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Re: When Adam was a lad!
eastlmark wrote:I knew that! but at the time it was classified information and I am still covered by Candy official secrets act, along twith the fact that wd262’s used to burst into flames
LOL!
I actually got a call on a 262 about a year ago, all it wanted was a door seal and the old dear said it had never gone wrong. She didn’t use the dryer though. 😉
K.
Re: When Adam was a lad!
The drum pulley and the motor pulley alter in physical size thereby alowing the motor, whilst spinning at the same physical speed to gear up and spin at twice the speed without increasing the load on the motor to any great degree, fiendishly clever actually if you understood it.
The problem was that the clutch mechanisms sometimes failed on the motor and the drum pulley, but not that often to be fair and most were easy to fix by re-greasing the drum pulley in 90{e5d1b7155a01ef1f3b9c9968eaba33524ee81600d00d4be2b4d93ac2e58cec2d} of cases as Mark pointed out. Easy job really with an 8mm spanner and a 10mm nut runner and the knowledge. 😉
As for the bearings, my record was replacing bearings in a Candy 807 in 45 minutes from start to walking out the door, easy when you knew how. but as I was recently reminded by Alex, Mel Barff (UK Service Manager) used to remind us that the foam strips were there to mop up the blood. 😉 No need at all to change the appliance.
BTW Mark, you had to wake for the click. 😀
The rot set in with the Charme range. 🙁
K.
Re: Electrue/NESN
bonzaco wrote:A fair comment but only if the rest of us do the same. I’m all for freedom of information, but be aware that some of our actions here, may lead to innocent call centre girls and man/van operations being jobless shortly. The demise of either NESN or CDSL hurts all in this industry.
Agreed, but the situation is not of our making bar going along with/swallowing the line given at the time.
There is no doubt that there will be casualties in all this I’m afraid and I do feel for those affected but it’s better to be informed than not I think. After all, for those doing the work, we’ve been warning of this for months on end and the opportunity to re-align your business has been there or to at least brace yourself for it happening, that’s got to be worth something surely?
As for contracts changing overnight, in a month or three… see my previous comments on the subject, it’s nothing new sadly just another little surprise that this industry throws at you every now and again. But it seems that 3 months notice is all that is required and that does not allow most businesses to adjust to the new regime, whatever it may be and there’s certainly not enough time there to shed staff, vans etc.
In the end blame the sales people or the accountants that make these decisions that affect out livelihoods.
K.
Thankfully I’m too young to remember such antiques. 😉
I cut my teeth on the original split tub Candy’s circa 1977ish onwards. But I truly started on the old Formula INOX Candy’s of the 1980’s and I’ve the scars to prove it! 😆
K.
All four flashing is a door open fault.
From left to right…
2 lit/1 not/1 lit = Not filling
2 lit/1 not = Overfilling
1 lit/1not/2 lit = Control car, element or safety stat
1 lit/1 not/1 lit/1 not = Temp control failure
1lit/2 not/1 lit = Overheating
1lit/3 not = Leak or inlet hose fault
And that’s it.
Can someone copy that over to the known fault codes thing please. (dave ;))
K.
Re: Electrue/NESN
Okay I’m fed up with this so let’s cut through all the bull that flying around and give you my take on what’s actually going on here, bearing in mind that this is personal opinion and comment only.
NESN are trying to force CDSL into using their network as they think that there is no alternative if CDSL are not allowed to use existing NESN agents. So, if CDSL aren’t going to play ball I’d bet good money that NESN are soliciting to take the work direct from DSG.
NESN state that they are trying to protect their agents, from what? From taking on work, from surviving, what?
More like they are trying to protect their own position if you ask me by preventing the agents from accepting work from anyone else thereby effectively trying to create a monoply situation. Very cunning, if it were to work. However I very much doubt that the agents or clients will be to enamoured by this state of affairs and, as I have said repeatedly, you are not controlling your business, NESN is controlling it for you by dictating what you can or cannot do.
I keep hearing the old tired rhetoric from NESN that by not supporting them that it will drive down the price of service, that is a total falicy and pure propoganda to instill fear IMO. What doing the work direct does is shift the administrative costs from a third-party call handler, such as NESN, back to where it belongs particularly on bigger contracts, back to the work originator. This lowers the administrative costs and allows an increase in rates as you are taking away a link in the money chain and, in this particular case IMO, a very greedy link in the chain which is eating up almost 25{e5d1b7155a01ef1f3b9c9968eaba33524ee81600d00d4be2b4d93ac2e58cec2d} of the total labour fee! Now think how much easier the work would be and how much happier you’d be with a 20-25{e5d1b7155a01ef1f3b9c9968eaba33524ee81600d00d4be2b4d93ac2e58cec2d} increase in revenue. As for the admin side, remember we do all that anyway all NESN provide is one telephone point of contact and one big bill as opposed to several small ones. In effect we do all the graft and pay a “management fee” taken straight out our pockets for NESN or similar to shuffle some paper, send some emails and take a few calls. But if their administration costs 25{e5d1b7155a01ef1f3b9c9968eaba33524ee81600d00d4be2b4d93ac2e58cec2d} of the fee, what does our admin cost? Amother of my favourite subjects, admin time costs money and the rates we get now barely cover the pure engineering cost IMO let alone all the add-ons, but that’s a subject for another day.
But the reality of the current situation is that you agents are being used as pawns in a game of chess between NESN and CDSL and as pawns you are considered to be expendable, do not be under any illusions about that, very often in chess pieces are sacraficed in an attempt to win the game and, given this morning’s purposely leaked letter you have been given a warning.
The warning is that if you choose to defy NESN that they will take action and seek damages from either you or CDSL.
Hardly a way to foster a good working network of repairers is it nor is it a good advert for any client that is using or considering using NESN?
K.
Re: Electrue/NESN
Well said DAF and you have pretty much gotten the gist of the whole thing. 😀
I have been there and done the major contract thing and been stung badly so my view is probably somewhat biased but definately grounded in reality, fact and the history of such things learned from bitter experience over the years. The reason I say this is that for those of us that read this that are, shall we say, experienced and long in the tooth in this industry will have seen all these shennagins before. Some have lived to tell the tale, many have not.
The Zanussi caper took out a load of good repairers.
The Mastercare fiasco took out a load more.
The Candy/GIAS/Hoover debacle removed still more.
This shambles looks set to take out even more.
How long can this go on for before there’s nobody left in the independent repair industry to bankrupt? Or how many of us over the years have gotten sick of scratching about to make ends meet and pay the bills, gotten hit with this sort of nonsense and just bailed out the trade altogether, we all know people that have done so.
This is exactly what I’ve been banging on about for years. This trade is dying on its feet and not being helped by the childish corporate games that are being played out behind the scenes, part of the remit of UKW is to make us all aware of such events.
In addition to all this we have decreasing margins on spares, the removal of spares margins on extended warranty work, the reduction of extended warranty rates to almost warranty rates in many cases, restrictive contracts, rates not keeping pace with inflation, massive increases in costs, additional administration… need I go on?
And before anyone thinks their safe doing Whirlpool, Electrolux or some other major contract, don’t even think it, as you’re not! You’re merely a number on a balance sheet in some accountants office and a means to an end. In their favour though, even the big boys don’t put restrictions on their contracts to service providers like those causing this fiasco and they realise that, due to commercial reasons, you may well have to carry out work for others, it’s not optional and many agents do so. Now it strikes me that if a contract the size of Whirlpool or Lux realise this just what in God’s name are the likes of NESN doing trying to restrict your ability to trade and earn a living?
I find most interesting the comments from the meeting in December that NESN’s MD alledgedly made stating that no penalties would be imposed on their network if the rate was higher, yet there is no mention of it now nor does there seem to be anything in black and white to support those comments. Will NESN stand by that, who knows? However, if the information is correct and said comments were made I should think that there’s at least 15 people that were in the room who may not be very happy if this is not honoured as most of us I should suspect will abhor being lied to.
Speaking of lies, I heard this morning that information was being passed about that CDSL were offering some companies this work at £30 a call, or this is a rumour that’s being spread about. Frankly, I think it’s utter nonsense as the rates on this contract are well known in the trade and anyone that took on this work at that price is mental IMHO. Nor have I had any feedback from anyone in the trade being offered this work with a rate that low and I’ve spoken to a lot of people in the past few days, misinformation methinks. 😉
And this is what happens when you let salesmen and accountants run an industry that bears no relation in costings or working practice to a “normal” business model as they like to say it jargon.
But never mind, in a year or so a new sales team/accountant/management team will appear and change it all over again and the circle will start to turn once again. We’ve all seen it happen so many times and the reason that none of us can sleep easily many nights and the reason so many of us as so hacked off with the whole thing.
The laugh of it is that these salesmen seem to think that they are doing us a favour by allowing us to do this work, that really makes me laugh, they have no idea as most of them have never lifted up a screwdriver to repair an appliance in their life!
As ever just an opinion.
K.
ROTFLMAO!! Get rich quick, in this business!! 😆
God that made me laugh! There’s a sucker born every minute eh? If it were easy we’d all be lying on a beach somewhere watching the waves roll in.
K.
Re: Electrue/NESN
And in an email sent out a short while ago NESN have confimed that:
“you would be in breach of your NESN Contract as the contract with Connect is terminated”
Which to me implies that if you carry out any work for anyone else that action will be taken, just what I don’t know.
This raises two main points for me that I would like clarified:
1. Is this even legal?
2. Just who gave NESN the right to dictate who you can and who you cannot work for and who is running your business, you or NESN?
But over all else I’d love to know what this is going to achieve other than putting agents out of business? 🙁 🙁 🙁
K.
Re: Starve The Cameras
JoeStrummer wrote:More congestion charging, traffic wardens, and speed enforcment.
= higher costs to us poor saps that work in large cities in the main.
There’s pros and cons to both sides of the argument and in the end it will be down to politics at Whitehall that govern all this.
K.
