How long should it take to repair a faulty laptop under warranty?

I bought a refurbished Advent laptop from PC World last year. In February this year it started to develop a fault with the left mouse button on the trackpad, so I took it back.

PC World confirmed the fault, which I was told would be repaired under the warranty. But although it says a repair will be made in a reasonable time, it has now had the laptop for over four weeks.
John de Bolla

We need to examine two issues here; relying on a warranty or using statutory law to get redress.

Mr de Bolla has returned the laptop for repair and is using PC World’s warranty cover. He said the store had held onto the PC for 11 days and when he queried the store, he was told its 28-day repair period only starts when the goods are sent for repair.

He was not happy about this but with a warranty, the retailer can set its own terms and conditions; only the Office of Fair Trading could rule on whether the terms are unfair. So while it may not seem good practice to hold onto goods for so long, there may be logistical reasons PC World does this that the OFT would think were reasonable.

The Sale and Supply of Goods to Consumers regulations, on the other hand, say that a repair must be carried out within a “reasonable time” and not seriously inconvenience the customer. The problem with this law is that defining exactly what is considered to be a “reasonable” time is difficult.

From lawyers we have spoken to, in most cases unless the repair is highly complex, or parts are difficult to come by, a reasonable time would be no more than a month – and in some cases no longer than two weeks.

If Mr de Bolla had decided to use this law to get a repair, he would have had to prove that the fault was inherent and not fair wear and tear or accidental damage.

He may have had to pay to pay for an engineer’s report to prove this. If successful, then PC World’s warranty cannot override statutory law. But since the PC is refurbished, Mr de Bolla may have had a harder time proving this, and certain limitations, such as how long individual components could be expected to last, would have to be taken into account.

We have asked PC World to comment on this case and we will try and find out when Mr de Bolla can expect to pick up his repaired laptop.