We had a Mitsubishi Heavy Industries split system air conditioner installed in October 2021, and it has recently had a major failure and is completely unusable. The installation company sent a tech and they diagnosed that the outdoor PCB (whatever that is!) has failed. I checked on the MHI website and they have a 5 year warranty (parts and labour), which we are 4 months inside of.
The air con company have sent us an invoice for the visit and also said we need to pursue warranty directly with MHI. Is this correct, or should I push for the installation company to sort the repair under warranty?
Businesses are responsible for resolving problems with products they sell to consumers.
Businesses must not tell consumers to go to the manufacturer for a remedy.
However, for some consumer guarantees, consumers can choose to seek a remedy from the manufacturer, rather than the business they bought the product from. If they do so, consumers will only be entitled to be compensated for the drop in value caused by the problem and, in some cases, other compensation. A manufacturer may offer to resolve the problem by providing a repair, refund or replacement, but consumers cannot demand this from the manufacturer.”
In other words, the installer is responsible for dealing with the manufacturer/wholesaler/distributor unless you choose to go to the manufacturer/wholesaler/distributor yourself.
Ask the installer nicely, show them the ACCC information, and if they insist they aren’t responsible, write them a formal letter of complaint. For help, see the ACCC page on writing a formal letter of complaint. That often works.
It depends. Did they also sell you the air-con or did they only do the install?
It is the seller and manufacturer who is responsible under the Australian Consumer Law (ACL), not an installer who didn’t sell it.
If the fault occurred as a result of the install, then the installer is potentially responsible.
As the manufacturer warranty has expired, you will need to pursue your consumer guarantees under the ACL.
Did they say why it failed?
This is important to exercise your consumer guarantees under the ACL. Printed Circuit Boards (PCBs) can fail for a number of reasons including poor manufacturing quality, power surges, moisture ingress, high operating temperatures, insect incursion etc etc. Some one could argue they are possibly the responsibility of the manufacturer, others potentially the installer and the rest neither. One needs to know how the fault occurred and then who may be responsible.
If the fault is because of a manufacturing fault or poor quality PCB, it may be possible to negotiate an outcome. For example, you pay for the part or labour, and the manufacturer/seller pays for the other.
Being 5+ years old, one would expect an air-con to last longer without fault:
However, since the air-con is around 1/3 to 1/2 of its expected service life, a manufacturer may be willing to negotiate an outcome such as that outlined above.
The company provided and installed the unit, and it is inside the warranty period of 5 years by 3 months. It was not the cheapest option, and we were obliging by waiting patiently for install, remediation of damage they did, and for the wifi dongle to be added. There was no evidence of damage from us, the tech said there was nothing we could have done to prevent the failure, but the company suggests a storm we had (while we were away on holiday) may have caused it. I see no evidence of any issues in photos inside the unit, and we have ensured drainage, filters, and heat exchanger have been maintained.
The other issue is that the company on their website no longer appears to be a preferred installer for MHI…
This is where you will face challenges. It appears there is a possibility that the PCB failed because of something not caused by the manufacturer, but, through a weather event etc. Such events sit outside a manufacturer’s warranty and consumer guarantees. The manufacturer isn’t responsible for such events.
That isn’t really relevant or one shouldn’t read anything into the change. The installer could have chosen to no longer sell and install Mitsubishi air-con (e.g. they get better deals from other manufacturers or had issues with Mitsubishi in the past) or Mitsubishi has decided to renew installer lists and decided not to include the installer in question (e.g. the installer didn’t submit a tender or Mitsubishi had performance issues with the installer).
No one will know, but, the change in status could be for benign reasons.
It appears you have contacted Mitsubishi as they responded with what they believe was the cause of the fault, a storm event (i.e. lightning power surge). It is possible this fault determination was done in consultation with the installer who replaced the PCB. This means they are unlikely to change their mind.
I possibly would approach Mitsubishi and say you believe the fault may not be certain, but, are willing to negotiate a resolution similar to what I outlined in my earlier post. Mitsubishi may decide to as a sign if goodwill, to assist in the payment of the PCB replacement. They might also chose not to if it was a storm event that caused the damage.
If it was a storm event and the cost of the repair was significant, it might be worth contacting your home insurer, if you are insured, to see if it is a claimable event under your home insurance.
It is worth noting many manufacturers will summarily blame ‘not themselves nor their product’ to absolve themselves of liability. A reasonable question is how they came to conclude it was storm damage. Was it inspected or just reported to them as having failed?
That isn’t the case. If it was, every manufacturer or seller would use this approach to decline claims under the manufacturer’s warranty or consumer guarantees, making in effect warranties/consumer guarantees worthless.
There are a small number posts on the community supporting my contention.
When a manufacturer assesses a failed product one should trust their report but (anecdotally as a case of one as example) the member indicated there was no inspection only their conclusion. In other cases they know about common problems caused by their customers and then summarily attribute every subsequent customer complaint to the same cause, regardless that it could be a problem with the product.
The good news is the ACL puts a customer in a position where they are able to, with sufficient research and evidence, challenge being knocked back summarily or otherwise.
There isn’t many manufacturers. There may be a limited number which there are claims within the community. The only one that comes to mind which is potentially more regular is Apple.
In my first post I outlined that PCBs are sensitive to power surges. Later it was revealed that a storm was determined as the cause of the fault/damage to the PCB. Even the response from the repairer seems to suggest nothing could have been done to prevent the failure…they didn’t say Mitsubishi has issues with their PCBs and regular failure arise. The response supports the determination of the manufacturer.
This seems a reasonable conclusion unless there was no storm when one was on holidays or there is evidence that there was an alternative reason for the OCB failure.
Whilst a storm isn’t the fault of the air-con owner, it also isn’t the fault of the manufacturer/seller. As it appears to be a storm, if
Revealed?
That there was a storm has not been disputed.
That there is a failed PCB in the AC outdoor unit has not been disputed.
That the storm caused the PCB to fail - possible, but not the only reason PCB’s fail.
Without an electronics lab assessment and some expert knowledge the nature of the failure on the PCB may be impossible to establish to an acceptable legal standard.
If the board has physical evidence of a major incident arising from a storm there should be no difficulty in the opinion being supported by photos and a technical explanation of what the photo is demonstrating.
To note a evidence of a component failure is in itself not absolute evidence of a storm event. Components on PCB’s fail for many reasons including quality variations which can also cause early life time failures. QC of electrical components used in the manufacture of PCB’s is statistically based. Hence there is always a probability of a component fault attributable to manufacture.
If there was a storm event which had sufficient impact on the household electrical supply to damage the AC - to ask if any other household electrical items have failed, and also of the potential to cause damage across all the neighbouring properties on the same line? One should also trust that if there were other instances of damage in the same household or neighbours the OP would be forthcoming in sharing that information.
Re the ACL - given the failure is repairable - is it by definition a minor and not a major failure?
The likely total cost around $1000 based on recent experience.
RE - Home and Contents insurance. Cover depends on the policy, and the agreed excess. From reading general insurance guides the industry sets a high bar for the standard of evidence/proof required. This includes evidence of the storm. lightning strikes in ones area and importantly evidence of disruptions and surges (monitored) on the local electricity network. In the absence of such evidence claims appear to be unlikely to be approved. Should the AC supplier or manufacturer’s Australian Brand be expected to meet a similar standard?
As an aside - we have 4 MHI branded 5+ year old split systems installed. We are on the end of a rural 3 phase line some 7km from the distribution substation. Storms and electrical disruptions are common. So far they have operated without fault.
The cost of adding surge protection to a household switchboard provides a high level of protection against storm or electricity supply authority protection/switching induced power events. The cost is relatively modest if one has a modern switchboard and is arranged concurrent with other electrical work around the home.
On the basis of how I perceive your advice it would be useless to ever challenge a warranty decision by any manufacturer.
Re this topic, if a PCB board fails during an electrical storm, and a visual inspection or diagnostics shows it had ‘fried’, it is reasonably established to have been the storm.
OTOH if a PCB may have failed during a storm, and the manufacturer simply replied it was the storm, I might not accept that because even though it might seem reasonable it was the storm, it also could have been coincidental and failed independently of the storm as well as another day and time before or after that storm while the OP was away.
Should questioning a decision one does not understand be pushed back? If the customer does not understand the ‘whats and whys’ an evidence based explanation would reasonably be in order if not an actual inspection.
Just to add, I edited my reply, sorry for bad synch…
After the supplier/installer sent their tech to diagnose the fault, the company said in an email (to quote) “Based on our findings, it looks like the Outdoor PCB has failed. Due to the timing this may be related to the large storms we had some weeks back but it also could be unrelated and just bad timing. “ According to the tech at the time of inspection and his photos there was no evidence of water ingress (the unit is under our eves and very unlikey to get any water near it in any case), and we have all the relevant RCD’s/surge protection systems installed and in good working order to deal with electrical surges. Additionally, the unit was not in use as we were away when the storms happened.
All other appliances in the house where working normally when we got home (including computers, and high end AV equipment). Our neighbours commented that they had not had any blackouts or power surges due to the storm event we missed.
My husband called MHI to ask about warranty, and they said we would need to get one of their techs to come and diagnose to initiate a warranty claim, a process which we have not as yet begun, so we are still at the stage of deciding whether or not to purse MHI or the supplier/installer. We have not had any repair done as yet, and wont, until the issue of who is responsible for warranty is resolved.
It’s useful to consider RCD’s are not intended/designed to provide protection against faults or surges on the electrical supply connection to a premise (home). Surge protection requires either additional equipment installed in the household meter/distribution board box or surge protection connected directly to the Aircon 230V power supply/circuit.
To also consider unless one has disconnected the AC at an isolation switch for the circuit there will be power connected to the external unit of the AC and from there to the internal unit of a split system. Otherwise the remote would be unable to turn the unit on. How the external unit main PCB power connection is managed (always on in standby likely?) - it’s not possible to say without the relevant technical details. It may or may not provide some protection. MHI should be able to clarify as should any authorised service agent/repairer.
A PCB subject to a power surge may or may not show visible damage.
I never said that was the case. There is sufficient evidence to support the conclusions of the repairer and manufacturer that the PCB was most likely damaged by storms which occurred in the days/weeks prior to the fault being observed. This could be coincidence, but it now appears that the tech repaired the air-con gave the storm diagnosis at the time of the repair. This means coincidence is less likely.
Thanks for this additional information. This then rules out faulty covers or enclosures which weren’t installed correctly etc.
While this can provide protection from voltage spikes running down the power supply, it doesn’t protect against induced currents from nearby lightning. When a strike is close, this can result in induced currents in anything which is metal. This website explains how it occurs:
This includes power supply wires, metal enclosures and even in PCB circuitry. While specifically designed power surge protectors can protect against power supply surges, it won’t provide protection against induced currents with the air-con unit or the air-con enclosure. As PCBs can be sensitive to relatively small power spikes, induced currents generated within the air-con after can cause damage to the board.
Do you know how much this will cost if it is confirmed it isn’t a warranty claim and do you how much the repair is?
This might provide you with guidance on whether it is worth risking taking this step hoping it reduces your repair costs.
If there wasn’t a mention of storm damage from storms immediately prior to the fault being detected, I would advise to push your rights under the ACL. However, storms change the ability to get a resolution significantly and unfortunately won’t assist you in getting the repair covered by the manufacturer.
I personally would be pursuing the insurance option, if this is a viable option for you.
ok thanks for that info. Thats about the level where I dont know enough about it, however, that is also why we contacted the supply/installing company as soon as we had a fault, as it was them and their electrician subby that did all the work and should know what was done. There is an isolation switch on the wall near the external unit (currently turned off by the tech), but we have never touched it.
It was wet and windy but my neighbour said there was little lightning, and that our street didnt lose power. I wonder if there is a way to check for historic aka 2 months ago lightning activity?
Two potential sources, BoM or the local electricity network operator. They might have records and might require payment to extract. I am unsure whether the resolution or accuracy will be sufficient though to try and prove there wasn’t any lightning nearby between when the air-con was last used and when the fault was identified.
Induction damage can be caused even though power wasn’t lost.
PCB damage from a power spike can occur reasonably easily. You possibly are aware of anti-static bands used when working PC components. These are worn as static electricity can damage PCB components if one isn’t grounded before touching internal parts of a PC. The same applies to any PCB, with differences being the tolerance level of individual components. Components which are more sensitive are more susceptible to damage.
