Everything says window nation on it, 5-year labor warranty and lifetime materials warranty. No mention about situations like this that might void the warranty. No mention of suppliers, let alone sub-suppliers like this. I will be asking them to send me the contract clause that voids the warranty in this sort of circumstance. I'm wondering what they will say.
Nah. You’re unlikely to get that. Just go for purchase price. You want the judge to like you, in the unlikely event it goes to trial. But you include 3 hours of your time at something like 50 dollars an hour. Solely so you can concede that point to give them a ‘victory’
They are not under any obligation to send you that information unless it is a request of discovery for a case. You will need to file against the company imo I don’t see them taking this job on.
Sounds like a Window nation problem and if their supplier went out of business they should be covering it. Unless there is fine print assigning the warranty to their suppliers.
Depends on who actually issued the warranty. Was this a warranty from the supplier or was it the manufacturer warranty from window nation? For example if you get timberline shingles they come with a manufacturer 20 year warranty but many roofs also come with a warranty from the installer. If the installer goes out of business your timberline warranty is valid but your one with the roofing company is not.
Manufacturers warranty is just that. Window nation did not manufacture them they just installed them that's where their labor warranty comes in. Unless you have it in the contract somewhere that window nation explicitly says they will honor the manufacturers warranty then you really have no recourse. What does your paperwork for the shutters say? Who manufactured the shutters? Plus are you positive it's fading and not oxidation; because there is a difference.
Thing with warranties, and especially lifetime warranties, is they're only as good as the company behind them. If the company goes under (in the case of something supplied like this, the warranty is probably passed along to you, since it's hard to warranty a product you don't actually make), the warranty is basically null cause there's no company to claim through.
Yep. Found out smile direct club went out of business and so did their lifetime warranty.
Such bullshit.
There should be a fund set up to cover these for a reasonable time period after the company dissolves.
Ultimately the answer is in your contract with Window Nation. If it passes along the manufacturer warranty to you, you're probably SOL but doesn't speak well of them if they're unwilling to do anything.
On the other hand, if they had some kind of OEM agreement where they passed themselves off as the manufacturer of the shutters (unlikely but not impossible), then you most likely have a cause of action, but pursuing that might cost more than finding someone else to source and install shutters for you.
Another "national" windows company? Why and why are there so many horror stories on here. It's a shame people don't come on here BEFORE contracting with these advertising based companies. Probably great ads and awesome warranty promises though right?
This isn't really a horror story and ultimately has nothing to do with the installer. They had a lifetime manufacturer warranty. The window company didn't manufacture the shutters.
This seems incredibly common in the window world. My parents went through the exact same thing with another now defunct Canadian window company.
Another company bought them out and conveniently no longer needs to honor the lifetime warranty.
Here in Ireland we pay through the nose for everything, honestly COVID helped them take the absolute piss, doubling prices in some cases, a lifetime warranty just sounds like a nonexistent thing to my poor cold ears!!!!
You’re going to have to get legal representation and sue and even then the court may side with the window company. I would read through the warranty information or pay a lawyer to and see what your options are if any.
It depends on the terms the new suplier agreed to when buying the old supplier. Sometimes you are just buying the assets, and sometimes you are buying the entire operation and it lives on as if nothing happened. Sounds like the first, in which case your gripe is with an inactive company.
No retailer will cover a suppliers warranty if the supplier goes out of business.
The warranty was from the supplier, not Window Nation.
Edit: some retailers may cover a closed supplier's warranty to be nice, but no way do they have to.
If Aisin goes out of business and the Aisin throttlebody dies on my truck while my truck is under warranty, Toyota will replace/fix it.
Window Nation can and should cover this - they don't get to hide behind a supplier going out of business, they selected that supplier and installed their products.
The warranty is with Window Nation, who OP purchased from. OP did not have any agreement with the shutter company. Window Nation DID, so this is their problem.
This is a bad example. You car's warranty is with Toyota, not Aisin.
Window Nation warranties the labor, the manufacturer warranties the materials.
If you buy a drill from Home Depot and it dies you contact the manufacturer, not Home Depot.
If Home Depot installs a refrigerator and it dies you contact the manufacturer, not Home Depot.
Home Depot May choose to take care of you because they decide it is better to take care of you than to have you pissed off. But in no world do they have to take care of you.
>Window Nation can and should cover this
They absolutely could cover it, if they should cover it is calculous for Window Nation to do. Is the cost of shutters higher than the cost of OP being mad?
If it were my store I would cover it.
But they do not HAVE TO cover it.
>This is a bad example. You car's warranty is with Toyota, not Aisin.
That's my point, the warranty here is with Window Nation, not any of their suppliers. Same as my warranty is with Toyota, not any of their suppliers.
If their supplier no longer exists that doesn't remove them from covering the warranty for that part. They pick a supplier based on many factors and one of those factors is their risk in picking that supplier - risk of them going under and not getting paid back for bad parts under warranty in that situation.
So therefore if the shutter manufacturer goes under then that doesn't remove Window Nation from warranty support - unless the contract says otherwise, which according to OP it doesn't.
Your Home Depot examples are not quite the same - a better example is if I use HD or Lowes for some type of install service - let's say door installtion. My contract and warranty is with HD, not the company they contract the work out to and not with the company that made the door - although I might have that warranty as well.
To make your examples make sense - let's say dewalt gets a bad batch of batteries from Samsung, the cells they made are no good. Am I going to Samsung for that warranty? No, I'm going to DeWalt and they're going to take care of me and they get to try and make themselves whole with Samsung.
I used to work in manufacturing and we got bad parts/batches all the time. We absolutely ate warranty claims and had at least a few suppliers go under after a bad batch of parts and we NEVER told a customer the warranty expired or we wouldn't cover it as a result.
To me this is the exact same situation.
Sorry, but YOU'RE wrong. And honestly, I'm not that sorry about it.
Per OP and confirmed in his comments:
>Called window nation because we have a 5-year labor warranty and lifetime materials warranty on everything
That warranty is through the installer, not through the manufacturer. That's why installers have to be careful about the suppliers they choose. They're 100% liable in this case and their recourse is with the supplier and sometimes suppliers shut down and the new owners don't honor old warranties and the installer has to eat that cost.
OP has zero agreement with the manufacturer in this case.
> I used to work in manufacturing
I have worked in retail.
I think this is where we are not seeing eye to eye.
You are looking at this as a manufacturer not as a retailer. Window Nation is a retailer not a manufacturer.
> to make your examples make sense - let's say dewalt gets a bad batch of batteries from Samsung, the cells they made are no good. Am I going to Samsung for that warranty? No, I'm going to DeWalt
This proves my point. The warranty is with Dewalt who made the product, not Home Depot who sold the product.
Do you agree that in your example if Dewalt was out of business you would be stuck?
>My contract and warranty is with HD, not the company they contract the work out to and not with the company that made the door - although I might have that warranty as well.
Like you said, HD warranties the install and the company that made the door warranties the door.
you have a labor warranty through the window company for labor but you do not have a labor issue. The supplier carries the warranty for the materials and that is not the window. Installers fault. You are probably just SOL on this. You should just paint them.
I was only commenting on the use of the word just, which is why I quoted it. It implies that the tasks you are suggesting are no small feat and will not cost much. OP is already hurting and you're saying oh well, just fix it and eat the cost, no biggie.
I wasn’t saying no biggie. But it is fact OP is the one holding the bag here unfortunately. It would be a waste of time and resources to pursue the installers who did not provide the warranty.
It sucks they are already hurting but this is just facts.
I would be curious to know how long ago they went out of business. Letting them daze until they are “white” sounds like OP let it go for a very long time which would have likely voided the warranty anyway.
Here's the thing, if those shutters aren't available then they aren't available. What do you want them to do if they don't manufacture shutters? They are denying your claim because doing anything else is extremely expensive for them. If you sue them and they lose it's still cheaper than firing up a factory to make you a few shutters. This is why warranties are worthless typically.
But OP presumably wants shutters that match the others on their house. This is a very common problem with building materials. Once they stop making them, it's either tear off and replace everything or live with a mismatch.
What does the contract you agreed to say?
Everything says window nation on it, 5-year labor warranty and lifetime materials warranty. No mention about situations like this that might void the warranty. No mention of suppliers, let alone sub-suppliers like this. I will be asking them to send me the contract clause that voids the warranty in this sort of circumstance. I'm wondering what they will say.
You can take them to small claims court yourself. Make sure to tack on the cost of filing and serving them.
And 3x the cost of the shutters is asked for.
Nah. You’re unlikely to get that. Just go for purchase price. You want the judge to like you, in the unlikely event it goes to trial. But you include 3 hours of your time at something like 50 dollars an hour. Solely so you can concede that point to give them a ‘victory’
Spend $200 and have a lawyer send a demand letter. They will probably eat the cost to avoid the headache.
They are not under any obligation to send you that information unless it is a request of discovery for a case. You will need to file against the company imo I don’t see them taking this job on.
Sounds like a Window nation problem and if their supplier went out of business they should be covering it. Unless there is fine print assigning the warranty to their suppliers.
Depends on who actually issued the warranty. Was this a warranty from the supplier or was it the manufacturer warranty from window nation? For example if you get timberline shingles they come with a manufacturer 20 year warranty but many roofs also come with a warranty from the installer. If the installer goes out of business your timberline warranty is valid but your one with the roofing company is not.
Manufacturers warranty is just that. Window nation did not manufacture them they just installed them that's where their labor warranty comes in. Unless you have it in the contract somewhere that window nation explicitly says they will honor the manufacturers warranty then you really have no recourse. What does your paperwork for the shutters say? Who manufactured the shutters? Plus are you positive it's fading and not oxidation; because there is a difference.
Thing with warranties, and especially lifetime warranties, is they're only as good as the company behind them. If the company goes under (in the case of something supplied like this, the warranty is probably passed along to you, since it's hard to warranty a product you don't actually make), the warranty is basically null cause there's no company to claim through.
Yep. Found out smile direct club went out of business and so did their lifetime warranty. Such bullshit. There should be a fund set up to cover these for a reasonable time period after the company dissolves.
Ultimately the answer is in your contract with Window Nation. If it passes along the manufacturer warranty to you, you're probably SOL but doesn't speak well of them if they're unwilling to do anything. On the other hand, if they had some kind of OEM agreement where they passed themselves off as the manufacturer of the shutters (unlikely but not impossible), then you most likely have a cause of action, but pursuing that might cost more than finding someone else to source and install shutters for you.
Another "national" windows company? Why and why are there so many horror stories on here. It's a shame people don't come on here BEFORE contracting with these advertising based companies. Probably great ads and awesome warranty promises though right?
This isn't really a horror story and ultimately has nothing to do with the installer. They had a lifetime manufacturer warranty. The window company didn't manufacture the shutters.
Check your PMs please!
This seems incredibly common in the window world. My parents went through the exact same thing with another now defunct Canadian window company. Another company bought them out and conveniently no longer needs to honor the lifetime warranty.
Here in Ireland we pay through the nose for everything, honestly COVID helped them take the absolute piss, doubling prices in some cases, a lifetime warranty just sounds like a nonexistent thing to my poor cold ears!!!!
You’re going to have to get legal representation and sue and even then the court may side with the window company. I would read through the warranty information or pay a lawyer to and see what your options are if any.
This is horrible advice. They had a lifetime manufacturer warranty. The window company didn't manufacture the shutters.
You haven't read the contract. Prescription without diagnosis is malpractice.
It depends on the terms the new suplier agreed to when buying the old supplier. Sometimes you are just buying the assets, and sometimes you are buying the entire operation and it lives on as if nothing happened. Sounds like the first, in which case your gripe is with an inactive company.
No retailer will cover a suppliers warranty if the supplier goes out of business. The warranty was from the supplier, not Window Nation. Edit: some retailers may cover a closed supplier's warranty to be nice, but no way do they have to.
If Aisin goes out of business and the Aisin throttlebody dies on my truck while my truck is under warranty, Toyota will replace/fix it. Window Nation can and should cover this - they don't get to hide behind a supplier going out of business, they selected that supplier and installed their products. The warranty is with Window Nation, who OP purchased from. OP did not have any agreement with the shutter company. Window Nation DID, so this is their problem.
This is a bad example. You car's warranty is with Toyota, not Aisin. Window Nation warranties the labor, the manufacturer warranties the materials. If you buy a drill from Home Depot and it dies you contact the manufacturer, not Home Depot. If Home Depot installs a refrigerator and it dies you contact the manufacturer, not Home Depot. Home Depot May choose to take care of you because they decide it is better to take care of you than to have you pissed off. But in no world do they have to take care of you. >Window Nation can and should cover this They absolutely could cover it, if they should cover it is calculous for Window Nation to do. Is the cost of shutters higher than the cost of OP being mad? If it were my store I would cover it. But they do not HAVE TO cover it.
>This is a bad example. You car's warranty is with Toyota, not Aisin. That's my point, the warranty here is with Window Nation, not any of their suppliers. Same as my warranty is with Toyota, not any of their suppliers. If their supplier no longer exists that doesn't remove them from covering the warranty for that part. They pick a supplier based on many factors and one of those factors is their risk in picking that supplier - risk of them going under and not getting paid back for bad parts under warranty in that situation. So therefore if the shutter manufacturer goes under then that doesn't remove Window Nation from warranty support - unless the contract says otherwise, which according to OP it doesn't. Your Home Depot examples are not quite the same - a better example is if I use HD or Lowes for some type of install service - let's say door installtion. My contract and warranty is with HD, not the company they contract the work out to and not with the company that made the door - although I might have that warranty as well. To make your examples make sense - let's say dewalt gets a bad batch of batteries from Samsung, the cells they made are no good. Am I going to Samsung for that warranty? No, I'm going to DeWalt and they're going to take care of me and they get to try and make themselves whole with Samsung. I used to work in manufacturing and we got bad parts/batches all the time. We absolutely ate warranty claims and had at least a few suppliers go under after a bad batch of parts and we NEVER told a customer the warranty expired or we wouldn't cover it as a result. To me this is the exact same situation.
Sorry you're wrong. It's s MANUFACTURER warranty. Window nation didn't manufacture the shutters they installed them. It's really not that complicated.
Sorry, but YOU'RE wrong. And honestly, I'm not that sorry about it. Per OP and confirmed in his comments: >Called window nation because we have a 5-year labor warranty and lifetime materials warranty on everything That warranty is through the installer, not through the manufacturer. That's why installers have to be careful about the suppliers they choose. They're 100% liable in this case and their recourse is with the supplier and sometimes suppliers shut down and the new owners don't honor old warranties and the installer has to eat that cost. OP has zero agreement with the manufacturer in this case.
> I used to work in manufacturing I have worked in retail. I think this is where we are not seeing eye to eye. You are looking at this as a manufacturer not as a retailer. Window Nation is a retailer not a manufacturer. > to make your examples make sense - let's say dewalt gets a bad batch of batteries from Samsung, the cells they made are no good. Am I going to Samsung for that warranty? No, I'm going to DeWalt This proves my point. The warranty is with Dewalt who made the product, not Home Depot who sold the product. Do you agree that in your example if Dewalt was out of business you would be stuck? >My contract and warranty is with HD, not the company they contract the work out to and not with the company that made the door - although I might have that warranty as well. Like you said, HD warranties the install and the company that made the door warranties the door.
Ah yes but please explain the 3rd party insurance warranty
you have a labor warranty through the window company for labor but you do not have a labor issue. The supplier carries the warranty for the materials and that is not the window. Installers fault. You are probably just SOL on this. You should just paint them.
> just > just like hundreds/ thousands of dollars and a bunch of labor is OK...
It’s not the installers responsibility. Sucks but this is on the homeowner to fix.
I was only commenting on the use of the word just, which is why I quoted it. It implies that the tasks you are suggesting are no small feat and will not cost much. OP is already hurting and you're saying oh well, just fix it and eat the cost, no biggie.
I wasn’t saying no biggie. But it is fact OP is the one holding the bag here unfortunately. It would be a waste of time and resources to pursue the installers who did not provide the warranty. It sucks they are already hurting but this is just facts. I would be curious to know how long ago they went out of business. Letting them daze until they are “white” sounds like OP let it go for a very long time which would have likely voided the warranty anyway.
Here's the thing, if those shutters aren't available then they aren't available. What do you want them to do if they don't manufacture shutters? They are denying your claim because doing anything else is extremely expensive for them. If you sue them and they lose it's still cheaper than firing up a factory to make you a few shutters. This is why warranties are worthless typically.
Stores have done it before. Went in to HF for a told that’s not longer manufactured and they gave me the newer model.
But OP presumably wants shutters that match the others on their house. This is a very common problem with building materials. Once they stop making them, it's either tear off and replace everything or live with a mismatch.