Phone Repair Woes - consumer advice needed

laurentian

Just consulting the power of Bike Radar in the hope someone can give me some "consumer advice".

I had a cracked iPhone Screen (5s).

Whilst visiting daughter at University in Brighton (300 mile round trip for me), decided to get screen repaired at a shop in the town. £70, 3 month warranty.

Screen repaired fine but ever since the bluetooth on my phone has not connected to my car (it was doing this without problem almost immediately before having the screen repaired).

Called the shop when back at home to explain the problem and they told me they could do nothing unless I took the phone back to them. As luck would have it, last Friday I was very close to Brighton on business so took the phone in. On my return, they assured me all was OK as the phone was playing music via bluetooth connection in the shop.

I managed to persuade the guy in the shop to come to the car with me to try the connection. It still did not work. We then successfully connected his phone via bluetooth proving the car was not at fault.

They now tell me there is nothing they can or will do about it. I guess the best thing I can hope for is to take to an Apple outlet and hope that the repair shop foot any bill??

Anyone have any idea on the right way to go about this?

Cheers

Anonymous

Presume if you are within the 3 months then the Brighton shop should foot the bill but I imagine Apple will take a dim view that you didn't use an authorised repair centre.

Do you have that warranty in writing?

slowbike

delete the car bluetooth entry from your phone and re-pair it .

If bluetooth is working - ie playing music via a speaker then bluetooth is working - replacing a screen wouldn't have caused it to just not pair with your car.

laurentian

I do have the warranty in writing.

Its on a Sales receipt and says: "Screen replacement/iPhone 5s /3 months warranty"

Interestingly underneath this, it says:
"Please note: We maintain a strict no-returns policy. All sales are final, unless specified otherwise in writing."

Is that even legal?

I agree with you regarding the view Apple will take on it - puts me in a difficult position.

Anonymous

Doesn't read much like a warranty for me with that disclaimer.

Interesting how it works with music and not with your car.

laurentian

Slowbike wrote:

delete the car bluetooth entry from your phone and re-pair it .

If bluetooth is working - ie playing music via a speaker then bluetooth is working - replacing a screen wouldn't have caused it to just not pair with your car.

Thanks Slowbike. I've done this twice to no avail.

It does kind of make a connection but the ring tone (out) sounds like a helicopter which just continues when answered. I cannot be heard at the other end. When someone calls me, the phone system rings as normal until answered and then the "helicopter" kicks in again.

Velonutter

Is your iPhone still under Apple warranty, if so take it back to them and they will change it whilst you wait.

A few years ago I broke the screen on my iPhone 4, my son replaced the screen a number of times but the graphics were always crap, booked an appointment into Apple Brum and they took one look and said the display controller had packed up and replaced it with a brand new one, there was only 12 days of the warranty left.

laurentian

ooh - that sounds promising!

cougie

Maybe its the car thats buggered - if it plays with bluetooth in the shop ???

laurentian

cougie wrote:

Maybe its the car thats buggered - if it plays with bluetooth in the shop ???

We have successfully connected other phones to the car system.

diy

Jeez why do people come to bike radar for this sort of thing - there are 100s of consumer/legal forums

You need to get the blutooth examined/repaired by someone else - mentioning that it stopped working after the screen was replaced. If they identify that this was the likely cause of the problem then you go back to the shop (who has refused you) with the bill - if they wont play ball you issue a letter before action in accordance with the pre-action protocol (lots of free templates on the net) and if still no joy you issues a county court claim for the damanges (the cost of repair) via the online money claim tool.

Warranty is irrelevant - its covered by statutory rights and since its within six months of the repair its for them to prove its an unrelated fault.

southdownswolf

If the bluetooth antenna has not been fitted back properly after replacing the screen, then it may make it intermittent. Could be that they have screwed it down slightly out of place, even just 1/2mm could make a big difference.

slowbike

laurentian wrote:

Slowbike wrote:

delete the car bluetooth entry from your phone and re-pair it .

If bluetooth is working - ie playing music via a speaker then bluetooth is working - replacing a screen wouldn't have caused it to just not pair with your car.

Thanks Slowbike. I've done this twice to no avail.

It does kind of make a connection but the ring tone (out) sounds like a helicopter which just continues when answered. I cannot be heard at the other end. When someone calls me, the phone system rings as normal until answered and then the "helicopter" kicks in again.

Ah - that's different - it's not "bluetooth not working" - the bluetooth bit sounds like it is working - it's the other bit that isn't ..

From what I can see in disconnecting the screen you also disconnect several other parts - one being the earpiece - I'm not sure where the microphone connects in - it may even be one of those "speaker ports" on the bottom of the handset. However, it may be something to do with a poor connection to an element in the screen - assuming there isn't a more fundamental issue with something else broken. I assume it worked ok when the screen was cracked?

Anyway - the way I'd go about fixing it would be to remove and re-fit the screen - not exactly complicated - although I assume you don't have the tools or desire to do this.... it should be easy enough for the shop to do it - but they would need the handset!

laurentian

diy wrote:

Jeez why do people come to bike radar for this sort of thing - there are 100s of consumer/legal forums

You need to get the blutooth examined/repaired by someone else - mentioning that it stopped working after the screen was replaced. If they identify that this was the likely cause of the problem then you go back to the shop (who has refused you) with the bill - if they wont play ball you issue a letter before action in accordance with the pre-action protocol (lots of free templates on the net) and if still no joy you issues a county court claim for the damanges (the cost of repair) via the online money claim tool.

Warranty is irrelevant - its covered by statutory rights and since its within six months of the repair its for them to prove its an unrelated fault.

Thanks - useful info if they decide to be difficult about it.

laurentian

Slowbike wrote:

laurentian wrote:

Slowbike wrote:

delete the car bluetooth entry from your phone and re-pair it .

If bluetooth is working - ie playing music via a speaker then bluetooth is working - replacing a screen wouldn't have caused it to just not pair with your car.

Thanks Slowbike. I've done this twice to no avail.

It does kind of make a connection but the ring tone (out) sounds like a helicopter which just continues when answered. I cannot be heard at the other end. When someone calls me, the phone system rings as normal until answered and then the "helicopter" kicks in again.

Ah - that's different - it's not "bluetooth not working" - the bluetooth bit sounds like it is working - it's the other bit that isn't ..

From what I can see in disconnecting the screen you also disconnect several other parts - one being the earpiece - I'm not sure where the microphone connects in - it may even be one of those "speaker ports" on the bottom of the handset. However, it may be something to do with a poor connection to an element in the screen - assuming there isn't a more fundamental issue with something else broken. I assume it worked ok when the screen was cracked?

Anyway - the way I'd go about fixing it would be to remove and re-fit the screen - not exactly complicated - although I assume you don't have the tools or desire to do this.... it should be easy enough for the shop to do it - but they would need the handset!

Thanks again Slowbike - apologies if the "not working" bit wasn't clear earlier. It sounds like you know what you're talking about and i would have hoped they would have offered this kind of solution when they looked at it for a second time (although to be honest, I don't know if they did anything) it seems to be their opinion that, as the bluetooth works with a speaker, it must be OK (even though they have witnessed it not working in my car) and therefore they have no responsibility to fix it.

slowbike

Well - I don't know all the ins and outs of the iPhone 5s - but I "do" IT .. so have a reasonable idea of how things work and interpreting the users reported problems ...
It could be a number of issues - including the mis-aligned antenna, although I would suspect that myself. The issue you have is the microphone feed to the bluetooth module - so to troubleshoot you look at what has changed -
the screen cracked - did that damage other components?
the screen was changed - were all the connections reseated properly? were any audio components damaged during the repair?