In early 2015 (I believe it was January) I purchased a iPhone 6 from Spark.

On the 01/02/16 I my iPhone 6 was sent away for repair by Spark. It had developed an issue where calls were sounding distant. The staff member noted that the camera had moved internally and seemed to imply that he had seen this issue before. It sounds like this is related to a manufacturing defect.

On the 09/02/16 I was notified my phone was back. A staff member let me know that it was a replacement phone.

As of early last month (June 2017) this issue has occurred again. On the 5th of July I attempted to take this back to the Spark store for repair, however they have refused to send it away for assessment or fix this issue at their cost as it is now out of their 24 month warranty (from the original purchase date).

I should also note that I am very careful with my phones, they are always in a case. I treat them with care, I have never had a screen protector on any one of my phones and have never had a broken screen. The phone has no physical damage.

I have subsiquently contacted multiple managers at Spark and put through a complaint via their website (at a managers recommendation) to only get told that they will only honor the 24 month warranty from the original purcahse date (despite my phone being replaced).

I have been told multiple times that the Consumer Gurantees Act does not cover me for this (it is illegal to mislead some one to their rights under the act) and have faced no end of issues trying to speak to some one out of the bounds of their strict policies that can see reason.

I have loged a dispute with the Telecommunication Dispute Resolution (TDR) scheme which seem to be able to hear these issues. 

My reasoning is as follows:

1) As per the Consumer Gurantees Act, the goods should be of acceptable quality. A phone such as a iPhone 6 which was one of the most expensive phones that you could buy at the time should be of acceptable quality to last for this period without needing multiple repairs.

2) As per the Consumer Gurantees Act (19 subsection 2) "the replacement goods shall, for the purposes of this Act, be deemed to be supplied by the supplier and the guarantees and obligations arising under this Act consequent upon a supply of goods to a consumer shall apply to the replacement goods." The replacement phone should have a new implied warranty which should last (by Spark's own definition) at least 2 years.

3) As per the Consumer Gurantees Act the goods should last a resonable lifetime. I would also argue that only 2 years and 6 months is not a resonable liftime for a top of the line Apple iPhone and no one would reasonably buy this device knowning that it might only last this period.

All up I am very disappointed in how this has been handled, but it seems to be very common place in the industry, so a question for everyone here.

Do you think it is acceptable for a iPhone (purchased new) to last only 2.5 years?