Hello all,
I have joined in here after finding this thread very useful in sorting out my Ideal boiler - the Ideal Mexico HE30.
This boiler stopped working a few days ago after just about 20 months of use including only one winter (installed new in March 2010).
It turned out to be the famous PCB that you guys have been discussing in here and that gave me the information that I needed to get it fixed.
So thanks for that.
In summary, one 20 month old PCB orange box has been replaced with another.
The previous boiler worked fine for about 20 years or more and I fell for that "new for old" sales pitch that is advertised constantly in all sorts of media, thereby becoming the less-than-proud owner of this Ideal boiler in place of the earlier Glow Worm.
My feedback is:-
The Ideal part no 174 486 (Ideal primary control kit V9) can be found for sale on ebay for anything between, say, £40 and £140 depending on who is selling. I was also quoted up to £240 to purchase this item from a spare part dealer with installation costs on top of that.
There are masses of them for sale on ebay which may indicate that these things are constantly being replaced. In fact there is someone in the UK midlands doing a refurbished replacement service where you can send your old one to them and get another one back (but the brand new ones on ebay are just as cost effective).
I did contact Ideal customer services by email and their reply simply quoted that the boiler is out of it's 12 month warranty and a repair can be made for a few £100 - about £240 if I recall correctly. Laughable really in this day and age of cars with 5-7 year unlimited mileage warranties.
There was no indication of how they could be so clear about the cost of repair when the fault was not diagnosed at that time, but, of course, I have learnt from here that it just had to be the PCB!!
Apart from the facts above, here's a few thoughts.
My supplier of part no 174 486 tells me that it is bought by his supplier "by the pallet load" because there are so many needed.
Often it is the transformer that burns out, but the fault developed with us incrementally i.e. in stages which indicates to me that the circuit board failed in stages.
Worcester branded boilers carry a 7 year warranty for both parts and labour according to my supplier, but he says that they are difficult to work upon for repairs - does that matter with a 7 year warranty??
He also recommends Vaillance boilers.