E said:
I don't really get why so many here does not think it is legit to complain, when Canon deliberately cripples its products?
It is the concept that every product must including every feature a company can possibly make that isnt legitimate. No company does this and in most cases consumers are happy about this. If VW group had to include the engine from the Bugatti Veyron in every car it makes the VW Up would certainly not cost close to the £9,000 it currently does and would be at least 50 times that. Most people dont want to be paying £0.5m for their next city car.
Companies make products to a price, they consider their other products to ensure they dont canibalise sales, they consider their competitors products/prices (that doesnt mean match), they consider the future path of the product (Canon didnt start working on the 5D Mk4 last month!).
Sometimes you are lucky and something is the ideal sweet spot for you, if absolutely everyone is in that boat then the product designers probably arent doing their jobs too well as they should be trying to get you to look up a model, buying multiple items etc
This is all before we get into topics like planned obscellence etc
rfdesigner said:
durable goods must be designed such that they could resonably be expected to last 6 years (my wording), it's not a warranty. You'd have to have some kind of proof that the goods were not built properly.
So if Canon put a shutter in only capable of lasting 3 years of normal use then the argument would be whether camera bodies are durable or disposable.
Thankfully we now (as of this year) have "class action" available to us.
EU rules state 2 year warranty, no idea how that will change after article 50 is invoked.
The Sale of Goods Act dictates that there must be a "reasonable" life on goods sold. It doesnt define reasonable nor states how it should be worked out.
The Law of Limitations, in England, Wales and NI, is 6 years (its 5 years in Scotland) and so whilst you may reasonably expect that some things may last longer than 6 years you are statute barred from taking action against the retailor for selling you defective goods after that. Hence the often slightly inaccurate statement that the SoGA gives you up to 6 years cover.
There is no legal requirements for goods to be designed to last a minimum of 6 years (nor that they can design inferior products for Scotland with its 5 year limit). It must simply be reasonable and it is reasonable that some items will last less than that (eg budget or bleeding edge items). How reasonable is depends on a host of factors, marketing materials, level of technology etc.
If a new consumer camera clearly stated the shutter lasted 100,000 actuations and yours dies after 3 years and 150,000 actuations then its unlikely you will win any case despite it only be 3 years old.
The other challenge is that after 6 months the onus of proof moves from the retailer to the consumer. Your camera fails after 5 years, you are the one that has to prove that there was an intrinsic fault when the item was sold to you/ that a reasonable life is greater than this rather than the retailer disprove it unlike under the 2 year guarantee of EU law where the onus is always on the retailer to show it was user negligence.
As to Article 50, the SoGA is from 1979, the EU Directive that was passed to enforce a 2 year guarantee was passed in 2011 and was not implemented in the UK because of the fact the SoGA was considered to already give greater protection. Given SoGA is a home gown act why do you think it would change?
As to the 5D Mk4 - agree the upgrades arent as good as they could have been but then I am coming from a 40D and so will be a big enough jump for me but will wait for prices to call and/or a trip to the USA before I take the plunge.