Watchdog, the BBC’s consumer affairs magazine program, has highlighted a possible problem with the aforementioned Indesit dishwasher manufactured by The Indesit Company which was formerly known as Merloni Elettrodomestici which manufacturers Hotpoint, indesit and Ariston brands primarily.
The problem was reported on the BBC Watchdog website on the 10th February and a copy is as follows.
In the last year, Watchdog has been contacted by 11 people complaining about dishwasher fires. Of those, 5 complained about Indesit, and 4 about the D63 – including the 3 cases on the programme.
Paul Key’s house caught fire last November when his Indesit D63 dishwasher went up in smoke. His insurance company investigated the fire and confirmed the dishwasher was to blame. Naturally, Paul wanted Indesit to accept responsibility.
Bernadette Kilroy got her new Indesit in March last year. Four months later she came home to find smoke coming out of the dishwasher. Bernadette’s dishwasher fire caused serious damage to her kitchen. Indesit still refused to pay out her insurance excess of £150.
Paul and Bernadette’s insurers both employed independent experts to root out the cause of the fires. It turned out they were both down to the same thing – something called “resistive heating”. Resistive heating can be caused by a bad connection or corrosion.
Gillian Tomkins dishwasher was only 4 months old when it caught fire. Again, it was a D63 model. Indesit sent an engineer round to look at the dishwasher, three times. Gillian said “they couldn’t ascertain what was wrong with it and sent a report in to head office.” But Gillian never saw the report. She said “I didn’t feel like Indesit were listening to me or taking my concerns seriously… They were basically just trying to hope I’d go away”.
Indesit’s response:
Indesit’s makers, Merloni, apologise to those customers for the distress caused by these incidents, and is now discussing compensation with all three. They say they became aware of an over-heating problem last summer and, as a result, introduced changes in September to solve the problem.
They say “If any of our customers are concerned, they can contact us through our customer help line on 0845 456 4226 or our website www.indesitservice.co.uk.”
From BBC Watchdog