I can phone up and do a better job
Do it then.
Well it seems I did by searching around and asking here to get some experienced opinions by people who knew exactly what the problem is, as opposed to my BG engineer who had never heard the issue and didn't know anything about it. Who didn't even take a water sample while he was here and wants to come back next week to do it.
As I said, all he did was phone up and ask Vaillant, with a poor description of the problem. That's no different from what I can do.
That tells me more about you then it does about them.
Why would anyone continue to pay for something they are not satisfied with.
I'll leave aside the personal attack aside where you imply I'm foolish for getting in a big company who are supposed to know what they are doing. It's not my fault the engineer who turned up didn't have a clue what the problem was. There are several other people on this thread who knew straight away what they issue was. Maybe it tells me something about you that you think the customer is at fault when a company doesn't do the job it's been paid for?
The boiler was installed by BG and comes with two years of call-out/repair service. Why would I pay someone else to come in and do a repair when I've already paid for it as part of the installation and maintenance service? I have had a bad cowboy experience in the past, and at least BG will eventually get someone out to fix the problem, even if it takes a few attempts, and aren't going to sting me on price just because they've had to come back to try a few times.
BG are a big company you can chase and hold to regulations and consumer law. They have a complaints department you can deal with and will give you refunds for poor service. There are people you can talk to to get things sorted, which is more than you can say for a lot of companies.
As I said, I've had some great guys from British Gas who did terrific jobs, and some crappy ones you have to work through in order to eventually get you to a fix. It's just a shame that the quality guys are hidden amongst the ones who don't want to do any work when they turn up. I guess that doesn't make them any different from any random selection of RGIs.
It's just frustrating to deal with a guy who claims he doesn't know anything about the problem, when there are people here who know it's a relatively simple fix, and instead I have to faff around for another couple of weeks. It doesn't do anyone any favours if a water test and another powerflush don't cure the issue, it just wastes everyone's time and energy.
For instance, I won't be surprised if the guy who comes to do a powerflush in a couple of weeks is from a different team and ends up implementing a different fix with copper paste and never does the powerflush once I've explained the problem to him.