warranty stickers

halohead4

I recently bought a new laptop and was hoping to upgrade the ram but the is a "warranty void if sticker is broken" sticker on it. I am wondering if those mean anything here since in the US they are illegal.
Cheers,
Ruán

Samuel T. Cogley

I'd say no in regard to your contract with the retailer, but it would probably be legal to allow the manufacturer to disclaim liability under their guarantee. The issue becomes a bit more difficult in that I believe the retailer can assign care back to the manufacturer - I'll have to look up the Sales of Goods Acts again to be sure but it's not as simple as saying the contract is with the retailer therefore that protection would still exist.

On a side note what make of laptop is it that doesn;t allow easy access to the SODIMM slots?

halohead4

Its is a asus tuf gaming fx504 series and you need to take the entire underside off to get at them.

davo10

If the consumer rights are based on the item being used as recommended when sold, if you materially change the item in a way not consistent with its use as recommended, would that not negate the ops rights under the SOGASA? Could the retailer claim that any fault may be a result of the op altering the merchandise?

Manach

While it varies from models, laptops are expected to be upgradable in the normal course of usage - so having such a warranty sticker runs contra to this.

Samuel T. Cogley

They can claim the fault is down to that, absolutely - and they might be right. The issue is more a blanket denial of consumer rights on the basis of a warranty sticker alone. I don't think it's a runner. For example can they deny service for a dead pixel on the screen on the basis of the warranty sticker being broken?

GM228

A seller could argue that what is written on the sticker is a term of the warranty (and it may well be a term in the warranty itself), however any term which limits a consumers recourse is void.

In other words the seller still has a legal liability to the buyer to make good any defects irrespective of weather the sticker was removed or not (the consumer is also afforded a presumption for the first 6 months that any defect was present when purchased), this liability is outside the terms of the warranty.

Warranties and seller liabilities are not the same, warranties don't replace statutory rights, they merely supplement them.

coylemj

If the memory upgrade involves replacing the original DIMMs then what I'd recommend is that the OP hangs on to them and if the machine subsequently develops a fault, reinstall the original memory chips before asking for a warranty repair.