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Re: House of Horrors
Bryan wrote:
Having replaced 2 drain pumps today I wonder if Scott was given the opportunity to add that although this incident was a complete mis-diagnosis these pumps do fail and need replaced in their 100’s and possibly 1000’s every day in the UK.If I had been the expert I’d have insisted on pointing this out so as not to cause us honest hard working engineers a problem every time we come to replace a pump.
Not looking to defend the cowboy but some of these programmes are way stacked in favour of what’s good for TV.
BryanI can agree with some of all three paragraphs as above.
1) Yes we replace Askoll pumps as if they are going out of fashion, maybe not as many as we used to. Bit too much of a coincidence though that the pump went during test, but these things can happen. Nothwithstanding the fact that Scott did mention a £20 parts item cost, we all know £4 for a bog standard pump from Connect is about right, but credit to the guy for giving a generalisation of a retail price.
2) Had he “The Expert” pointed out the possibility of failure as above, would not have made good T.V. in the eyes of the producer.
3) Yes these programmes are stacked in favour, my statement above re-inforces that. However, it was made clear at the start that the repairers had come to the attention of Trading Standards on more than one occasion. I can also see there is a chance such attention could be brought by the type of customer that make a habit of stirring trouble and using the services of Trading Standards as a tool. I would suspect though they are professional enough to read between the lines.
Guilty or not….. We are always judged by those at the bottom of the heap, and let’s face it we are only as good as our worst engineer. Personally I don’t like bad publicity as we start on a wrong footing with the customer, or even worse they chose to buy new on the outset rather than risk a bent engineer calling at a vulnerable time.
Alex
Re: House of Horrors
Small point perhaps, and I’m sure all the comments regards Scott are meant in good humour, tongue in cheek and all that. Please don’t think I’m leaping to his defence, nor am I casting aspersions upon those who have been part of this banter; after all we all like a bit of a laugh.
However, If the nature of this matter is to be absorbed and taken seriously, is it right for us to demean the chosen representative of our industry. The choice was made by the BBC regards “Expert” and Scott acted in a professional and correct manner.
Have a lark by all means, he would not be offended I’m sure, but this is not an opportunity to have a giggle at the expense of another individual. Let’s get the message across regards the “Cowboys” out there who really make our job difficult.
Sermon over.
Alex
Re: Service Power?
Up to date on my account as well. I have made a point regards the company we seem to get the greatest workload from, and have taken them out of my repairer profiles. They being the ones who decide whether they are going to pay for our visit, or just use us as front line firefighters on I/G calls to keep their D&G performance figures artificially high, so they can devote more rescources to the insured calls.
Personally I think Dave Bernard or Terry Jackson should bang on the door of the above company and tell them they should honour their obligations, they don’t have to drive far.
Upshot of restricting my repertoire, I get little work, but at least all the other work I do carry out is not subject to such scrutiny. They will be asking me to do Candy/Hoover next. Oh Dear!
Alex.
Re: Lofra
Paul, have you tried the small claims court on line, or is it as I suspect a lost cause?
Looks like you will be claiming the vat relief after 6 months non-payment.
Alex
Re: ISDAL
kwatt wrote: Gorenje have done some deal with Comet. This has seriously upset DAD with the words “court”, “contract” and “breach” being banded about as DAD have exclusivity on the freestanding stuff. As I have said though, if they get built ins into Comet do you really think that if its a success that freestanding won’t follow? However I do know that Gorenje have been directly asked the question in respect of what the deal is with CDSL and they have, as yet, refused to provide any answers.
K.From the Horses mouth, by all means p.m. Ian Dales, but as he isn’t in this room, for now maybe not prudent to let on where and how you got this.
Built-in, D.A.D. don’t want to know, and have never dealt with Gorenje built-in.
Comet, Gorenje have alsways supplied direct to Comet a few refrigeration products, was 2 only, now going up to 4. Comet do their own service.
C.I.H. Dealers, now moving into sales of Gorenje, and there was talk regards H.I. Group carrying out the logistics. D.A.D. begged to differ on that one, (Polite way of saying someone at DAD told them they were not effing having it); and after consultation it was a greed that D.A.D. will remain the sole distributors.
So there we have it, and D.A.D. has just renewed the agreement/contract with Gorenje.
Alex
Re: A New Way
From Ee in Summerzet. Assume you don’t mean Jeremy as he is a tosser and would not be in this room in any-case.
I recall we have bandied this around before, under a different guise. We are looking for an inroad for work providers to use our better members.
I agree there is a lot of room for a good wholesome operation and with the right credence we could be well placed to go for it. But……..Without trying to sound negative, there is a lot to be looked at.
1) Assume being a co-operative you don’t want this to be profit making, or do you? It may have to be!
2) Co-Operative? As above, someone needs to be in charge, otherwise it will be run by committee and end up a talking shop at meetings.
3) Will need a director, and have some form of company status with registration at companies’ house, and Vat. Said director could go out of control; we’ve seen it happen loads of times, in fact Bollical Bill the Sailor (K.H.) almost headed that way.
4) Here is the killer, or maybe not if we can do it. Most that come to us will want; a) Central Billing; b) K.P.I’s; c) Access/information to status of their work; d) Uniformity in pricing structure; e) Full bespoke web-based call logging system; meaning, don’t be surprised if they ask for a call centre and pre-booked calls.
5) Staffing of phones out of hours etc.
6) Running costs, no matter what happens; to achieve the criteria that will be needed there would have to be a management fee attached to the work. This will add to the burden of any repair costs.
7) Growth. No doubt it would work, and then we become victims of our own success, cannot cope and start bringing in tiers of support/management. Then up goes the costs and we end up as bad as the rest.
Yes it is a good idea, and perhaps we could go out there and drum up some business. The ones that are out there now started small, had a fair reputation in the early days, and then gradually soured. We need to avoid that.
A meeting of like minds may be a good idea, perhaps tie it in with the next meeting, which I assume will happen in September. Have the pre-meeting the day before as the moderators sometimes do, and thrash it out a bit. However I suspect you may have more followers than leaders on this one.
As a service Force Agent I know only too well why they lost the C/Plan and why other insurers are pulling away, they want all of the above, and expect the managing agent to take full ownership of the customer & product. Service Force were/are too fragmented. They have national cover, uniformity on documentation, price maintenance on spares, all the skill sets, full spares access and technical support. Yet despite all that, could not get their agents to agree on anything.
All the above is just my slant on this. I know you are talking co-operative, not a repair company, but by default it could either head that way, or just stagnate. I’m not blowing out the water as yet.
Alex
Re: Interesting Approach
Interesting that P.M. Hope you will put them right regards S/power and keep them updated.
Regards the “New Way” thread, I need to read it properly, and absorb it, I notice someone from Zummerzet has been suggested, which means I will have to read it properly, me luvver.
Won’t be for a while though, I’m one of those CDSL Ass Creepers that have made it to one of their Jollys, so I’m out the country for a few days as from tonight.
Alex
Re: Hoover
Don’t get me wrong, Hoover as a product is fine It is only the reputation that has become sullied.
Remember the Free Flights? Then the quality issues with 1100 tubs/drums. The fact that you had to replace the whole fascia when the door would not open, the MA-05 Motor armature bearing at the tacho end. There were better ways to make a machine, just took them a long time do do it. The old 1970/80’s machines were not the best but compared with the imports we see today, and compared with the competition at the time, good old stuff. They were expensive to buy, and expensive to fix. When you look at how things are today, totally different.
What they had to do was get real, make and market a product in line with the rest. If they stayed stagnant, they wouldn’t have survived. I suspect all they sell on now is their good name because “My Mum Had Hoover” I’m sure had it not been for Candy stepping in, Merthyr would be long gone.
The point it went pear shaped regards service on Candy branded was when they passed the work to inexperienced Hoover engineers overnight, and shafted their agents.
Alex
Re: Welcome To The War Room
Hello you old tart. You will notice not even being a moderator gave you instant access.
Look back in history & it may not escape you I put your name up years ago, so did Martin. Glad somone listened. There is an induction scheme in here and that is we slag you off in this room, then let you in, never got round to it.
Alex
Re: Hoover
kwatt wrote:
Besides which I will not support Candy in any way at all after what they did to their agents, which was at best naughty, until they put it right. That doesn’t look to be happening as they still farm out the hard calls and ones that are a bit too hard for them to the likes of ISDAL and CDSL, you know like the gas stuff………….
………..But perhaps to put it in perspective for you, I am still on Candy’s books as an agent. I and my father before me have been involved with Candy since the late seventies and there was a lot of loyalty there, but they lost that when they shafted us all.
Just ask other ex-agents, such as Alex.
K.1975 My first association with that lot, Lady-K W/Machine. Prior to that grew up with the Hoover stuff from the 3224 to the early 1100 tapered bearing models.
Worked with Candy (Gias) through all the days of Washer Dryers and D/washers catching fire, Charme range laundry where the backs were siliconed on. Turbo 21’s, Double door dishwashers. Oh don’t take me there!
Anyway, we were all tickety boo, until the old Hoover management came into place. Then it was the tail wagging the dog. The work evaporated, and all we were seeing were their recalls where a vacuum cleaner engineer could not do system work. Basically I had enough. They never answered any correspondence regards concerns, they simply buried their heads in the sand, knowing we would all go away.
They have tried to pass the work to me several times since, either Via ISDA, Service Power or Direct. I have said no every time. If we were not good enough in the past, we ain’t good enough now. A few weeks ago they sent me an E-Mail requesting all engineers details etc. I binned it.
In year 2,000 I filled a skip with their rubbish they would not take back; there is no way I would even talk to them until they at least acknowledge the fact they treated me badly.
Bitter & twisted maybe. I will never forget the way I was mis-handled.
No engineers or office members were mistreated in the making of the above statement.
Alex Reed
Sedgemoor Domestic Appliances Ltd
Bridgwater Somerset (In case they ever read this)Re: Challenge for historians
Yes that is the freezer stat, will possibly fail if tampered with as been inert for a long time.
-25 isnt too bad, optimum is -18, but once it gets to the -25, it will cost little more to keep it running. Choice is yours if you want to trim it down a bit, obviously anti-clockwise will take it towards a warmer temperature.
Alex
Re: Hoover/Candy
What the F!! Can someone let me into the secret, normally I’m with it, but not today?
Alex
Re: ISDAL
Keep this in here. CDSL have been talking to Gorenje at Wimbledon.
You are right about Richard, we go back years as Zanussi agents and have played the odd game of golf. He is a miserable old bugger at the best of times, and yes he is biding his time. He keeps telling me he wants out, but it is paying the bills. He has no time for Neiland Scrooby of Gorenje, and it shows, yet he has to deal closely with him. They don’t like Richard in Slovenia either, I picked that up when I went out there in 2005.
Richard has improved things from our point of view, he has demonstrated that the agents need to be treated with respect, otherwise they may take the piss, and I think they have listened. Better since Brain Blinkinsop or whatever he was called went, and Wendy is the person that holds it all together.
Need to watch the account though, especially if dealing with Leibherr. We e-mail and request part number/price on a compressor, and 2 weeks later the compressor arrives. 10 Months after we sent the thing back, we get an invoice. We order a fridge door, they sent 3 to us damaged and a fourth to the customer, all were damaged, and we have requested credit notes. They have invoiced all four, took a year and to date the only credit we have had is for the last one.
I now refuse to do all Leibherr calls. The result of that is I can see that I can manage without them and as soon as I get half an excuse I shall terminate ISDAL. With the passing of Gorenje all we aill get is refrigeration.
BTW, tell we have new blood, this room has come back to life, welcome to the real world Brian.
Alex
Re: Hotpoint Close Blythe Bridge?
I remember the Electricair units. Electricity Boards went mad with them in the sixties & seventies. I can still smell the Tellus 21 & Turbo 27 oil we used in maintenance on them.
First of all the E-Range, belt driven and asbestos insulation, no safety protection in those days. Then the A-Range, rockwool insulation but the steel blocks used to expand, (core growth) Finally the AB-Range which was the best ones they made.
I wonder if there are any of them left?
Alex
