Acceptable Turn Around Times for Repairs?

ecc83

"God I don't miss working for those pricks. " Right on Adam. I had a similar experience with Rumbelows.

They opened a store in our Grosvenor centre but were trying to run service from Rugby. This did not work so well and in any case the service guys at Rugby did not like the long journeys.

My first year was very busy clearing the backlog but I got service visits down to next day as a rule whereas people had been waiting up to a week! But, inevitably "da management" knew better and change my work regime which resulted in vastly increasing my travelling mileage/time and meant I could not get to any customer before about 11am EVEN in Northampton.

Six months later in some very bad snow I was nearly put off the road by a Transit so I thought "fuck this"! an told them where to shove the job and got one the next week with South Midlands Co-op!

WTF does every middle manager/politician/civil servant etc know how to do a technician/teacher/doctor/nurse's job BETTER than they??!

Dave.

jpfamps

WTF does every middle manager/politician/civil servant etc know how to do a technician/teacher/doctor/nurse's job BETTER than they??!

Dave.

They don't! Neither do many managers.

Most organizations I've worked in run despite the management...

Dave, I'm fully aware that you used to work in the repair business, but that was predominantly at a time when consumer goods were of relatively higher value and often made in the UK, so worth paying someone a UK wage to fix.

If you manufacturer in the UK, you will have all the components for repairs in the UK; if you outsource to say China, the you don't automatically have a the requisite parts, especially with current lean and just-in-time manufacturing practices. Essentially inventory is a significant cost which has to be recovered somewhere.

Equally there are real problems with parts becoming obsolete, especially in class D amps and switching mode power supplies.

I really can't see how more legislation is going to do any good, even if you trust that people making the legislation will do a good job of it, which I don't; the consumer is already very well protected by existing legislation.

Ultimately the consumer has made the choice; they want as cheap as possible.

The internet hasn't helped in this regard.

Ultimately virtually all shops are now beholden to 3rd parties for their repairs and in the OPs case I can see what's happened: It was returned to the original seller, who then returned it to BOSS UK, who didn't have the part which needed to be order from Japan.

From personnal experience with BOSS spares you can be waiting weeks for parts, and often you can't use an alterantive.

Chalky

Whenever you send something back for repair, ALWAYS tell them you need it fixed asap and get a target date. Tell them if you don't get it back by the target date then you want a refund. Confirm what you have said in an email.

midlifecrisis

personally if I had a new amp go wrong within the first year, I know as a consumer I would expect it to be replaced immediately or refunded, no ifs or buts, don't want it repaired. not my problem about parts and waiting etc. Just insist on a new replacement or refund. 9 days or 9 months is immaterial.

Adam_MD

midlifecrisis;588612" said:

personally if I had a new amp go wrong within the first year, I know as a consumer I would expect it to be replaced immediately or refunded, no ifs or buts, don't want it repaired. not my problem about parts and waiting etc. Just insist on a new replacement or refund. 9 days or 9 months is immaterial.

It doesn't work like that. Retailers of electrical equipment have a right to inspect and repair or replace the faulty product in a 'reasonable time'. This is usually accepted as 28 working days. If the fault developed in the first 6 months it's usually seen as having been there since day 1 so you're more likely to be able to push for a refund but in the second half of a manufacturers warranty it's down to the owner to prove a fault existed from the beginning and you'd have to pay for your own independent engineers report etc. in reality it's easier to just accept the repair. As long as the retailer does repair it or replace it within 28 days they have no legal obligation to refund. That's not to say some retailers won't replace it immediately as a customer service gesture but they have no legal responsibility to do so.

Bellycaster

Gear4Music have kindly agreed to send me a Cheque for the purchase amount. I asked "Why a Cheque?", and was told they can't refund the money back to the Card it was purchased on as it was purchased more than 6 months ago. Who knew?

Anyway, that's a line drawn through that one. Thanks for the help again.

Adam_MD

Sweet @Bellycaster total result dude. I thought you'd have gotten a credit note.

Bellycaster

Thanks @Adam_MD

They pissed me off by not contacting me yesterday, after I was assured on Tuesday's phone call that someone would contact me to resolve the issue. So, the gloves came off today, I wasn't rude, but I was Blunt and "To the Point". I never even got a slight resistance from them, they just agreed on the spot, to my amazement.

I just want to get that Cheque payed in and cleared.

:-)

Danny1969

Lol to be honest I bet that amp was never gonna be fixed and they knew it. There's money in sales ... no money to be made  in warranty repairs 

Bellycaster

Danny1969 said:

Lol to be honest I bet that amp was never gonna be fixed and they knew it. There's money in sales ... no money to be made  in warranty repairs 

True, I doubt they'll miss my £179 very much. I did say £189 earlier, I got the price wrong, I've had a few sleeps since then :-)

Chalky

When you made it plain what you wanted they gave it to you. Good on them. How companies deal with a problem says a lot about them.

ecc83

There are really three different circumstances here.

The OP had a in warranty product and consumer law is, as has been mentioned, very good in this area but of course "You can lead a horse".....! Who here watches The Sherrifs are Coming"?

Once out of warranty we get to the spares holding situation and this is one area at least where I think legislation could help. It is not, I would aver to onerous to expect manufacturers to hold spares in a country they trade in? NOT to do so puts all indigenous makers at a huge disadvantage. Yes it can be difficult and costly to build a spare inventory for a new product when you don't know the likely sales and fault incidences (so BUILD 'EM BETTER!) But they have a 12 month "window" during the warranty period.

In 50 years I know the electronics industry will always scream "stuck pig" at any kind of legislation. Moulded mains plugs would cause mass premise closures and throw tens of 1,000s out of work. Fitting a few Rs and Caps to keep taxis out was "uneconomical". The present consumer laws were going to raze Civilization as we know it and on a wider front, the minimum wage would throw us back to the 1930s!

And apart from forcing companies to keep a reasonable spares stock I believe people should be qualified before they set themselves up as service agents. (Yes, I would probably fail this "on paper" but traders would be able to show good practice over time and customer testimonials).

I do not think it unreasonable to require ANY business to have  fixed site, registered  premises and a LAND LINE phone? There are "cowboys indeed but instead of a horse they ride Transit with an iPhone!

The last category is older, legacy products so there has to be a time limit on spares holding. I think 5 years as a minimum but given the longevity of well designed guitar amps, 10 years would seem better?

Dave.

Adam_MD

Does Germany still require companies to make spares for 10 years after a company discontinues a product.

ecc83

Adam_MD said:

Does Germany still require companies to make spares for 10 years after a company discontinues a product.

Ah! I thought someone did! I hope they still do.

Dave.

ICBM

That simply isn't practical with a lot of modern equipment. We are not far off the point where most smaller consumer-level electronics is not easily repairable - not without replacing entire boards, which in many cases are almost the only thing in the casing. Keeping 'spares' at that point would be essentially the same as keeping the item in production. How many do you need to keep? As many as the number of items originally sold, or just a number based on the projected failure rate? What happens if they then run out? There won't be any way of re-manufacturing them if they use components which have become obsolete.

In not very many years I can see the process of warranty being very simple - if it fails within the warranty, the customer gets a new item. At that point the company only needs to keep a few spare ones back for a year or so after the last one was sold to cover replacements, and after that all bets are off.

As a repairer this doesn't fill me with any great enthusiasm, but at least there is still a lot of older kit that people want to keep running, particularly valve amps and older pedals...

jpfamps

I think the real problem here is that we are paying Chinese wages to build gear, and UK wages to repair it.

Given the depreciation in most consumer goods, this starts to look economical.

jpfamps

ecc83 said:

ics industry will always scream "stuck pig" at any kind of legislation. Moulded mains plugs would cause mass premise closures and throw tens of 1,000s out of work. Fitting a few Rs and Caps to keep taxis out was "uneconomical". The present consumer laws were going to raze Civilization as we know it and on a wider front, the minimum wage would throw us back to the 1930s!

And apart from forcing companies to keep a reasonable spares stock I believe people should be qualified before they set themselves up as service agents. (Yes, I would probably fail this "on paper" but traders would be able to show good practice over time and customer testimonials).

I do not think it unreasonable to require ANY business to have  fixed site, registered  premises and a LAND LINE phone? There are "cowboys indeed but instead of a horse they ride Transit with an iPhone!

The last category is older, legacy products so there has to be a time limit on spares holding. I think 5 years as a minimum but given the longevity of well designed guitar amps, 10 years would seem better?

Dave. 

Remind me of your opinion of RoHS (and indeed wind turbines).

midlifecrisis

Adam_MD said:

midlifecrisis;588612" said:

personally if I had a new amp go wrong within the first year, I know as a consumer I would expect it to be replaced immediately or refunded, no ifs or buts, don't want it repaired. not my problem about parts and waiting etc. Just insist on a new replacement or refund. 9 days or 9 months is immaterial.

It doesn't work like that. Retailers of electrical equipment have a right to inspect and repair or replace the faulty product in a 'reasonable time'. This is usually accepted as 28 working days. If the fault developed in the first 6 months it's usually seen as having been there since day 1 so you're more likely to be able to push for a refund but in the second half of a manufacturers warranty it's down to the owner to prove a fault existed from the beginning and you'd have to pay for your own independent engineers report etc. in reality it's easier to just accept the repair. As long as the retailer does repair it or replace it within 28 days they have no legal obligation to refund. That's not to say some retailers won't replace it immediately as a customer service gesture but they have no legal responsibility to do so.

not sure that's true, couple of yrs ago I bought some computer equip, went wrong within a few months, took it back, retailer gave me that bullshit, took them to small claims court and won. judge awarded me full retail costs plus court costs and gave retailer a right bollicking. consumer law is weighted on the side of the consumer no matter what the retailers may try and tell you. you do not have to accept a repair