On Sun, 25 Nov 2007 03:45:14 -0800, Yvonne wrote:

Last week, I had a problem with 3 year old Vaillant EcoMax Pro 18E. It
was dripping water from the bottom of the casing. It turns out the
cause was related to the float in the condensate tank. Because of poor
design, the tank and associated siphoning equipment is prone to
malfunctioning because it gets gunged up and sticks, causing the
condensate to back up and spill over into the casing. It then drips
out the bottom of the casing.

The obvious way to treat this problem is to have someone come and
inspect then clean up all the components and put them back together
again. This of course leads to nice repeat business which the
customer pays for.

It transpires that there is a modified design available as a free
service exchange but unless you know about it and demand it, then its
not likely that any non-Vaillant engineer will fit it - particularly
if its a free lancer you have selected yourself or a sub-contractor
to a sub-contractor that the manufacturer might provide.
....
In my case the cowboy's first question was...'Is this a contact job or
a one off? When you mention you have a drip problem then cowboy will
say......' ' Oh, its a repair job then and parts will be extra. I
havnt got a big stock of parts in the van so I will have to go and get
them' '.


So let me see if I understand you right:

1. You have a problem with your boiler which turns out to be a fault which
the manufacturers have a free fix for, which engineers who specialise in
your make of boiler should know about.

2. You engage an engineer who isn't a specialist in your make of boiler and
who doesn't know about the manufacturer's free fix, who proposes to charge
you for doing a repair on the boiler as he would if it were any other
boiler repair job (including asking you to pay for him getting and fitting
model-specific parts for the appliance which, not being a specialist in
this make, he couldn't reasonably be expected to keep as van stock).

3. And therefore he's a cowboy ... why exactly?


--
John Stumbles

Extreme moderate