Unexpected issues with Rega planar TT, a respectful manufacturer product?

About a year ago I bough a Rega planar 2 turntable. I do not play much LPs, I bought it just for a few LPs I have. It should have around 20 hours of burn-in now. It turned out that a more than $600 unit has  a 1-dollar phono cable incorporated into it (which, by some reason is called a "premium" one). In fact, I did not see an RCA cable that bad even with cheap equipment. Well, not really nice but this was not yet fatal. A few weeks ago,  my attempt to use the TT has failed. One of the channels did not work, and after a few tests it was clear that it is TT, one of the RCA terminals. There was no force made on it or something similar.

Surprisingly, i did not find a technical support option on the Rega web page, they merely send you to their dealers. I have contacted the local Rega dealer and the answer was that they can check replace the cable at a some cost (whereas supposedly, it has a "life-time warranty" and it is a practically new unit). My question was, if they have some instructions to replace their "premium" built-in RCA cable, that I could follow for the replacement. Since then, there was no answer. I also contacted the US/International Rega dealer with whom I bough the TT, still no answer. 

In addition, the TT has another problem, just from the beginning. Normally, when it is powered on, the plate moves to the opposite direction. After several  (identical) attempts (on/off), it may finally choose the right direction. This is of course quite bothering but i did not try to clarify this issue before since i do not use the TT often. 

Normally I try to avoid complains but i think that this case is "quite special".