Lifespan of Hayward Blue Essence salt cell

[SGPlayer]

Hi everyone.
It's been over a year (16 months) since we had our pool redone and now I have a question about my chlorine generator.
What is the service lifespan of these units?
It's a Hayward Blue Essence salt cell for pools up to 20k gallons.
Ours has been cleaned regularly following the manufactuers instructions but lately seems to have degraded in performance.
Before todays cleaning it was reading a super low 200 (usually reads between 2700 - 3500).
Now after the cleaning it's only up to 300.
The service cell light will not reset now either.

Calls to our rebuilder / installer have gone unanswered, to the point of frustration.
Seems as he just doesn't want to deal with any warranty issues at all.
We had to have a spa light replaced under warranty several months ago, and he farmed it out to another company saying that he wasn't an authorized dealer.
Now I have my doubts about him in general.

But back to my question. Do these salt cells regularly fail after a year or so?
Or should they have a longer lifespan?

Thanks, Dave

 

[chiefwej]

Look on the cell for the serial number. First digit is length of warranty followed by when it was manufactured. If you have a Leslie's Pool Store nearby they should be able to test it. If it has failed and is in the warranty period, contact Hayward directly.

 

[JamesW]

What are the diagnostic readings?

 

[SGPlayer]

The diagnostic codes were check salt, which checked out at 3000ppm, though it said 200ppm.
And inspect cell, which I cleaned and then the reading increased to 300ppm.

I did take the cell to my local pool store that tested the cell and determined that it was indeed bad.
They are also a warranty station for the product. And it was already a year out of warranty.
My pool rebuilder had pulled a fast one on me & installed a unit that was already 2 years old (the warranty period) when installed.
It may have even been used...

So I had no choice but to replace it.
Opted for a larger unit, a Hayward Turbo Cell, with a 4 year warranty.
Installed it and all is good once again.

Thanks for the assistance.