The newly bought Gree air conditioner made a strange noise, and the consumer’s request to change the machine was rejected.

■ Press:The abnormal sound of the air conditioner continues, and the status of Gree as the "air conditioner brother" behind the quality problems is not guaranteed.

The air conditioner that I just bought for 2 months has abnormal noise during use. After applying for after-sales service for many days, the maintenance has not been completed and the replacement has not been settled. This is an annoyance that Mr. Chen of Yangjiang, Guangdong Province has encountered.

After the failure of the air conditioner, the after-sales maintenance personnel visited the house many times, but the failure was not eliminated. After the maintenance personnel issued the exchange identification form, Mr. Chen proposed to change the machine based on this, which was also rejected by the merchants. Why does the newly purchased air conditioner have abnormal sound problems? Can Mr. Chen’s appeal be realized?

Product failure: the new air conditioner keeps making abnormal noise.

"This air conditioner has only been bought for 2 months. How can such a problem occur?" Mr. Chen told the Consumer Report.

On March 5th this year, Mr. Chen spent 2999 yuan to buy a Gree Yuntian KFR-35GW 1.5-horse hang-up air conditioner in the official flagship store of Tmall Gree.

▲ Screenshot of Mr. Chen’s order to buy air conditioners.

In May, the weather turned hot, and Mr. Chen began to use this air conditioner, only to find that it was faulty.

"Probably on May 14th (2021), I found that when this air conditioner was running, there was an abnormal noise in the room, like the noise made by some machines in the factory when they were running." Mr. Chen provided several videos about the operation of this air conditioner to Consumer Report, and you can really hear the sound of "da da da" from the inside of the air conditioner.

Mr. Chen said that this air conditioner was purchased in a regular channel and only started to be used after the weather turned hot. He had doubts about the abnormal sound of the air conditioner: "The newly bought air conditioner has abnormal noise. I think this air conditioner itself has quality problems."

After-sales problem: maintenance failed, and replacement failed.

After discovering the fault, Mr. Chen immediately contacted Gree after-sales staff to inspect the air conditioner, but the problem was not solved.

“Our local Gree after-sales service point sent a maintenance master to check the air conditioner three times, and took the shell apart to check it, but it still didn’t solve the problem.Mr. Chen said that the maintenance master told him that the air conditioner needed maintenance, but there were no related spare parts for the time being.

▲ The maintenance master comes to check the air conditioner.

To this end, Mr. Chen also reflected the problem to the official flagship store of Tmall Gree. According to the chat record provided by Mr. Chen, the customer service staff of the official flagship store of Tmall Gree said that the maintenance master would come to the door to issue a quality inspection form, and if it could not be repaired, a replacement could be arranged.

On May 18th, Gree’s local after-sales service point issued a home air conditioner return and exchange certificate for Mr. Chen, which pointed out that there was a performance failure in Mr. Chen’s air conditioner, which was "the air conditioner rattled from time to time during use".

▲ Gree’s local after-sales service point is the return and exchange appraisal certificate issued by Mr. Chen.

However, when Mr. Chen hoped that Tmall Gree’s official flagship store would provide replacement measures with the exchange certificate, the other party said that "it needs to be repaired twice before it can be replaced". For such a result, Mr. Chen does not agree: "Before, I said that I could change the documents, but now I say that I can’t change the new machine. If I can repair it, I should fix it as soon as possible, instead of letting me use an abnormal air conditioner after more than ten days."

▲ Mr. Chen’s request for replacement was rejected.

On May 28th, Mr. Chen told Consumer Report that Gree Service Station had completed the maintenance of the air conditioner, but after the maintenance, Jamlom’s abnormal sound could still be heard, and his demand for changing the machine was still unsatisfied.

To this end, Consumer Report sent an interview letter to Gree Electric regarding whether there are quality problems in Mr. Chen’s air conditioner and what measures Gree has taken to solve them, but no reply was received as of press time.

Guo Xiaoming, a well-known legal blogger "@ Tandian View" and a lawyer of Sichuan Juheng Law Firm, believes that according to the Provisions on the Responsibility for Repairing, Replacing and Returning Some Commodities, within the validity period of the three-package household air conditioner, the products that still can’t be used normally after being repaired twice will be returned by the seller on the basis of the repair records and certificates provided by the repairer. Therefore, in the case that Gree’s official after-sales service point issues an appraisal document for returning goods, the merchant should return goods.

“If negotiation with the merchants fails, consumers can complain to the Consumers Association, the product quality supervision and management department or the industrial and commercial administration department, or directly bring a lawsuit to the people’s court.. "Guo Xiaoming suggested.

In the comment area of Tmall Gree’s official flagship store, Yuntian KFR-35GW, 1.5 hanging air conditioners, Consumer Report found that some consumers commented on the problems of water and water leakage in their air conditioners several days after purchase, but these comments did not get the response from the merchants.

▲ Some consumers have commented that there is a water leakage problem in Gree Yuntian KFR-35GW large 1.5-horse hang-up air conditioner (Source: Tmall)

Has the domestic "air conditioner brother" changed hands?

For a long time, Gree has been known as the "ceiling of the air-conditioning industry". With advanced technology and R&D and innovation capabilities, Gree air-conditioning is ahead of its peers in many aspects, and its sales volume ranks first in the industry all the year round, ranking the first in the air-conditioning industry.

However, this pattern seems to have undergone subtle changes.

According to the financial report data released by Gree, in 2020, the revenue of Gree air-conditioning was 117.882 billion yuan, down nearly 15% compared with the same period, while the revenue of main competitor Midea last year was 121.215 billion yuan.

In terms of sales volume, Gree air conditioners sold 29.63 million units in the domestic market last year, which still maintains an advantage in China, but only sold 10.68 million units in overseas markets. In contrast, last year Midea sold 25.63 million units in the domestic market and 22.41 million units in overseas markets. Starting from the overall sales volume, Gree air conditioners sold about 8 million units less than those in the United States last year, and the domestic "air conditioner brother" seems to have changed hands.

Image source: the idea of the worm

However, Gree seems to be calm about this. At the recent performance briefing of Gree Electric, Chairman and President Dong Mingzhu said that the company’s products have developed from a single category to multiple categories, and now they have covered two major areas: consumer goods and industrial products. Among them, the main business of air-conditioning has expanded from household air-conditioning to commercial air-conditioning and air-conditioning under special working conditions, and will also expand to the fields of refrigeration and cold transportation, military national defense, medical health and so on.

In fact, due to the long service life of air conditioners and the improvement of people’s consumption power, almost every household is equipped with air conditioners. At present, the air conditioning market has gradually become saturated. Therefore, it is not easy for air-conditioning products to achieve continuous innovation. If Gree Air Conditioning wants to regain the throne of "the first brother of air conditioning", it should not only continuously improve its product competitiveness and service level, but also constantly pay attention to the voice and rights of consumers and truly win the reputation and trust of consumers.