Comment by jsiepkes

I got a call from the country service manager. Telling me I caused quite a ruckus. They offered to sell me the part for something like 75 Euro's or something I believe. Which was still an outrageous amount of money for a HEPA filter. But I agreed since this was probably as good as it was going to get. Now it is true that there are laws regarding reasonable pricing of replacement and spareparts in the Netherlands I might have been able to base a lawsuit on. But I didn't really feel like going to court over 250 Euro (or really 75 Euro with the new offer) with a multi billion dollar company...

The issue was that their line of thought was; Well according to Dutch standards a vacuum cleaner has a life expectancy of 5 years. So if you want to replace something in it after 5 years (even if it is a customer replaceable part like a HEPA filter), it's not a replacement part / consumable, it's a spare part (which are usually more expansive). Which is also why I asked them; "Does that mean it is the official stance that you shouldn't expect your vacuum cleaners to last much longer then 5 years? Because that HEPA filter certainly needs replacement after 5 years.". Obviously they never answered that.

BTW We are talking about a premium house hold appliance brand here. The vacuum cleaner now costs well over 500 Euro. But when I bought it, it was about 240 Euro's or something. Sells for 700 dollars at Walmart it seems.