I bought four San Remo toilet seats from B&Q’S Luton branch at the end of 2016. A year later they began to come loose – they are still operational but very noisy.
Slowly they started to come away from the hinges, so they would slam down and need tapping back in.
B&Q customer services advised me to speak to the store. The store then advised me to contact the manufacturer, which I did. It said that as it was an “obsolete item”, I had to go back to the store.
Eventually, someone advised me that, as they were more than two years old, I had no right to a replacement.
They are bottom-fixing, so they’re nearly impossible to tighten. A top-fixing replacement would cost £35. I came across your article on the same issueand wondered if you could help.Now the hinges have started to twist and it seems B&Q doesn’t care.
DP, Luton, Bedfordshire
This is from B&Q’s own brand, Cooke & Lewis, which has popped up here before regarding replacement parts. Wear and tear is one thing, but we would expect a toilet seat to last longer than two years – particularly if your house has four rather than one! It sounds as though they were not “fit for purpose”, so B&Q is, apparently, technically, in breach of the Consumer Rights Act (although this is arguably difficult to prove).
B&Q says that it “can confirm that we are in contact with the customer to reach a resolution”.
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