Patten or Genuine Spare Parts ????

In all honesty Brian I don’t use pattern if I can avoid it unless it’s the same thing in a different box, like pumps for example. I mean we know in some cases what the manufacturers are paying for them, we can buy the Askolls for a fiver and yet some of them are taking the Mickey with the prices of spares, it’s a well known fact. Just last night you saw me post on a Brandt door seal, which doubtless costs a quid to produce and has a sales price of £18.89 ex VAT and Comet will charge the poor customer £50 for the same part, how can that be justified? The worst are PCB’s though as all the manufacturers are taking the Mick with those!

Faced with the choice of using a £25 pattern PCB and getting the call or an £80 genuine PCB and losing it, what would you do? So yeah, there is a pricing element to it especailly as the retail prices of a replacement have dropped to stupidly low prices making it easier and more cost-effective to replace as opposed to repair in many instances.

Yes, I did wholesale spares for a bit and as you rightly say the wholesalers can make more on pattern and any of them in their right mind will take that route if possible. It’s just business, nothing personal.

Availability is not a problem with pattern as you normally have to order masses of the stuff to get the price for wholesale. From a service point of view, yes those points are important.

Technical info, maybe if manufacturers opened that door a bit they may find that they sell more spares and better targetted as well as general customer service levels being improved. But alas, most manufacturers regard tech info like the crown jewels and refuse to impart it without payment and, the guys that need to use (for example) the Hotpoint disc three or four times a year are not goint to pay the money you ask for it.

So they go in, look blankly at the product and tell the customer that they can’t repair it, good impression of the product eh? Even worse, they go in and don’t have a clue and simply tell the customer it need a motor and module and BER it, again there’s a customer lost to the brand.

The manufacturers need to have a rethink IMHO on a lot of this.

K.

Re: Patten or Genuine Spare Parts ????

Brian,

I endorse totally kwatt‘s sentiments here and further add that our combined comments are ratified throughout the independant repairers/traders in the UK.

The trade as you well know buys, sells and uses a great deal of pattern spares rather than the genuine. In many cases where the part is identical in every way but cheaper, it makes good financial sense to take that route. Merloni genuine spares are very reasonably priced, easy to obtain from many and varied sources, so I have no gripes there.

Technical information is what is desperately needed, bring back the old days when Hotpoint produced service manuals is what I want. Add it to the CD Rom BUT at a realistic price. Merloni is becoming a new ‘swear word’ in the trade, with so much sarcasm and critisism coming from all quarters. Due entirely I believe to lack of information and technical back-up. I will not and cannot recommend Merloni products to my customers any more. 5 or 6 years back I was singing their praises but no longer.

Sooner or later the whole thing is going to go ‘belly up’ at Peterborough, you need us, more than you realise at present. Do take note 😉

Martin

Re: Patten or Genuine Spare Parts ????

brian wrote:Service Manuals are available for all of our appliances. Most are list less discount. The list is around £13.00. Would you buy these if they were cheaper ? If so, what price would you be prepared to pay ex. Vat ?

Brian,

To be honest I did not realise Service Manuals were available throughout the range of Merloni products as you suggest 😕

So for example take the Ariston AWD1200UK? where do I find (on Partfinder) the Service Manual part number????

And why cannot it be incorporated within Partfinder (I realise it would cost more) citing what Electrolux have done with their very splendid ‘Distriparts CD Rom’ ful technical info, the lot on disc??? I trust you are aware of this CD publication and would welcome your comments as to why Merloni cannot do a similar one?

Martin

Re: Patten or Genuine Spare Parts ????

brian wrote:If a list of all of the manuals was available to the trade with a price of approx. £4.50 inc vat. Would they be of interest ?

Very much so indeed, go for it and put me down for selected ones at that price! 😉

brain wrote:As I understand most engineers now will base the price of the part on the job and not try to get list – is this true….??

No I very much doubt that! They would surely base the price of the part FROM list. If a genuine Plaset Hotpoint Pump comes out at £12.90 +VAT retail (e.g 1601972) and one can buy the pattern elsewhere (identical pattern Plaset Pump) for £6.55 trade, it is sold for £12.90 +VAT, I guarantee you that 😉

However fast turnover spares are fiercely competitive in any case and many national wholesalers do good deals on that type of genuine spare anyway. Our gripe is the price charged for Indesit Modules right now. 99{e5d1b7155a01ef1f3b9c9968eaba33524ee81600d00d4be2b4d93ac2e58cec2d} of Indesit/Ariston machines around 2 years old with a blown Module and/ or Motor, its a no no, chuck it in the bin job. Those Modules and Motors are way over the top in price. 🙁 30 quid each retail and perhaps we could fix a few rather than dragging them to the tip. Its a scandal anyway that Merloni should retail such rubbish IMHO but thats not your lookout eh Brian?

Martin

Re: Patten or Genuine Spare Parts ????

Brian,

It is a shame that Alex has’nt come in on this topic yet (he is probably on another one of his holiday’s ) because he was an ex-merloni service agent like me.
When we and many other INDEPENDANTS were approached to take the merloni service work on, we were told that a fair proportion of the work we could expect, would be chargable work.
I personally was told I could reasonably expect between 5{e5d1b7155a01ef1f3b9c9968eaba33524ee81600d00d4be2b4d93ac2e58cec2d} to 10{e5d1b7155a01ef1f3b9c9968eaba33524ee81600d00d4be2b4d93ac2e58cec2d} to be chargeable work by both Niel Taplin and Dave Tunicliffe.

I can assure you that the actual figure was less than 2{e5d1b7155a01ef1f3b9c9968eaba33524ee81600d00d4be2b4d93ac2e58cec2d} averaged over 3 years, in spite of advertising in the local papers and a good sized add in yellow pages.
That was because the customers perception of the value of their appliances was so low that many customers would not even go the cost of an average call out to see if the appliance was worth fixing. And I’m talking about an independants call out charge! not the £90 charge for changing a set of carbon brushes that Hotpoint get away with. Let’s face it Hotpoint and Merloni are the same thing now

I mean no offence as you are obviousley trying to push Hotpoint genuine spares.
If you want to suceed you have to go much better on price than the larger wholesalers not just match them. Remember they have to carry all the brands not just one. You also need to be able to deliver your goods by 10 a.m. next day and never mind selling manuals if you want to really shift your spares you should make the info more freely available to the trade and go down the Electrolux route and create a DVD with all the modles and technical information on, not just manuals for individual models with exploded part views only.
paper manuals are yesterday’s technology, and who the hell can carry a libary in the back of thier vans to cover the range.

So there you go Brian, if you wanted a serious answer to your question then these are a few starting points. If you are not able to deliver on any of the afore mentioned then you will always have an up hill struggle to shift any spares to the trade.

Regards as ever Del