I didn't say that no early failures would be covered by the Act. I said that I didn't think there would be a remedy under the Act for a computer printer that was a single example failure at 30 months. I find that the demand for ink cartridges drops rapidly about six months after the last printer using that cartridge is made and falls to very low levels about 12-18 months after. That suggests that most people change their printers about every year or two. That would be a factor a Court would take into consideration when deciding what is a reasonable expectation of life from a printer and IMO the Court would not find an isolated failure at 30 months to be unreasonable.
That is where the concept of mean time to failure comes in. If mean time to failure is 30 months, a lot will fail well before that and they could be considered not fit for purpose. If a single printer failing at 30 months is an unusual event, the mean time to failure is likely to be a lot longer. OTOH, that might also mean that the manufacturer would be better disposed to making a goodwill gesture.
Colin Bignell