Rayburn Repairs Rip Off

Frank-the-Wool · Aug 25, 2017

I have a 13 year old oil fired Rayburn 480K (CF) in a farmhouse.
It was installed by the local dealer and serviced and maintained every year by the same approved dealer.

It has had to have a number of small repairs recently and these people know how to charge and Rayburn parts are expensive. Looking back the average costs per year of maintenance and parts is running at over £300.00 per year.
Recently the programmer went wrong and I was told the heat deflector plate and ceramics needed replacing, a total cost of over £600.00.

When the engineer came to do the work he discovered a crack in the firebox side bottom and said he would have to come back and quote for the repairs. Charged £75.00 for the pleasure of doing nothing except tell me it was going to cost more.
The new quote was £870.00 for parts plus an eye watering £1700.00 for labour. When I queried this labour rate I was told this has been reduced to £100.00 per hour!! It might take them less than 2 days so the labour cost might be lower.

I have tried to get other Rayburn repairers to quote for the work but they will not put in anything against this other company. The whole thing feels like a cartel where they are jacking up the prices.

To add insult to injury when I complained about all the money I was paying out the Dealer said that it was getting to the end of its life at 13 years old and suggested to look at replacement. The old Rayburns I have had in properties have done over 50 years and I would expect a piece of equipment that has been correctly maintained to last well over 30 years. They cost over £12k today!!

Any suggestions would be appreciated.
I have written to Rayburn expressing my dissatisfaction.

B R C · Aug 25, 2017

Unbelieveble! I think you are being right royally sh**ted. It will be interesting to hear what Rayburns reply is about their product only good for 13 years. I have a baby 208k gravity fed and I just change the wick and clean off any carbon from burner every 6 months and it works well.
Can you not find an independent, also might be forums to get advice compare notes on?

Pilgrimmick · Aug 25, 2017

That sounds rediculous.

I just bought the maintenance manual and do it all myself!

A question to Rayburn about what they expect life expectancy to be, would be interesting.
Then ask a few other manufacturers (Esse, Stanley etc)what they would expect annual servicing costs and life expectancy to be. Ask the manufacturer, not a vendor and then you may well have a case under the sales of goods act, where a product must last a reasonable time when maintained correctly, this varies from product to product, so for a budget item may only be a few months, but for a high quality product that is sold as an investment for the house, then it should be measured in decades!

Mention to the manufacturer (Rayburn) that the results of your research will be made freely available on the forum, Facebook etc!

Northdowns Martin · Aug 25, 2017

Guy on farm buys and sells Rayburns does minor repairs if beyond him he sends them to Ireland for overhaul. Will show him your post and get his opinion

milkloss · Aug 25, 2017

That wasn't -starts with F but rhymes with beast- was it?

All I can say is don't go near that bunch, just con artists.

Edit: did you try blades or benenden heating? Don't rock the boat when you ring them just ask for a quote. They don't like talking about territory issues but both have engineers not too far away.

Campbell · Aug 25, 2017

I service our own Rayburn PJ burner, but I would think long and hard about replacement of internal parts. They are assembled with a mix of cement and seized up bolts, so at 13 years old nothing is straight forward to replace especially working in the confines of a kitchen. As to your quotes, our local heating and range cooker specialist has a collection of Aston Martins.

Grouse · Aug 25, 2017

That's ridiculous, I know this doesn't help you but our 4 oven oil Aga, which we put in, in the yr2000 (17 years) has cost absolutely nothing in repairs, or servicing.

Lincsman · Aug 28, 2017

Scrap it and get an oil boiler for heating, £1800, and a range electric cooker £900.

Timbo · Aug 28, 2017

Lincsman said:
Scrap it and get an oil boiler for heating, £1800, and a range electric cooker £900.

May bit help you feel better but been inthe same position with two agas, thirsty on fuel and repairs. Ripped them out for a oil boiler and dual fuel range. Best thing I ever did.

Loftyrules · Aug 29, 2017

Have exactly the same 480k and was quoted £1000 just to get it going before it could even be serviced, it's coming out and a new electric range and oil boiler are being put in

f0ster · Aug 29, 2017

I have converted a few aga and esse to wick burner, it is basically a float chamber mounted on the side of the appliance with the burner mounted in the burn chamber, they do not produce as much heat as a pressure jet burner but they are zero maintenance because they are so simple you can do it your self.

Grouse · Aug 29, 2017

To be honest an AGA is the simplest form of cooker ever - there is nothing to go wrong and virtually anyone with a practical mind and a toolbox can fix them - there is zero science to them. If you can service a basic Diesel engine then an AGA a child could do. I fail to see how anyone can end up with bonkers bills for service and repairs.

For a normal service all you need is a couple of spanners, a wire brush in a drill to clean the carbon out of the burner and a piece of wire or a drill bit to clean out the fuel pipe - and that's it. The wicks usually last 3 to 4 years and are only needed to get the AGA going - once lit the fuel vaporises. There are zero moving parts and they work even in a power cut.

f0ster · Aug 29, 2017

they are called a don burner,

An Gof · Aug 29, 2017

Frank-the-Wool said:
I have a 13 year old oil fired Rayburn 480K (CF) in a farmhouse.
It was installed by the local dealer and serviced and maintained every year by the same approved dealer.

It has had to have a number of small repairs recently and these people know how to charge and Rayburn parts are expensive. Looking back the average costs per year of maintenance and parts is running at over £300.00 per year.
Recently the programmer went wrong and I was told the heat deflector plate and ceramics needed replacing, a total cost of over £600.00.

When the engineer came to do the work he discovered a crack in the firebox side bottom and said he would have to come back and quote for the repairs. Charged £75.00 for the pleasure of doing nothing except tell me it was going to cost more.
The new quote was £870.00 for parts plus an eye watering £1700.00 for labour. When I queried this labour rate I was told this has been reduced to £100.00 per hour!! It might take them less than 2 days so the labour cost might be lower.

I have tried to get other Rayburn repairers to quote for the work but they will not put in anything against this other company. The whole thing feels like a cartel where they are jacking up the prices.

To add insult to injury when I complained about all the money I was paying out the Dealer said that it was getting to the end of its life at 13 years old and suggested to look at replacement. The old Rayburns I have had in properties have done over 50 years and I would expect a piece of equipment that has been correctly maintained to last well over 30 years. They cost over £12k today!!

Any suggestions would be appreciated.
I have written to Rayburn expressing my dissatisfaction.

Hi Frank, that's very interesting. I have a Rayburn 499 balanced flue installed in 2008.
I have been advised to replace similar after last years service. Here's the details of my quote

The service would be £125 plus parts as usual.

Then for the repair I charge £40/hr for repair work which I estimate to take in the region of 5-7 hrs as the top needs to be removed in order to carry out the job. The parts cost as follows:
Protector plate kit: £211.21
Ceramics kit: £310.03
Gasket:£21.86
Sundries: £20
Estimated Total for repair work parts only =£563.10
Plus labour (hopefully everything will go to plan be be the lower end of the estimate)

Parts prices all vat inclusive as my guy not vat registered. Sometimes living in the poor SW has advantages over the prosperous SE particularly where labour rates are concerned.

Frank-the-Wool · Aug 29, 2017

An Gof said:
Hi Frank, that's very interesting. I have a Rayburn 499 balanced flue installed in 2008.
I have been advised to replace similar after last years service. Here's the details of my quote

The service would be £125 plus parts as usual.

Then for the repair I charge £40/hr for repair work which I estimate to take in the region of 5-7 hrs as the top needs to be removed in order to carry out the job. The parts cost as follows:
Protector plate kit: £211.21
Ceramics kit: £310.03
Gasket:£21.86
Sundries: £20
Estimated Total for repair work parts only =£563.10
Plus labour (hopefully everything will go to plan be be the lower end of the estimate)

Parts prices all vat inclusive as my guy not vat registered. Sometimes living in the poor SW has advantages over the prosperous SE particularly where labour rates are concerned.

What annoys me is that effectively this is a cartel as the main agents will not price against one another. I believe this is illegal if sanctioned by the supplier company.
I have been given the names of a couple of people who will do the work for far less. I am though waiting for Rayburn to reply to my letter first.

Fifi · Jan 26, 2021

Frank-the-Wool said:
I have a 13 year old oil fired Rayburn 480K (CF) in a farmhouse.
It was installed by the local dealer and serviced and maintained every year by the same approved dealer.

It has had to have a number of small repairs recently and these people know how to charge and Rayburn parts are expensive. Looking back the average costs per year of maintenance and parts is running at over £300.00 per year.
Recently the programmer went wrong and I was told the heat deflector plate and ceramics needed replacing, a total cost of over £600.00.

When the engineer came to do the work he discovered a crack in the firebox side bottom and said he would have to come back and quote for the repairs. Charged £75.00 for the pleasure of doing nothing except tell me it was going to cost more.
The new quote was £870.00 for parts plus an eye watering £1700.00 for labour. When I queried this labour rate I was told this has been reduced to £100.00 per hour!! It might take them less than 2 days so the labour cost might be lower.

I have tried to get other Rayburn repairers to quote for the work but they will not put in anything against this other company. The whole thing feels like a cartel where they are jacking up the prices.

To add insult to injury when I complained about all the money I was paying out the Dealer said that it was getting to the end of its life at 13 years old and suggested to look at replacement. The old Rayburns I have had in properties have done over 50 years and I would expect a piece of equipment that has been correctly maintained to last well over 30 years. They cost over £12k today!!

Any suggestions would be appreciated.
I have written to Rayburn expressing my dissatisfaction.

Me too! I bought a new Rayburn 400L PF cooker in 2008 to run on LPG. Endless problems, starting with complete new burner set replacement in less than 2 years. Reason to suspect this was due to running a natural gas appliance on LPG because it was supplied wrong! After that one damn thing after another, culminating in huge waste of money on parts with Rayburn engineer and it still won't run. Took it apart ourselves and, lo and behold, the insulation panels in the firebox are all cracked. It had just had a gas safe cert from the same engineer, which is horrifying, and he never mentioned that the melted timer might be caused by a heat leak! Now trying to decide if we can safely strip it down and re-line, otherwise after 13 years and lots of expense, it's scrap! Never, ever buy one of these.

Mark Hatton · Jan 26, 2021

Fifi said:
Me too! I bought a new Rayburn 400L PF cooker in 2008 to run on LPG. Endless problems, starting with complete new burner set replacement in less than 2 years. Reason to suspect this was due to running a natural gas appliance on LPG because it was supplied wrong! After that one damn thing after another, culminating in huge waste of money on parts with Rayburn engineer and it still won't run. Took it apart ourselves and, lo and behold, the insulation panels in the firebox are all cracked. It had just had a gas safe cert from the same engineer, which is horrifying, and he never mentioned that the melted timer might be caused by a heat leak! Now trying to decide if we can safely strip it down and re-line, otherwise after 13 years and lots of expense, it's scrap! Never, ever buy one of these.

Thats got to be worth following up directly with Aga/Rayburn and dare I say it..Gas Safe.
Parents had an oil fired Rayburn in the late 90's always serviced, don't recall what the exact issue was but after almost 10 years of service the manufacturer pretty much replaced it for free.

Netherfield · Jan 26, 2021

It's to be hoped the OP has got it sorted 3 years later

Mark Hatton · Jan 26, 2021

Netherfield said:
It's to be hoped the OP has got it sorted 3 years later

otherwise very cold and hungry by now!!

Fifi · Jan 26, 2021

Mark Hatton said:
Thats got to be worth following up directly with Aga/Rayburn and dare I say it..Gas Safe.
Parents had an oil fired Rayburn in the late 90's always serviced, don't recall what the exact issue was but after almost 10 years of service the manufacturer pretty much replaced it for free.

I wrote to Aga Rangemaster over a month ago and they haven't replied. If you look at their reviews on Trustpilot you'll see they are absolutely terrible and they just ignore customer complaints.

Rayburn Repairs Rip Off

Member

Member

Member

Member

Member

Member

Member

Member

Member

Member

Member

Member

Member

Member

Member

Member

Staff Member

Member

Staff Member

Member

0 %

Up to 25%

25-50%

50-75%

75-100%

100% I’ve had enough of farming!

Share this page