Sonos five dies out after 2.5 years

Whatever.  You asked about American consumers.  There are distinct cultural differences between how the US and places like the UK/EU view warranties and I explained those differences.  Make of that what you will.

​@Ronnno, You are required to return the broken item to Sonos by filling out an RMA request in order to get a replacement. A courier will deliver the replacement device and collect the damaged one. Sonos has internal workshops in the Netherlands and Poland, where the devices are refurbished and afterwards resold as second hand items.

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But I suppose the 30% voucher doesn’t include returning the broken one… Because it would be make business three times in one…

RMA returns and new purchases are treated the same, down to the warranty terms and conditions.

I have filed the request and am in contact with both Sonos support and their local representative. But i was not offered any replacement, just a 30% voucher to “upgrade”

Just want to clear up a few things regarding the 30% discount (at least as it works here in the US):

1. Under the Sonos Upgrade Program if you own the product and it’s registered in your Sonos account you may have a discount up to 30% towards the purchase of a new product.  There is no stipulation that the product (working or not) be returned under an RMA to Sonos. See the particulars here .
2. If Sonos offers a 30% discount as compensation for a defective product that is out of warranty you may (emphasis on may) be required to return the defective product via RMA. Sonos pays for shipping. That makes sense to ensure people aren’t trying to get a discount towards a replacement product under false pretense. *

All said if in your country you have a 30% discount under the Upgrade Program for your Five just; use Option 1 above and do as you wish with the defective Five. I’m not suggesting that you do...just explaining options that may be available.

 * The RMA may direct shipping to a 3rd party location. That is a common business practice as manufacturers typically don’t want the product unless they feel there are extenuating circumstances that require research to determine the cause of the failure. Manufacturers may also have the 3rd party retrieve components that can be reused.

A replacement item isn’t cost-free, it’s also discounted by 30%. The difference between a replacement and a discount offer is purely of legal nature.

Sonos offers extended warranties for folks not happy with the standard (in the US) year. I buy them for Sonos that I am gifting to someone, not for myself.

So far I haven't had a Sonos speaker or component fail, some of my Sonos remotes did fail or suffer battery failures.

Offering a repair service needs to make economic sense to Sonos, hopefully they will see something good in the refurbish operation and expand it. Many repairs are not cheap, it may cost $200 in labor to replace a part that costs a few pennies. Might make more sense for a small repair shop to add Sonos to their repair skills but I haven't seen any reports of folks fixing Sonos commercially doing well out of it. 

Repair can often involve uncomfortable costs — especially for units that don’t often fail. The technician must spend time diagnosing and often put the unit aside while parts are ordered. Then there is the other side where all failures of a popular unit are sent to one large national repair shop and routed to a single bench. The unit typically fails in one of three ways and the tech can sort this in a minute or two. Parts for all three failures are sitting at the bench. The tech is very familiar with disassembly and can process through 10-15 units per day.

I don’t have any hard data, but I suspect that SONOS FIVE falls near the “don’t often fail”, hard to disassemble end of the spectrum. This increases the cost to repair for those units that do fail.

Would you be comfortable with a $200-300 repair and shipping cost for an out of warranty unit?

A certain number of failures is inevitable. Warranty costs must be built into the initial cost of a unit. Long warranties may increase the initial consumer cost to the point where sales dwindle. A nice marketing ploy is to publicize an ‘n’ year warranty, but internally finance an ‘n+1’ or ‘n+2’ year warranty. This results in a popular company because it can be generous with seemingly out of warranty coverage. This extended coverage can also bite because a customer might claim that the company knew the product was unreliable because the warranty was graciously extended.

There can be bad batches with a high failure rate. Companies are usually generous if a failed product is in one of these batches. I know a speaker company that had a batch of speakers fail soon after purchase or in shipment. Repair parts failed during shipment. This was decades ago and most of these speakers, pre and post bad batch, are still in service. The fundamental issue was finally traced to a technician working on the assembly line during a three day period who was not following written procedures.

Bottom line: keep talking with SONOS because you may get lucky. In the future you might consider purchasing extended warranties for any products that you purchase (from any company).

I haven't taken any Sonos apart since I wanted to play with the chassis of my bricked (early upgrade program) ones and unless the newer ones are very different getting to the electronics, for testing and/or repair, isn't going to be fun.