Do I Tell?

[jag-12]

Purchased a dead Maytag Asko machine from ebay as spares for a couple of Primus Machines I looka after on camp sites.
From the machine discription :-
MAYTAG STAINLESS STEEL WASHING MACHINE, FOR SPARES OR REPAIR ONLY. PLEASE READ…..
LAST WEEK OUR WASHING MACHINE STOPPED WORKING, WE HAD AN ENGINEER COME OUT, FLEECE ME £85.00 TO INFORM ME THE MAIN CONTROL BOARD HAD WORN OUT. THIS PART IS £197.00 FROM MAYTAG, AND ABOUT 5MINUTES TO FIT,
HOWEVER MY WIFE HAS TWISTED MY ARM TO BUY A NEW MIELE WASHING MACHINE, AND FELT THAT THIS WAS TOO GOOD TO JUST THROW AWAY ( I COULD BE WRONG ) ?
Collected at weekend and was informed that the engineer had taken the lid off, saw a black patch on the PCB said thats your problem cost another £90 labour to fit the board.
The fault was m/c tripping electric as soon as switched on.
Had a look today. Burning on PCB is carbon dust around choke coil !!
Quick check with megger, element gone ,in stock with Connect at £16 !!
Question is do I let the guy who sold it know that he has been taken for a ride or let a cowboy repairer continue on his way?

[kwatt]

Re: Do I Tell?

jag-12 wrote:Question is do I let the guy who sold it know that he has been taken for a ride or let a cowboy repairer continue on his way?

I’d stay stoomph.

TBH, he probably didn’t know, didn’t check it out properly due to time or lack of information and simply guessed. Likely he got the call and thought it’d just be another Hoover or Hotpoint clone.

It’s like when you see an order/claim for a motor, module and whatever else… you jut think… uh huh…

We’ve all done it when put on the spot, sometimes even getting it wrong but mostly it’s just a case of CYS (Cover Your A**e). 😉

It’s like that Comet engineer thread thing, we all make mistakes from time to time but I don’t think it’s right to crucify someone for a simple mistake as we all make them. The trick is not to make it again.

K.

[Phidom]

Re: Do I Tell?

If the people are in your patch you should tell them so you get their future repair business. Otherwise, leave it be.

[silverbroom]

Re: Do I Tell?

Ken, That was a good, honest straight forward answer.

silverbroom

[jag-12]

Re: Do I Tell?

Well i guess if you can pull in £85 for a call out there is really not much need to actually repair anything.
Makes a mockery a buying a quality appliance, still only get 4 years use out of it then off to landfill.

[kwatt]

Re: Do I Tell?

I agree but, what do you do?

There’s a lot of people out there that come across something they don’t know, either can’t be bothered or don’t take time to find out about and have a stab at what’s wrong. Someone charging that amount is doing contract work so, ten calls a day most likely, he probably didn’t have the time to do the job correctly as he’s under too much pressure to move on to the next call. Been there, got the t-shirt.

The trouble is that, for most of the calls you do in that environment you’re either being underpaid and you’re under pressure or the guys are paid bonus on the number of completed calls. I’m sure you can work out what happens when you get a call on something you either don’t know or see once in a blue moon.

The short of it is, stuff gets written off when it really shouldn’t be. It’s not the fault of the engineers, it’s a fault in the system as a whole.

To chuck out an Asko made machine for a heater is just insane IMO and it’s hardly a challenge to find that out. A post in the trade tech forum would likely have had an answer in hours if not minutes.

But then, there’s a whole lot of repairers out there that are too scared to touch a computer let alone use this here internet thingybob…

K.

[jag-12]

Re: Do I Tell?

As i understand it this was a straight forward call from the customer to a repairer. Not via the manufacturer or an insurance company.
When you look at the figures if you are charging this much as a call out it does not pay to actually try and find out what is wrong just lift the lid BER and move on to the next job with the customer none the wiser but a lot poorer.

[Penguin45]

Re: Do I Tell?

I don’t know the circumstances of this particular machine, but you appear to have the nouse to have resolved the problem, so pass the machine on at a healthy profit and make a customer very happy. Your gain is the previous repairers loss – apart from the owners call-out; but that was their call. They could have phoned you instead, but they didn’t, so it’s not your problem.

Chris.

[kwatt]

Re: Do I Tell?

jag-12 wrote:When you look at the figures if you are charging this much as a call out it does not pay to actually try and find out what is wrong just lift the lid BER and move on to the next job with the customer none the wiser but a lot poorer.

I’m afraid that that’s simply not true Jag.

It depends on your costs how much you charge as well as a whole load of other factors, like will your customers pay for it? No doubt there are some rogues out there that do this sort of thing, I know of a few but, thankfully there’s not too many I’ve seen.

If it were the case Miele, Indesit and a whole load of manufacturer service agents wouldn’t bother to repair anything, just take the money and move on. Trouble is, they wouldn’t last very long.

K.

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