Suprima - Expert Witness Statements Requested

[Gasguru]

Although poor soldering processes are responsible for the majority of Suprima board failures AFAIK there was also underling problem with inputs to the processors.

From memory there was insuffient external filtering/protection (to the processor(s)) present on some of the input pins allowing transients and noise to degrade the input components on the chip.

Short of reverse engineering the board and checking against chip manufactururer recomendations its difficult to prove incomptent design.

There is of course the rumour that the design engineering department was undergoing redundancies and the remaining team "botched" the design.

 

[Dan Robinson]

Potterton is certainly an exception there. We went through a phase of changing Suprima PCB's so freqeuntly that we bought a load in bulk.

I remember a long and bitter argument I had with Greg at CET abotu his reconditioning of them too. Now htats going back a bit.

Does anyone remember the Neutral pin fault on the Puma's.

There is simply no way that a single boiler could have such a large num,ber oof PCB failures and not be a design fault; by definition.

What about the condition that the gas valve blew the PCB? It wasn't documented. There was no published test for gas valve resistance. It was in the gift of their technical phone Monkeys. Yoiu had to hope to get through to one of the senior guys who actually had a clue.

I had one gimp tell me that it was becuase the flue was in the wrong place. My reply was "what? through the wall?"

And they have the cheek to charge £200 for the new version that needs all the wires changing (assuming you don't have the 100 model with the silly black fan).

Strangely, for us, the most reliable until this new version (the juries out by the way) was Issue 07.

I still think Jeff is p1ssing in the wind though.

I'll never knowingly fit a Baxi product on principle unless it is a Balanced flue Mains Multipoint (and we had one of those blow up recently).

 

[Agile]

Jeff, I repair boilers of all makes except Saunier Duval and including Suprimas.

However, I am not a charity and if you wanted me to give you an Expert Witness Statement then like all expert witnesses then I would have to charge you for it. Typical prices are £150-£300 for the written statement amd Court appearances about £400-£600.

Like others I would be interested to know why you apparently have an oil boiler as well as a Suprima.

Tony

 

[Dan Robinson]

If you have had 4 pcbs (original +3)in approx 10 years you have an underlying fault.

I'm sure that BaxiPoti is a nice and knowledgable fellow/lass, but why do Baxi Potterton's service engineers think that the rest of us are too thick to understand how their appliances work.

The one I mentioned before (flue in the wrong place) went on for 18 months with many many engineer visits. they came up with all sorts, by-pass not fitted (it was), spark gap wrong, APS not working, overheating, wired incorrectly (what? magically after 4 visits from their own engineers).

From day one we said it was the PCB. Finally a "senior" technician came out and met me onsite. His first comment was: "oh, it must be the PCB."

Pr1ck. A call centre Monkey once told me: "oh, we don't use your fault diagnosis. Our own engineers will do this as they have special training".


Bo11ocks.

 

[Agile]

I remember a long and bitter argument I had with Greg at CET abotu his reconditioning of them too. Now thats going back a bit.

In fact its going back so far that you have forgotten that he is called Geof !

I dont know why you would need to argue with him about his reconditioning. He gives a years guarantee and says that after checking a big customer who takes 200 a year he only had two or three returns. Thats much more reliable that the new ones!!!

He called Chris an "egit" on this forum but they got on very well when I invited both of them over here last Christmas.

The Puma PCB fails because the hole in the substrate is too large and does not hold the pin tight. When the plug is fitted that stresses the solder joint causing it to crack and later fail. By chance I met the retired manager of the pcb production plant where they were made before it was moved to Poland. He obviously had no axe to grind but did not seem to be aware of the problem!

Tony

 

[Dan Robinson]

I dont know why you would need to argue with him about his reconditioning

I was young, it was fun... I still standby a lot of what I think I said.... Cleaning contacts is one thing. Without specs from the designers, I wouldn't want to run the risks.

 

[jeffuk]

I clearly started a debate.

If litigation is your aim, then I think you're approach is all wrong.

Any court will want to see evidence that your boards failed for reason of design or manufacturing faults.

Thanks for your advice.

I believe it to be the PCB, but in any event it probably doesn't matter because what isn't disputed is that the boiler failed an excessive number of times even though it was repaired each time by what is accepted as an expert ie a corgi registered engineer. Evidence that it failed is available and isn't disputed and the burden of proof is that "on the balance of probabilities" ie the judge must be better than 50% certain - it was an inherent fault ie either a design or manufacturing fault. I'm not certain that it is that difficult to prove that "on the balance of probabilities" there was something wrong in the manufacture of these boilers whether it was the PCB or not. The BBC article backed up by my verbal submission may prove this satisfactorily on their own - I'm simply looking for anything more that might be available to back up my personal clear suspicion that it's the PCB.

I think some replies to this have rather missed the point. I have not said and I am not saying that every problem with the Suprima boiler is the PCB, or that every PCB that has been repaired or replaced was the correct treatment for the problem.

The claim is that there was a problem with this particular range of boiler that made them go wrong more than they should do. It doesn't mean that every boiler went wrong - or that every boiler that went wrong had this specific fault.

Like others I would be interested to know why you apparently have an oil boiler as well as a Suprima.

Tony

I have two homes!

Thanks to those that have responded to the request I made and offered opinion and pointers which are appreciated and helpful.

 

[Dan Robinson]

See the simple explanations are always the best .


I was surprised that you expected this thread to stay on topic though - really. .

 

[Softus]

Thanks for your advice.

I hope it was helpful - it was intended to be so.

I believe it to be the PCB, but in any event it probably doesn't matter because what isn't disputed is that the boiler failed an excessive number of times even though it was repaired each time by what is accepted as an expert ie a corgi registered engineer.

It's your opinion (and submission) that the RGI is an expert, but it isn't true of every RGI, therefore you would need evidence that your RGIs were experts on that particular model.

If this seems an odd assertion to you, then please consider that many people can fault-find boilers to LRU level, and do so quite successfully and efficiently, and then replace that part with a new one obtained from the manufacturer, and install it according to the manufacturer's instructions, and test the installation according to those MIs and according to their training. This requires no analysis whatsoever of the failure mode, or of the quality of design and/or manufacture of the part that failed.

Evidence that it failed is available and isn't disputed and the burden of proof is that "on the balance of probabilities" ie the judge must be better than 50% certain - it was an inherent fault ie either a design or manufacturing fault.

Quite so - you obviously know more than the average layperson, but you being more than 50% certain is not the same thing as the judge being more than 50% certain.

I'm not certain that it is that difficult to prove that "on the balance of probabilities" there was something wrong in the manufacture of these boilers whether it was the PCB or not. The BBC article backed up by my verbal submission may prove this satisfactorily on their own - I'm simply looking for anything more that might be available to back up my personal clear suspicion that it's the PCB.

Quite so - you do need something more.

I think some replies to this have rather missed the point. I have not said and I am not saying that every problem with the Suprima boiler is the PCB, or that every PCB that has been repaired or replaced was the correct treatment for the problem.

In that case you're missing my point, which is that the judge is likely to ask, and pretty early on to boot, whether or not every board fails in the same way, and whether every boiler has had a failed board.

The claim is that there was a problem with this particular range of boiler that made them go wrong more than they should do. It doesn't mean that every boiler went wrong - or that every boiler that went wrong had this specific fault.

And if the percentage of boilers-with-a-failed-board is less than half of the installed boilers, then you're going to look pretty foolish brandishing little more than a report from a TV programme that is renowned for regularly sensationalising trivial problems in order to create entertaining witch hunts against businesses and manufacturers.

IMHO, you have no hope in court without a written report from an expert on the subject, but, since I foresee that you won't be commissioning one, I wish you the very best of luck.

 

[Agile]

It will not be sufficient just to say that your boiler failed a lot of times!

The boiler might have been totally reliable and in 200,000 boilers the four faults on yours were the only ones which occured.

You will have to prove that the Suprima was generally more unreliable than the average boiler of that era. Apart from the PCB and odd gas valve they are very reliable boilers.

In reality if you can provide the evidence the BBC found from their investigation then I expect that will be all you need. Since the BBC is held in high esteem ( I used to work for them! ) I would expect their findings to carry more weight than the odd RGI who might have a gripe against Potterton.

Tony

 

[Softus]

It will not be sufficient just to say that your boiler failed a lot of times!

Really? That's what the BBC did. They just said it very loudly, and with the threat of a lot of adverse publicity. And yet, later in your post, you seem to think that the BBC 'evidence' is worth something.

Since our report on Potterton's Suprima Standard Efficicieny boilers was transmitted on 6 February 2007, Watchdog has had over 900 complaints from viewers.

That's 900. Nine. hundred. Out of how many Suprimas? FFS.

You will have to prove that the Suprima was generally more unreliable than the average boiler of that era.

No we won't. He just has to prove that the PCB was specifically more unreliable.

In reality if you can provide the evidence the BBC found from their investigation then I expect that will be all you need. Since the BBC is held in high esteem ( I used to work for them! ) I would expect their findings to carry more weight than the odd RGI who might have a gripe against Potterton.

High esteem?! You have to be joking!

 

[Agile]

It will not be sufficient just to say that your boiler failed a lot of times!

Really? That's what the BBC did They just said it very loudly, and with the threat of a lot of adverse publicity.

From what we are told the BBC knew nothing about Jeff's boiler.

The 900 boilers the BBC heard about all belonged to others, not to Jeff.

Tony

 

[jeffuk]

It will not be sufficient just to say that your boiler failed a lot of times!

The boiler might have been totally reliable and in 200,000 boilers the four faults on yours were the only ones which occured.

In reality if you can provide the evidence the BBC found from their investigation then I expect that will be all you need. Since the BBC is held in high esteem ( I used to work for them! ) I would expect their findings to carry more weight than the odd RGI who might have a gripe against Potterton.

Tony

With respect, I'm afraid you are completely (not slightly) wrong.

I'm only representing my own position not representing every other person that purchased a Suprima which is what you imply. For example some people buy Friday afternoon cars. Their case isn't that all cars that were manufactured were faulty - just theirs. The judge will only be interested in their case.

As long as I can show (amongst other things) that my Suprima had more faults than should be reasonably expected from a boiler then the case is largely won. I certainly don't have to prove - and I cannot - that every Suprime was faulty.

Your comments about Corgi engineers is also wobbly. Your opinion and indeed any facts about this group of qualified people is irrelevant. They hold the industry recognition. That is all that is pertinent to any opinion they give. It is up to a judge as to whether they believe these opinions against the contradictory evidence they will hear.

You will have to prove that the Suprima was generally more unreliable than the average boiler of that era. Apart from the PCB and odd gas valve they are very reliable boilers.

Tony

Here you are closer to being correct but didn't quite make it. I only have to prove that MY ONE was more unreliable than should reasonably be expected - not all of them.

The reason for my original request is that in addition to proving that my Suprima was faulty, I am also seeking to show that when they were telling me that there were no faults that they reasonably should have known that there were faults and were misleading customers - hence my original request. Basically this is what the BBC programme said about their 1000 viewers that made contact.

 

[Softus]

From what we are told the BBC knew nothing about Jeff's boiler.

The 900 boilers the BBC heard about all belonged to others, not to Jeff.

Fair comment - I made my point very clumsily, but the point was the BBC did no more than shout a lot about a lot of boilers, some of which had failed more than once, i.e. in the way that the OP's boiler had failed.

My point is that (a) you hold the Watchdog approach in high regard, and (b) the Watchdog approach stinks. It worked not because it had an effective legal argument, but because the BBC bullied Potterton. Not that I condone Potty's dereliction of duty over the years, but I disapprove of Watchdog even more. FFS, Julia Bradbury is no more than a presenter-cum-singer, and a shabby one at that.

 

[Agile]

Whatever you may think of Watchdog or its presenter the fact remains that they have succeeded in getting a better deal for many people who were not happy with the reliability of their Suprima.

Where that argument breaks down is that of say 200,000 Suprimas sold only 1000 contacted the BBC and one could say that apparently 199,000 owners were happy with their boiler.

As to Jeff, I would disagree with him that his boiler has broken down more often than might be expected. One fault every 2-3 years is not that bad for a highly stressed machine like a boiler.

Although he does not seem to agree I think he will have to demonstrate that the Suprima was a poor design with latent faults which the manufacturers did not address in a timely manner.

I dont think he will win but might achieve an out of court settlement to avoid the publicity.

Tony


PS I have never seen a Watchdog program.