"Arfa Daily" wrote in message
news
We perhaps have it a little better over here than you do on the original
spares front. There are several very good component suppliers who will
deal with most anyone - notably Charles Hyde, SEME, CPC and Grandata. If
you register with them as trade, you get additional discounts. Charles
Hyde's site is particularly good at letting you search on unit category +
manufacturer + model number, and if the part you want is not listed, they
will quote you on it and order it in for you. Interestingly, JVC is one of
the ( many ) manufacturers listed by this company, so clearly they are not
that bothered about who has access to their spare parts ...

We have good distributors. The problem is that some manufacturers or
vendors will not sell parts at all and require that they do any service or
perhaps have a very few, even one outside service vendors like Decision One
as the only service option. JVC supplies parts through distributors. My
issue with them is the refusal to provide any tech support to non-ASCs even
when they have no local. Other companies support only ASCs also, but will
work with a local servicer if their service network does not extend into a
certain area. Some even limit distribution if they don't have service
support available and will not set up dealers unless they have service in
the area.

The days of good tech support, even for proper dealers ( and yes, I do do
work for proper dealers and account holders ) has sadly gone for many
manufacturers, with a few notable exceptions. Although Pioneer, for
instance, will only talk to you if you are one of their dealer service
network, they are very helpful, understand exactly what you are talking
about, and always know the answer to the problem. Panasonic, on the other
hand, used to be very good, but now, you queue on the phone for hours, you
get dropped by the phone system, if you manage to get a human, they won't
talk to you about half the equipment that they sell unless you are one of
their special dealers who has undertaken to repair everything from vacuum
cleaners to DVD recorders.

I can understand the reality of the costs of providing good service support.
We have gotten used to that. What is inexcusable IMO is refusal to sell
parts or to give customers reasonable service options.

Many of the manufacturers now have all of their service info on the web,
but when you download a manual, you find that for schematics, all that is
shown is the internals of a few of the chips in the unit. Very
frustrating. Many technical support lines now seem to be manned by spotty
youths ( presumably cheap ) who wouldn't know a soldering iron if it
jumped up and bit them. You always know that ypu're in trouble when they
say to you " No, there's nothing on the computer about that problem. If
you find out what it is, let us know so that we can put it on the database
... " I'm sure that you find much of the same in the US. It was all so
different 20 years ago .... Paper service manuals ... Oh happy days ...

Things change. There should at least be info and parts available to field
repair the stuff that is fixable. Some things will have to be done at the
board level. If you can't even by the boards the customer is largely
screwed.

Leonard