- This topic has 20 replies, 4 voices, and was last updated 21 years, 7 months ago by
.
-
Posts
-
Hi – 2 years ago we had a kitchen fitted at great expense and replaced our sturdy 10yr old d/w with this one. Exactly 1 month before the warranty had expired, the d/w failed to drain and the timer was replaced under warranty. That timer failed a month later, as did its replacement and the next 2 timers. This last one had worked satisfactorily for 6 months but…… yep, it too has failed.
I have now placed an order for a Siemens machine and rather than throw this one onto the scrap heap, anyone wish to take this one – there might be some salvage. Anyway, needless to say, I am really pi$$ed off with the engineers for Diplomat, funnily enough the same engineer that sub contracts to Currys (drinks very strong coffee, generally polite, but is incapable of repairing either this appliance or a washing machine).
I am based in Mid Wales email is gilmour@bigfoot.com
Re: Diplomat ADP 8132 – anyone want mine?
hi,
Sorry to read your experience. However you should write a letter of dissatisfaction to the parties involved in supplying service to you. You may think “it’ll get thrown in the bin” but I assure you it won’t. We in this industry are trying to move our Service levels up and in response the better companies are increasing what they pay. This means they hold us more accountable and welcome complaint and praise with equality in order to appraise what they get for the money.
Write and help this industry improve itself, bring it to the attention of the Manufacturer that training just might make a difference…..just as your letter might
regardsKevin
Re: Diplomat ADP 8132 – anyone want mine?
Hi Kevin – your suggestion is one which I did take up with the kitchen fitting company, MFI and Dixons Group. The correspondance was conducted publically on two financial bullettin boards (2 differing electrical componants failing at the same time – one supplied by each company but using the same engineer) with mixed result. Merloni, the manufacturer of the washing machine arranged to have the thread pulled through their financial PR company – I believe it moved the share price! and MFI issued a profit warning.
Not, I hasten to add, soley on the back of my dis-satisfaction…..
So no-one want this heap of carp, as the dyslexic fisherman said?
EJ,
Merloni did not manufacture that appliance, an ADP8132 which is a dishwasher in fact, it is a Smeg produced appliance.
Most of the washers sold by MFI are Merloni though and whilst timers in them do occasionally fail in my experience, it is rare and not a common problem at all. To put that in perspective out of 100 service calls I would anticipate maybe two timers at most from my experience.
It is also my experience that MFI are a very “customer focussed” company and they do not like to leave customers with unresolved issues, I am sure that other repairers here would echo that as well.
Can you offer some more details and clarify the actual appliance that is at fault?
K.
Re: Diplomat ADP 8132 – anyone want mine?
Merloni were the manufacturer of the washing machine. I am indeed aware that SMEG are the manufacturer of the dishwasher. The sevice engineer was the same person for both appliances in spite that they were supplied by different companiers’ He was neither punctual nor, I suggest, sufficiently graced with the gift of inter-personal relationship for him to be courteous enough to apologise for his lack of training to identify faults in either machine.
On the last occasion that he visited my home, he was ejected after he called me a liar. It was at that point when I took the matter up with Milan HQ for Merloni and that evening when the UK Sales Director resolved this by telephone. A new washine machine was delivered on the following day after purchase on the internet and compensation was paid by Dixons shortly afterwards.
Regarding the dishwasher. Needless to say, I would not allow this cretin of an engineer into my home, and made that quite plain in my telephone conversation with MFI. A field engineer from Birmingham was the last visitor to my home to replace the timer 6 months ago. Admittedly, he had not verified that that was indeed the faulty componant, but replaced it anyway. the machine had worked well up to mid July. My family have been on holiday for the last 2 months and used the machine intermittetly in this time. The symptoms that had been the pre-cursor to the failure of the timers has been exactly the same, hence I bought a new machine last Thursday (it has yet to be delivered).
But, and this is the interesting part…… having read with great interest the re-setting of the electronics, by turning off, turning on, pushing buttons 4 times, turning off and re-starting, the “fault” seems to have cured itself and I might have been quite wrong in my condemnation of both MFI and SMEG. I might also have needlessly spent £700 wastefully in buying another appliance, but that is actually not too important as far as I am concerned.
That this engineer could have made incorrect diagnosis through either deliberate or genuine mistake makes me very angry and discredits the valuable service provided by the many hard-working and competant service engineers that do exist – especially those who contribute and dispense brilliant advice, quite freely through channels such as this site.
It is the ilk such as you that restore confidence in white goods suppliers albeit at the expense of those like myself who receive dreadful after-sales service riddled with deceit from shabby 2nd rate organisations lining their own pockets, presumably through the lucrative componant supply chain, generous mileage allowance, supplier and manufacturer service contracts.
Rant over.
ps – might just shove the d/w in the garden shed as a backup.
Re: Diplomat ADP 8132 – anyone want mine?
Training of engineers is a bit of an industry sore spot as not many manufacturers offer much, if any and it is something that we are actively involved in trying to address. Some manufacturers and retailers, like MFI and DSG funnily enough, recognise the need for this especially with today’s more complex and electronically driven appliances and they are trying to work with us on solving the traditional issues of training. It is true that many engineers out there are insufficiently trained on many appliances with manufacturers launching products before even telling the service agents that they exist let alone how to diagnose a fault on one. It is sad but true that training is very expensive and with the low cost of appliances these days training has been one of the things that appear to have been cut back on.
We try here, on UK Whitegoods, to not only help the public but also the trade as many independents out there have no access to any training of any kind. Any courses ran in places like colleges would be of little or no use as by the time they were drawn up they would be almost out of date as the products change so quickly.
It is a problem, we are trying to address it.
We offer information freely to both the trade (in the trade forums obviously) and the public forums in an attempt to prove that we as a trade do care and we do do as much as we can to help people. After all, that’s our job.
K.
Re: Diplomat ADP 8132 – anyone want mine?
hi,
Think Kwatts covered most points from our perspective….however he missed out that both of us do know MFI service well and indeed had a pint with the Service manager this last weekend as he attended our 3rd meeting. He did state that Mfi were looking at new product training. When he visits my business next I will show this thread to him.regards
Kevin
Re: Diplomat ADP 8132 – anyone want mine?
Might be worthwhile pointing the MFI bloke to
the share price chart which clearly shows the profit warning and its eeffect on the share priceHi Ej,
I take it your intervention was at 128? Over on the right?Been an interesting thread. We independents have rather got used to the idea of the total collapse of Merloni washers at an early age; the dishwasher is a rather different matter – the SMEG machines are generally good quality products.
That said, they have a known problem with water level control, which can lead to an interesting array of faults, ranging from no fill, no heat, circulating without water, hanging in the programme (timer fault? No!) and more.
Once the machine is out of the housing the repair takes 10 minutes and 9 times out of 10 no parts are required!
Just to complete the thread, I’d be interested to know what the symptons were!
Regards,
Penguin45.Re: Diplomat ADP 8132 – anyone want mine?
Hi,
My wife and I bought MFI shares a quite a few years ago at 26p and 45p and sold half our holding at 135p, since then they have been up as your chart shows but I reckon I’ll hold the remainder for now.
Will defo buy at 45p again……(I wish)regards
Kevin
Re: Diplomat ADP 8132 – anyone want mine?
Hi – the symptons were that the machine failed to drain and 3 lamps on the programme array would light dimly almost as if they were “shorting out”.
The engineer on the first visit fiddled around underneath the machine and prodded with a test meter sundry circuits. When the front cover was removed he placed probes over the timer assembly and “diagnosed” the fault. A timer was ordered and he pomptly failed to return on the following week, but managed to struggle in on the week following 6 hours later than his “firm” appointment.
Every call out since that time, exactly the same faults were “diagnosed” to the timer.
I do not have confidence in the machine and most certainly not with the cretin masquerading as mechanic, for engineer would insult those, like you who are competent and professional.
So, go on tell me I have needlessly bought a Siemens machine!!!! I might just have a quiet word with MFI – although I did notice that 2 senior exec’s today were fired (fell on their sword).
Thanks for a great site.
If you are thinking about buying shares in MFI, wait. Profit warnings come in threes and the shares from a Technical perspective are not suggesting that the downtrend has been reversed. It is not unusual for the share price to drop a further 10{e5d1b7155a01ef1f3b9c9968eaba33524ee81600d00d4be2b4d93ac2e58cec2d} – 20{e5d1b7155a01ef1f3b9c9968eaba33524ee81600d00d4be2b4d93ac2e58cec2d} over the next month. Once the SP has truly bottommed out, and has climbed above the 50 day moving average, then it might be worth considering bunging a few bob at the shares. Don’t know what your circumstamces are, but I wouldn’t touch this company at the moment…..
Re: Diplomat ADP 8132 – anyone want mine?
For the avoidence of doubt, the chart which I illustrated in a former post is fed with live information and is the actual share price at close for MFI.
The Intraday price for MFI can be seen below:
Not sure whether anyone is interested in the financial side of white goods, but we are all consumers, even those who are earning squillions of pounds in the City and where poor service or products impact on companies ability to raise money and employ people and provide profits to the shareholders, it is reflected in the share price performance.
Re: Diplomat ADP 8132 – anyone want mine?
Of course MFI core business is not White Goods as such, although they will be an important percentage of sales and the spin off is the aftersales insurance arrangements. Really MFI are about furniture as the core and perhaps, over expansion into europe and the inability to deliver the goods on time and in full is the real reason why the share price is in the doldrums.
As you say Service and Product is what counts and there are varying levels of that…..as other manufacturers are finding out. It won’t be long before the impact of Service and product effects the main stream as well (hotperloni as an example). MFI are not alone in delivering a poor service as in your case….Many of the household names are failing…whilst we independants are in our prime..regards
kevin
To show that I have no bias. The chart below is the share price for Dixons Group. Their white goods are dealt through the Currys chain.
The share price has recovered strongly and this might in part be due to record transactions in the housing market. With a slowing down in property sales, attention is being turned to improvements – and the value that it adds to property. The obvious area for enhancement is the kitchen – and this includes the white goods therein.
And white goods have a finite life, don’t they? I suppose 10 years for a washing machine, 3 for a tumble dryer and 6 for a fridge. But unless kitchens are fitted out with the very latest gadgetry, how does one distinguish one 3 bed semi from the next in terms of enhanced value for money?
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.