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AMV, I’m not going there. 😉
And it’s to heat them up. Commonly used on ovens as the function “changeover switch”, another common term basically switching from function to function on the oven, often with the stat on the back on non-multi-function ovens.
Terms also used for the switches on a hob where there are 6+off positions (or 7 positions), which can also be used as oven changover swithces al-la Teka.
Confusing isn’t it? 😉
K.
Commutator switch P, do you not know nuffin?! :rotfl:
It’s a generic term used for the crappy bakelite/plastic type things with bits of copper on them, often dark red in colour and sometimes black or cream that have a prediliction to burning out. I think it’s because there’s a “commutator” in the centre that is keyed so that as it turns it makes or breaks contacts, okay so you knew that bit but I thought I’d better explain anyway. I think the term’s roots are Italian as we always reffered to them as that for Italian produced stuff.
And yes Lawrence, we’ve had a few go on Smeg as well but I wouldn’t say it was epidemic, merely profitable. 😉
K.
Re: Merloni
Dead easy Jason, you build in financial penalties to stop them renaging on their deals. Unlike most other industries we’ve been stupid sheep for far too long and it’s about time we changed that and I think that we do have the power to do that if we so wish. Let’s face it, without employed engineers or us to use as such any WP or manufacturer is entirely powerless and, in effect, at our mercy.
Don’t get me wrong I’m not on about burning any bridges at all, there’s really no need to do so. However there is a requirement to all start singing the same tune and, as has been shown by the way rates have gone over the past 18 months, all saying the same thing has produced the desired effect. There has been and, doubtless, will be more casualties along the way but likewise, sitting about maintaining the status quo will also produce casualties and probably more.
Working only under certain conditions is far easier than not working for any manufacturer or provider and also very easy to explain by citing staffing levels or the need for certain financial hurdles to be overcome. We can do that without arousing much suspicion beyond the fact that we’re all talking the same talk and yes, that is a conspiricy. Price fixing it is not as we are not setting a price, merely supporting the consensus of a suggested rate and we wouldn’t all accept the same rate anyway.
You’re right though, there is no such thing as a sure thing in this industry. But can we change it?
K.
Okay, all the Smeg guys will roll laughing at this as they’ve probably had it a hundred times, but maybe not just so funny…
Goes to a customer in Greenock and diagnoses a timer fault on the DW so, since it was an odd one it was duly ordered. A couple of weeks or so goes by, bearing in mind it’s August and Italy is on holiday and we get the timer in. Finally we get the customer and get a call booked to fit it.
Engineer duly calls, PM as requested albeit 5.15pm and she goes absolutely ape at the engineer! She starts screaming at the poor lad and giving him dog’s abuse about how this is a high quality appliance and it’s HIS fault that the timer took so long and why she couldn’t get a specific call time etc. etc.
So after about five minutes of this the poor engineer picks up his toolbox and the timer as he still hadn’t even gotten into the house and starts to leave. She goes utterly wild. The engineer explains that he is not out to take abuse an that if the customer wants the machine fixed just to let him do his job, of course she didn’t calm down so he walked fearing she was going to get physical at any moment.
He calls me and I agreed that was fine, I won’t ask the guys to do or put up with anything I wouldn’t accept from a customer.
So, next day, I gets onto the office wondering when she’d phone and start on me but shockingly it didn’t happen. Instead I had a message on the answering machine from a very sheepish woman that wanted her dishwasher repaired offering profuse apologies to the engineer that called the previous evening and admitting that she had “over-reacted”.
She’ll get it fixed eventually. 😉
You always get your own back! :rotfl:
K.
Which, with a quick look in Autoroute, is a residential address so I’d doubt very much that they had any stock at all, let alone stuff as bulky as a US Style fridge/freezer.
As Alex says, very dodgy indeed and to be avoided methinks.
From a web point of view the URL given is not a top level domain and therefore probably hosted, hence the suspension notice I should think. The site was built using the Site Builder software which is generic and leads nowhere. The “buzzsites” homepage also shows and error.
Extremely dody I’d say, but just for your infomation the hosting company for that URL is as follows.
Registrant Contact:
Enigma Interactive
NA NA (NA)
NA
Fax:
7-15 Pink Lane
Newcastle upon Tyne, . NE1 5DW
GREAT BRITAIN (UK)Creation date: 28 Jan 2003 09:45:04
Expiration date: 28 Jan 2006 09:45:04Administrative Contact:
Technical Support
NA NA (helpdesk@easily.co.uk)
4402078410070
Fax: 4402078417460
109-111 Farringdon Road
London, . EC1R 3BW
GREAT BRITAIN (UK)So, in essence, the registrant has not given a phone or fax contact or even an email which is highly unusual for a proper business. Nor does the registrant name tie with the trading name and it was only registered in January this year.
Best bet is to leave it with Trading Standards I should think.
K.
Phil, it depends very much on the training establishment whether or not they accept that as a basis to allow someone on the course. I know as I had somebody rejected from the course on the very first morning he attended it for that very reason despite over two years experience on installations.
The thing is, there’s no (to my knowledge) qualification in the area of repairs to the gas appliances that we encounter. Loads for boilers though. 😉
K.
Kerog,
First thing to do is check your rinse aid, make sure there is some in it and that it is decent quality stuff.
Next check that the spray arms are clear, you can take these off to clean them and that they can spin free unobstructed by plates, cutlery or fresheners.
After that you need to check the load pattern you use ensuring that it’s no just certain areas that are affected, if that’s the case then you need to look at the loading.
In 99{e5d1b7155a01ef1f3b9c9968eaba33524ee81600d00d4be2b4d93ac2e58cec2d} of cases the above points will cure what I think you’ve got there which is tiny particles of dirt being trapped and them hardened during the dry process.
Hope that helps.
K.
In that case J, other than looking at the doseage your using, you’re doing pretty much all that you can do to my knowledge.
K.
The fan heating is usually a fan type symbol inside a circle and, for most people’s cooking that’s fine.
The light one will normally bring on the rear fan as well and often have a kind of water drip there too, that is meant for defrosting. There is no heat at all on this setting.
Please let us know if that restores domestic harmony. 😉
K.
And today we passed 1.5 million page views.
Alexa rating has dropped big time though for some reason. But then the way that Alexa works that out is, shall we say, a little strange. 😕
K.
I DID speak to Tony Challis about this several times both verbally and via email and a right nippy sweetie in their accounts department as well. It’s not often I’ll shoot my gob off without trying to resolve things first the easy way.
However, in my eyes, why should I take the time and trouble as well as incur the cost to send back any spares sent in error. If I order them in error then fair enough, I accept that, but I do not accept other people’s errors as being down to me to pay for and it was more of a surprise when Bradshaws got an order right. Not so clever when you’re dealing with high value spares.
I apply the same principles to manufacturers etc. when they cock it up as well, I’ve still got to invest my admin time into dealing with the error, unpaid for and repackaging for return, again unpaid for. Why on earth would I pay the carriage charges and, as in this case, accept what is essentially a fine for someone else’s mistakes?
In theory I should be charging then a levy for the work involved in returning the items and the carriage on top of that. I’d be surprised if they paid the bill though. 😉
K.
Here’s what you’re not getting I don’t think…
You’re a manufacturer and you have your own spares warehousing and distribution set up, CDSL is a CUSTOMER that pays in bucket loads of cash a year to you, would you want to hand over the reigns to them? Of course you wouldn’t as you’d then lose control of your own spares and could be held to ransom in part by them. Now, not every company thinks that way as some just want to offload the problem of spares and service, but not too many and certainly none of the big boys would want to walk that path without some serious consideration. The Italians would only do so if they were backed into a corner and forced to do it, under no other circumstances would an Italian firm operate under that policy, it’s just not their way.
Alex knows as well as I what the Italians are like, if they don’t have a controling interest in the operation then they ain’t interested without some other objective in mind. That’s not personal at all, merely the Italian way of doing business and they’re all the bloody same, from Fiat to Candy. They also operate a very effective “divide and conquer” principle in both sales and service and since it works many of the others simply follow that lead.
There are exceptions to prove the rule, like De Longhi, but they have not got the clout in the UK to be in a position to demand anything.
For a WP like CDSL getting the little scraps like LG, Elba/Kenwood and a spattering of others onboard is not a problem as it represents, to them, a one-stop solution to their woes. It gets shot of the service issues, coverage problems and any need to run an expensive spares distribution centre. As I say, fine if you’re a small player. For the big boys the rules change radically as they already have that infrastructure in their businesses and have had for many years and it is not something that they will easily give up.
Let’s look at GIAS, they spent a couple of million or so about 5 years ago on Bolton introducing new systems in the spares warehouse, do you really think that the Fumigali’s will write that off so soon? If you know the Fumigali family as Alex and I do the answer is obvious and catagoric. What they may do is some kind of deal on service work with a limited distribution on spares to get them out the hole they’re in, beyond that who knows. GIAS right now is very hard to predict as it’s been very quiet on that front of late and anyone that knows anything in the camp is gone now. We all know they have service problems, but then who doesn’t right now? The only one that’s problem free-ish is Lux and that’s only because they’ve already been badly burned and come out the other side of it, whether it’s right or not now I don’t know as I’m not involved any longer but I suspect there are still a good few issues there.
WP’s like CDSL, NESN, ISDAL et all are strong on insurance work as they can (especially CDSL) provide continuity on spares pricing, which is the big bugbear for the insurers as labour rates are easy to set, in other areas they are not so strong. In the area of technical information and training, irrepective of what we do, the manufacturer provides far better dedicated support and always will do I think. The WP’s may get better but they’ve a long way to go there.
Also for a manufacturer, employing a couple of bodies to zip around the country monitoring the agents is no great shakes where there is dedicated agents to a postal area, for a WP it is an issue it would appear. And, whilst CDSL do do this to a degree, how well will they cope when the work is spread over two or three tiers and will a major manufacturer accept that their customer may be visited by any one of three agents in a given postcode? Simple, no they generally will not accept that as then there’s no brand loyalty by the agent.
So whilst I do believe that CDSL will continue to make great gains in the insurance market side I have my doubts on the warranty side. Then you have the politics that are played out, just look at the shit that the Lux group debacle has caused.
The other massive, massive danger for CDSL is that they take on too much and that is a real danger, frankly I can’t see their current network being able to cope with the projected call numbers currently being touted about. If that happens and the quality of service drops then you’ll start to see some true colours and frantic scurrying as to expand your business you need to be able to train, to train you need to be well enough paid, to get paid you need to be able to do the work… I’m sure you get the picture.
Only time will tell on much of this though, we’ll just have to sit back and see what shakes out over the next few months.
K.
Re: Merloni
Bloody hell, you lot have been busy this morning!
To address the direct/indirect question, we can do this and make it work FOR US not for anyone else and this is the line I propose that we take with offers like Hotperloni, for smaller brands it’s not so important…
We take the same line as the likes of CDSL, we insist on a minimum term with guaranteed call volumes as in a minimum call volume across the network. We also insist on a 2 year contract with a review at 18 months to renew that contract or to arrange the discontinuation of it. 6 months gives us a lot more time than we’ve ever had to re-organise things and return stock etc., which would of course be built-in to the contract as well.
Remember, we’re the ones with the power here as we have what they need, we do not need them anywhere near as badly as they need us and we have to realise that and take charge of the situation. This is the reason that I said that the door was open for Merloni to talk to us, note US! Not to put too fine a point on it, the people that can read this forum have the ability to control a god bit of the independent repair trade, certainly enough to make a big difference as has been repeatedly shown.
What we can do is simply forward any proposal of work offers to the industry to the Advisory Council and work in conjunction with the Directors of UKW, that should allow us here almost full, if not total control of the situation whilst looking nice and smiley on the outside.
We can do stuff like that directly Kevin, we just build in the same or better safegaurds as those offered elsewhere and, in fact, it’s safer in some regards to go that route if it’s done properly.
Alex, never say never. 😉
If I thought I could screw Merloni for you and others it would take me a heartbeat to think about it, but as you all know I will never force anything on anyone, it’s not my way. What we can do is get a deal that suits us and makes us money as the shoe’s on the other foot now. GIAS are another one that will soon have serious problems and I’ve already had several calls from them wanting bailed out on a call-by-call basis. I have refused and will continue to do so until they put something sensible on the table.
IMHO, NESN or any other WP would be incapable of handling the volumes on direct OEM service and CDSL would struggle as it’s done on a shoestring with no spares mark up. Sticking any kind of handling or admin fee on that kind of work is a non-starter. CDSL may be in a position to deal with it but I very much doubt that any volume manufacturer ould go that way due to the costs and politics unless it suited them to have CDSL handling their spares distribution too.
All of which is moot until whatever one of them decides to come talk to us, but we have got the pieces almost in place to cope with being able to at least talk to these people.
K.
Re: AEG vs Miele
Anonymous wrote:That’s an easy one to answer – a couple of members of the family have sensitive skin, and we live in an area with very soft water. Even machines that rinse well on a normal cycle need an extra rinse or two round here!
I’ve been watching this thread and I had thought that this may be the case here. Usually allergies or eczema will give rise to problems like this and, frankly, quite often the only reason that a customer will care about such things unless some facts are pointed out.
Can you tell me what detergent and softener (if any) that you use as, I’m sure you are aware, that if members of the family suffer from sensitive skin problems then you should only be using a non-bio powder. Both Ariel and Persil offer such an alternative, very few others do and none that I know of offer anywhere near the same results in cleaning, balanced with care for skin problems or allergies? I may be able to offer further advice, or get it, given more detail.
The choice of machine comes down to what you think is sufficient for your needs and, Dave is quite correct in saying that the Meile is the better appliance all round IMO as well. It will last longer, take more punishment and probably perform better than the AEG. Yes, it is more expensive but then you don’t get a Mercedes for Mini money either. Extra rinses are not the only thing to consider either, how much detergent do you need? How soft is the water in the area as that determines the dosage of detergent which is a priority factor given the information? Have you tested the water for hardness, or can you get that information?
In the situation you’re in I would look carefully at all the factors in the equation before leaping in.
K.
