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Please consider a few things here and I'll try to put things in perspective.Originally Posted by oleblu72
1) I know warranty repair is a concern for any product, especially a welder and we are not dismissive of that fact. But, if you read the terms of a the warranty on a Lincoln or Miller, you'll find their terms of repair and shipping are not much different than ours. While they may have more repair centers out there, if you do not live close to one, then it is still your responsibility to get it there. And who knows how long you'll wait, or how competent they are to fix what you want, or if they shoot you a line of you know what to get you to buy a new unit, since they are also local dealers. They'd rather make the easy money than fix yours. If you are in the middle of Wyoming, it's a moot point anyway.
2) We cannot guarantee the quality of a repair by some local repair center or by every yay-hoo that calls themselves an electronic repair center. They have to be fully equipped and competently trained in welding and welding repair. We require tens of thousands of dollars of specialized test and repair equipment to be considered a fully competent repair center. So many of these shops that contact us balk at the requirements for load testers, programmers, thermal...whatever they call those thermal imaging thingies, and want to make a fast buck off of both the customer and off us. To keep prices where they are, we must also be able to competently, and economically make repairs. We cannot pay a min 100.00/hour repair rate. We must negotiate a flat rate repair and diagnosis fee in keeping in scale with our costs of our units. A lot of repair centers want to make money on private after market reman of products but our new replacement boards are cheaper than what they can fix them in house for.
3) We bring people in house in CA to train, and also send them to China to train. Most repair centers do not want to make that kind of commitment to us to train. And even with the best manuals for repair, there is no substitute for hands on working with the engineers and seeing and being involved in the production/inspection process of the units. So many local repair centers can result in a high variability of service. While speed is a concern, a quality repair is more of one to us.
4) We work with customers to provide the most expedient repair possible and have engineered our machines for major components to be repairable by the customer by creating a componentized service system which allows a change out of an affected part (many of them anyway) in relatively short time by the customer IF the problem can be pinpointed over the phone. That saves shipping time and money. And the cost is minimal, as is the downtime...if the customer is willing and capable. Otherwise, it has to go back.
5) Shipping is covered both ways during the first 30 days of service. This gives you plenty of time to try the unit out and test it fully. If something isn't right, statistically, most of the problems that the unit will ever have show up will happen during that time. If it is major in nature, the unit is usually replaced.
