ᐅ Voidance of warranty due to alteration of original settings?

Dear all,

I own a Tecalor 5.5 Eco, which I recently submitted for maintenance in order to secure the promised 5-year warranty.

I was looking forward to asking questions that neither the operating manual nor the installers could answer when the system was installed two years ago. Unfortunately, the installers had not taken the time to further educate themselves. They still set up the system exactly as the manufacturer recommends. The installers then confronted me, saying that I am not allowed to make any adjustments to the system and that they would report my "tampering" to their manager. Sure enough, the manager added a handwritten note on the invoice stating that my adjustments had voided the warranty.

What are your experiences? The manufacturer (not the maintenance company) had, in fact, given me verbal instructions over the phone about a year ago on how to optimize the system. The Tecalor operating manuals each include the phrase “customization of settings” four times.

In the warranty terms, I read that the entire system or its main components must come from Tecalor. Otherwise, there is no mention of the user or their handling of the system.

I plan to contact the manufacturer to explain the issue. I will also ask the maintenance company on what grounds exactly they are rejecting the warranty claim.

I would be glad to hear your opinions or, even better, your experiences. Perhaps owners of Stiebel Eltron devices could also share input, as these companies are related.

By the way, I had already tried in advance to find an alternative company to handle the maintenance, but this was unsuccessful, as there are hardly any firms specializing in Tecalor products.

Good luck!

There is absolutely nothing, and I emphasize absolutely nothing(!), wrong with technicians adjusting a system according to the manufacturer’s recommendations or specifications. The installers do not know your individual needs, and in this case, the customer seems to be more of a know-it-all and behaves that way towards the technicians... I wouldn’t want to set anything beyond the standard either.

Basically, in cases of warranty claims, the cause of the damage is always examined. If it turns out that an incorrect or non-recommended setting caused the damage or significantly shortened the component’s lifespan, such a warranty is often denied. It is therefore important to have something in writing stating that as a customer—or layperson—you are allowed to change these parameters and that you always stay within the recommended range.

That’s why the note “customer tampered with the system” may sound harsh, but it is not unusual. If I notice that a customer has been adjusting “our” settings, this is recorded internally, and the customer is politely informed that in the event of damage, the warranty may be void, for example, because they have over-adjusted the control or, in the worst case (accidentally), disabled warning and fault limits.

Fuzziman schrieb:

I would also like to hear your opinions, or even better, your experiences, on this in parallel.

Basically, you can set up your system in any way you find necessary. All possible settings are provided by the manufacturer and therefore do not affect the warranty.
Independent of this, installers often set systems to generic default values because a) they lack expertise and b) they don’t know your personal needs or the specific requirements of your house.

MachsSelbst schrieb:

And if it turns out that an incorrect or unsupported setting caused the damage or drastically shortened the service life of a component

... then it is more likely normal wear and tear than a warranty case. Just that the wear was accelerated by user adjustments.
Settings that are possible and not prohibited by the manual do not affect the warranty or guarantee.

MachsSelbst schrieb:

Therefore, the note "customer fiddles with the system themselves" is certainly somewhat harsh wording but not unusual.

No, that is something completely unacceptable. Would your car service also write in your service booklet, “Customer always drives at full throttle. Warranty therefore denied”? It’s exactly the same.

MachsSelbst schrieb:

Disables warning and fault thresholds.

That is a different matter. But heating curves, flow rates, hysteresis, and similar settings are completely normal adjustments (I hope the original poster is not fiddling with the deepest installer settings and causing trouble) that every user can, may, and should make without restrictions.

@nordanney

The failure of a compressor due to an incorrectly set heating curve is not normal wear but a defect.

The same applies to your example. If a driver always drives in first gear on the highway, this is not how the manufacturer intended it.

However, I don’t know to what extent you can change everything in the regular menu for Tecalor. With Alpha Inotec, for example, you cannot access the technician level where you can cause damage without the password.

@Derdinand17

Your installers would be shown the door quickly; there are plenty of people who know heat pumps very well.

Unfortunately, I cannot recommend any websites; otherwise, I would get banned here.

Offtopic schrieb:

The failure of a compressor due to an incorrectly adjusted heating curve is not wear and tear but a defect.

You really have to set the heat pump settings very poorly to cause that. We’ve had cases here with significantly oversized heat pumps, where the compressor failed after 8 years (somewhere under 100,000 start cycles). That is wear and tear—when the lifespan is shortened by an incorrect curve, it’s accelerated wear—and there is no warranty for that. So, in that respect, this topic is settled.

Oh dear!
First of all, thank you for your detailed assessments of the situation. I will respond further tomorrow.
But let me reveal the following in advance:
I never come across as arrogant or a know-it-all, even if I do know better. I prefer to end the discussion if I sense that my conversation partner is not interested in my knowledge. That leads to the same result, although more quickly.

I only changed settings whose effects I was aware of. The heating curve is not one of them.

Talk to you later