[TechAssist] Re: Hitachi DVD/VCR
- From: "Hoyt's TV" <hoytstv@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <techassist@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sat, 14 Feb 2004 09:13:01 -0500
Ed, I've been paying attention for more than fifty years.
I don't have any left---I'm all out---broke.
The first time I saw a factory actually pay for warranty work was around
1969 or 70.
Until then it was considered to be the selling dealers responsibility. Some
would only supply major parts and we had to pay shipping both ways. IE: they
sold us the part, when (if) we returned it along with a multipage form, they
would give us credit for the price of the part. Since most parts cost us
less than the value of the tech or secretary's time to pack and ship and pay
postage, we hardly ever sent any back for credit.
Magnavox gave the dealer back a (very) small percentage of his purchases
from them at the end of the year to cover warranty labor. I think it was 1%.
None of the other brands gave us anything.
When Ford bought Philco they apparently didn't understand the wonderful
world of TV dealers. They actually expected to pay us for doing warranty
repairs. Just like the big boys at auto dealerships.
One time I had to go to the house to fix a Philco stereo that had an
intermittent problem. The factory sent a whole new chassis. I called the
tech rep to tell him I hadn't even been there yet. Why did they send this?
He said, we're not going to pay you for the time it takes to find an
intermittent, just replace the whole chassis.
I worked for a small dealer for a very short time in 1970 --- one of those
times when you have to leave the place you want to work, to be able to get a
pay raise when you come back, deals.
He had a deal with a local discount chain out of Rhode Island, where they
gave him a flat fee on every unit they sold from their Portsmouth store to
cover any service calls or repairs we had to make. They sent a list of the
units they sold by serial number every month, along with the check. I went
out on a call on one of those and since he wasn't there when I got back, I
tried to look it up in the files (apparently he never bothered) and it
wasn't listed. Meaning they never paid him for it. After that we researched
the others he had done over the past couple years and found they had been
cheating him all along. They had been sending payments for about half of the
units they sold. Or more precisely, half of the ones we had actually
serviced. Apparently figuring he would never bother to go back and check
each time they called him. He just checked for the customer having a bill of
sale with the proper date.
I knew right then, if I ever started my own shop I didn't want to do
warranty work.
Later, I took on Zenith only because the tech rep was a respected friend
(from his Philco days) and he asked me to. The dealer I had been working
for, dropped Zenith sales and service which left a whole lot of his
customers without service and they had all known me for over 20 years at the
time, as his tech. Also, Zenith was rated in the top three for warranty
payments in the California ETA surveys.
Russ Hoyt
Hoyt's TV
Exeter, NH
----- Original Message -----
From: "Tel-Tek Electronics" <teltek3@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <techassist@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Saturday, February 14, 2004 7:40 AM
Subject: [TechAssist] Re: Hitachi DVD/VCR
> Russ;
> You haven't paid attention.
> You don't get rich being an ASC anymore. But it fills in for the slow
> times.
>
> -Ed-
>
> Ed Gaidies
> Tel-Tek Electronics
> Ontario-Canada
>
> Servicing the Consumer Electronic Industry since 1963
>
> teltek3@xxxxxxxxxxxx
>
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