecting they have a serious fault use them, the system just won’t work. There have been a lot of complaints in the comments of this article (and elsewhere), which is disappointing.
They may have been struggling to cope with the work load at the early stages as they had promoted themselves very heavily. It’s also fair to say that appliance repairs tend to attract a lot of dissatisfied customers due to the length of time it can sometimes take to get them repaired.
Repaircare did eventually respond pro-actively to public complaints and put in place a system to allow people to complain directly to a manager. People with complaints previously felt they had no option but to complain on the Internet because they couldn’t get past the call centre staff to complain to a manager.
If you are the type of person who takes comfort in prices being fixed and inclusive, then fixed price repairs may be attractive for you. Sadly it’s become the main way large repair companies operate now.
You can end up paying a lot more than necessary if your appliance turns out not to need any parts, or only needs inexpensive parts, (most repairs).
You can save money if it needs an expensive part but if it’s quite expensive most repair companies just tell you it’s beyond economical repair. This can make it difficult to get a “win” on these schemes.
Make sure you read and understand the terms & conditions. It will probably state that if parts are “too” expensive they can say the appliance is not worth repairing, which may still cost you a fair amount of money.
Make sure you understand how much it will cost you in that scenario.
Alternatives?
Some manufacturers also offer fixed price repairs now at rates competing with Repaircare. For example Hoover / Candy, Ariston, Indesit, Hotpoint, Creda and even the obsolete Dyson washing machine have fixed price repairs. Also, AEG, Electrolux and Zanussi have relatively low and reasonable labour charges.
Only 3 months guarantee
A mere 3 months guarantee on repairs is very poor indeed. Under the Consumer Rights Act 2015 (previously the Sale of Goods Act), any repair should last a reasonable time, as should any new parts fitted. 3 months (90 days) is nowhere near a reasonable time for almost any repair, especially if new parts are fitted. However, that’s all you get.
So you would have to pursue your claim in the small claims court or through a consumer help body if a repair by a company offering only 3 months guarantee failed after an unreasonable time outside 3 months.
I have to be honest and say that I personally would never use any repair company that only gave a 90 day guarantee, which I consider pretty disgraceful, and a very poor show of confidence in their own work – Is a 3 month guarantee on repairs reasonable?)
More appliance repairers
There are some appliance repair companies listed on site Book washing machine (or other appliance) repair page including companies offering a much more desirable 12 month guarantee on repairs.
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I have had a dreadful experience with repaircare customer service and their local engineer (north west london). Initially I booked a callout online to fix my Bosch dryer. The appointment was for 2 days after I made the online booking, and I took this day off work. That day I had a call from the engineer to say the first appointment he had was a week later, that repaircare couldn’t make commitments on his behalf! I had no choice but to accept. On that day, the engineer did come and although he couldn’t access the back of the dryer, said via deduction that it was a fault with the motor, he would order the part, it would take up to 7 days to arrive, then he would call me so I could arrange for access to the dryer to install the part. Two weeks after this appointment, having heard nothing in the interim, I receive a message from repaircare saying the dryer needs to be moved so the engineer can have access.
I assume this is to install the new motor. I call the engineer’s number for 4 days straight and leave messages – no response. I call repaircare and get told the machine can’t be fixed (?!) and I will receive a refund, less £40 callout fee. They cannot tell me why the dryer can’t be fixed. Infuriated I asked to speak to a supervisor, who says he will leave a message with the engineer to call me back. Two more days, no response despite continued calls to the engineer, I call repaircare again. They finally tell me no part has been ordered as the engineer couldn’t diagnose the fault – he needs access to the machine to diagnose. At this stage it has been over 3 weeks since I first requested a callout. I ask why it has taken 3 weeks for them to tell me they need access when on the day of the appointment the engineer said he didn’t need access to diagnose the fault – so basically lied to me – and on subsequent calls to repaircare no-one told me about the diagnosis issue.
They refused to give me a full refund, holding back the £40 callout fee – so I am currently stuck continuing with them despite having lost all faith in this particular engineer, and with their system, and having to take yet another day off next week for the engineer to finally come and supposedly diagnose the fault. I personally suspect that as this is an ‘expensive’ repair, they are trying to wriggle out of fixing it. I have no guarantee now that even if the engineer comes back, he will even fix it. The whole process has been exhausting and time consuming and I cannot recommend this service at all. I wish I had gone with an authorised Bosch repairer in the area (I have used them for other appliances such as the dishwasher and they were excellent)
Louise. If an engineer misdiagnoses the fault I don’t think you should have to pay anything, not even the call out.
Regarding the cancellation of your initial appointment. Repaircare’s Terms & Conditions say that –
This implies they sometimes have to cancel appointments as all repair companies do at times (eg. sometimes if an engineer calls in sick there’s no alternative but to cancel all his appointments). You could have received a refund under these conditions had you decided to try elsewhere. However, most people clearly are pretty desperate to have their appliance repaired so it’s hardly surprising you accepted another appointment. But even so, if you had booked a day off work and they cancelled on the day of the visit giving you no time to cancel your day off then I would say you should be entitled to compensation or at the very least a refund of the call out charge.
What’s good for the goose…
As with all such companies the terms & conditions say that if their engineer arrives and you are not in they will charge you the call out charge. This is fair as they shouldn’t have to suffer financial loss because you couldn’t make the appointment – even if you had a good reason. So why should things not work in reverse if a company fails to make its appointment – even if they have a good reason? When you booked the appointment you entered into a binding contract but the contract is not just one way. I wrote a brief article on my consumer advice section here, If I take time off work and their engineer doesn’t turn up can I claim compensation?
You may need to take advice from the consumer people ( I want to claim compensation from the repair company or the washing machine seller )
When you say the engineer said, “that Repaircare couldn’t make commitments on his behalf” I find that strange as if he is signed up to them as an agent then presumably they very much can, and need to make appointments on his behalf. No company can operate if contractual appointments made to their customers aren’t honoured or even accepted by their agents.
I don’t follow why he couldn’t access the back of the dryer. If he couldn’t access it then under Repaircare’s T&C’s they have the right to terminate the call and charge the call out as they can’t fix something they can’t access easily
If he guessed the part required and got it wrong you shouldn’t have to pay anything in my opinion. But if he literally couldn’t get access for some reason they have the right to abort the call and charge the call out.
I can’t fault Repaircare, they were brilliant! The bearings on my 7 year old Hotpoint washing machine started making an awful grumbling and grinding noise. I figured the bearings had gone and booked a repair with Repaircare. I suspected they might deem it economically unviable to repair but was willing to part with £40 for the callout since I would have had to pay at least that for a local engineer to come and diagnose anyway.
I was able to book a slot on the day I wanted and an engineer duly arrived and diagnosed the bearings as shot to pieces. He said he thought it likely they would not sanction a repair since he was recommending a complete replacement of the whole drum assembly. I did query this and ask why the bearings couldn’t just be replaced and he explained it was easier and less labour to do this rather than take it all apart and remove the bearings to possibly find the housing was damaged and new bearings couldn’t be fitted for that or another reason. A new drum would then be needed so he was just bypassing the potential trouble and labour of stripping it all down in the first place. I felt this was a reasonable decision and comment and he left saying he would contact me once he had a decision from Repaircare.
Off I went onto the web looking at expensive Miele’s and resigned myself to getting a new machine.
I was delighted when the engineer rang a few days later saying the repair was authorised! He came the next day and replaced the whole drum assembly and heater as promised and I effectively now have a new washing machine! All for just £104. I think that is damned good value for what I got and have no complaints at all.
I think it is worth noting that your experience with Repaircare may well be dependent on who they sub contract out to come and do the diagnosis and repair. My engineer was excellent and very thorough.
I wouldn’t recommend Repaircare to my worst enemy.
My Washer dryer broke down early July – I found the Repaircare site as it’s high up on google searches and it seemed a good deal. Appointment was booked and a local independent repair man was sent.
He spent about 5 minutes and said he needed to order parts.
3 weeks later and many calls to repaircare and also visits to the local repair shop and he came out the fit the parts (quite expensive – main pcb). Well he changed this and a few other small parts and the problem was still there. He said he had done as much as he could but would have to ask an expert (I thought that was what I was promised on the website)
Well another 2 weeks and many more calls and guess what – the same man appeared to refit the same parts ( the first words he said as he entered the kitchen was “this isn’t going to work but they’ve told me to try again”. Well it didn’t work.
Many more calls to repaircare and despite repeatedly asking for someone with more competence to be sent out this was refused. All I have been offered is a refund minus the £40 call out fee – this I have refused as why should I pay for a call out when the person coming out is not competent to do the job?
I have since called out another engineer – part of the electrolux network and he plugged in his computer and diagnosed the fault immediately and had the machine running within 20 minutes – he had to replace all the same parts as the repaircare man as he had blown them and one more part costing less than £20.
Overall the call centre staff only seem to want to give you a partial refund and don’t seem interested in helping you solve the problem.
STEER CLEAR of REPAIRCARE.
Thanks for your positive feedback Gavman. Unfortunately comments about any repair company will inevitably attract far more negative comments than positive because in the repairs game there’s always a minority of jobs that suffer cockups, and jobs that just go badly from the start. Satisfied customers rarely take the trouble to shout about it so it’s nice to see someone making the effort to balance things a little.
While not wanting to undermine any complaints, and some people do appear to have received poor service, it isn’t fair to assume that isolated experiences mean a company is no good and should be avoided at all costs. I’d appreciate it if people tried to describe their experiences without resorting to claiming the entire company are cowboys.
If you have a problem with an engineer it doesn’t mean all engineers operating for Repaircare are the same – that is an unreasonable assumption. Having said that, Repaircare are more accountable for the standard of their call centre and customer services section and how they deal with things when they do go wrong.
If things happened as you described Carlo I would also be expecting a full refund if they misdiagnosed or simply didn’t cure the fault and you’ve had to get it fixed elsewhere but I don’t feel it’s fair to assume and advise that all their engineers are no good because of your experience of one.
Booked a service call and was charged at the same time, but after taking a day off, the engineer failed to arrive. I have received an apology but no offer of any compensation for wasting a day of my annual leave to sit at home and wait for someone who failed to turn up.
Hello Disgruntled: As discussed in a previous comment I have written an opinion on this topic here – If I take time off work and their engineer doesn’t turn up can I claim compensation?
This issue can affect customers of any repair company as engineers often encounter problems that can make it impossible for an engineer to make an appointment. I myself had to ring customers and apologise saying I wouldn’t be able to make an appointment many times during my many years as an engineer. It was rare of course, but something that did happen every so often.
Reasons range from getting stuck in seriously heavy traffic and becoming very behind schedule, getting stuck on one or more jobs which take considerably longer than normal causing me to run seriously behind, to employers (when I did the odd stint working for other companies) booking way too many jobs in over way too big an area making it impossible to finish unless I was prepared to work until 10 at night, and to having minor accidents and having to cancel all my calls as a result of slicing my finger on a dishwasher etc. Large organisations can have problems if an engineer is off sick or if he fails to turn up for work already booked in due to sickness.
Clearly it’s extremely annoying and inconvenient if an engineer doesn’t turn up. At the very least they should ring and apologise asap. Most people will accept the apology and explanation in my experience but if they have lost a day off work they should be entitled to compensation if that’s what they want to pursue although it’s something you are likely to have to fight for, maybe even as far as the small claims court.
Can’t believe that you are recommending these people.
Received a visit early sept to fix the ice compartment on my Maytag American FF (4 years old) Engineer fiddled with back of fridge + eventually decided it needed new hose. 3 weeks later appeared at my door with wrongly supplied ‘washing machine’ hose. Said that he would be back with correct hose and parts (that he had broken) in due course. Had to turn water supply off to fridge as his tinkering now means that applliance now leaks.
So Maytag in worse state than when started. Apparently if this ‘engineer’ cannot fix appliance they will charge me £40 because it is deemed uneconomical to repair.
This clearly is not the case. It appears that the engineer is simply not qualified to repair this type/brand of appliance. I am expected to pay for his incompetence and mistakes.
Hello Helen: My review was looking at the service they offer and giving background information about the company, which was written at the same time the service was launched. In the last sentence of my review I say, “The article is independent in that I’m not so much personally recommending the service as merely pointing out its existence and what they offer.”
There were some complaints early on about people being charged extra for parts if they were over a certain limit, which contradicted the “fixed price” repairs advertised, but they decided to stop doing that some weeks in, so it shouldn’t be an issue any more.
There have been several complaints that I agreed seem justified and raised with the company myself. There have also been complaints that in all fairness, and without wishing to belittle, are typical complaints where things have just gone wrong, which I guarantee are typical to virtually all repairers. That’s not to say they aren’t genuine complaints but they need putting into perspective and are not necessarily proof that the whole company is useless.
As Repaircare carry out many thousands of repairs each week using a network of 500 independent repairers it’s inevitable there will be some that don’t go according to plan or even very badly so we need to try and work out the ones that are particular to Repaircare before branding them with words like “do not use this company” or “this company is a scam”.
This is where I have a concern for fairness and why I try to put a balanced point of view in replies. This can be mistaken for defending Repaircare, but anyone reading my comments properly should see a roughly equal balance of trying to put things into perspective and agreeing with many complaints.
The only thing I can say is that people experiencing genuine cock ups with individual engineers are not being fair if they say that it’s evidence the entire network of repairers are the same. There are 500 engineers and it’s unfair to say they are all incompetent on the personal experience of one or even several. I honestly believe I am a good engineer myself, but over my 30 years experience I cocked things up from time to time. I sometimes pulled a washer out a bit too fast and damaged flooring or broke hoses that were too short and I hadn’t noticed. I’ve ordered wrong parts at (rare) times too and so on and so on. Who hasn’t cocked up at work?
In my opinion, what differentiates between a good company and a bad one is not that things go wrong, because that’s a given, but how they are dealt with when they do. Unfortunately it seems many of these incidents have been compounded by customers having incidents drag on for several weeks, not being contacted quickly enough and some mistakes regarding parts and whether they are available or not. This is how they should be judged, not on incidents where a wrong part was ordered, or something got accidentally broken, or an engineer couldn’t make an appointment etc.
In Helen’s case the facts reported are vague, but if a part was broken by an engineer it’s clearly his responsibility to sort it out without charge. I think the person saying if they can’t fix it you will still be charged the £40 was possibly just repeating the company policy and not taking into account the circumstances. Please keep us informed.
WasherHelp,
I think you are being way too generous with RepairCare.
They displayed very poor communication:
(1) depending on engineers to contact the customer when my contract is with RepairCare, so it should be upto RepairCare to inform me when the engineer has given up the job, and that a new engineer will be taking it over,
(2) also communicate with the new engineer that he is taking over the job!! (which RepairCare failed to do, much to the annoyance of the new engineer) [See my problem with RepairCare: BrokenCloud #19. August 11th, 2009, at 3:45 PM.]
Also, on their website they made inaccurate logs of visits to me which did not take place!! Who is writing these logs?
This shows RepairCare have a big problem with communications with customers and engineers. They do not have established procedures to follow, eg always phoning to update customer of status, always phoning the engineer of the previous history of a job, do not use acronyms with a customer, especially on voicemail, eg BER (beyond enconomic repair) [See my problem with RepairCare: BrokenCloud comment number 19]
I have never received such a poor service from any service engineer in my Life!!