On Tue, 01 Mar 2005 11:36:01 GMT, mike wrote:

In article ,
Andy Hall wrote:


Read my other post regarding the DeWalt biscuit jointer. This was
certainly not a cheap item, and when it was apparent that there was a
defect, a refund was made after 18 months. The retailer (Axminster
Tools) received my business for a replacement Lamello. That is what I
mean by good service.

I remember your previous posts about this and I'm sure you and Axminster
are right that the product has a basic design flaw that effectively
renders it useless in regard to its basic function of cutting joints at
a 90 degree angle.

DeWalt and Axminster were selling this product for at least 18 months
before you pointed the fault out to them (and probably some considerable
time afterwards).

To their credit, Axminster replaced the tool after the nominal 12
month warranty. However, I pay little regard to 12 month warranties
anyway - they are a convenience for the retailer only. If something
is not right with a product after that then I expect a replacement.

There was never any issue with Axminster in getting a replacement or a
refund.



This suggests that the majority of purchasers didn't object to the
uselessness of the product, and were happy to pay top dollar for the
kudos of the brand name rather than any functionality.

Some people would not have noticed the problem and may even not be
unhappy with 2 degrees of error. In a smaller geometry i wouldn't be
noticable anyway.

The DeWalt jointer isn'r a top dollar product. It is mid range.





Also, many people would consider it extravagant to pay for one of the
more expensive tools on the market and have so little use for it that it
takes a year and a half to discover it is inacapable of performing its
basic function effectively.


It's a mid range tool and it is not obvious until one measures
carefully that there is an issue.







Several years ago, my daughter wanted a particular double CD, which
she had identified was only available from Virgin. I was cajoled
into going to buy it for her, on a Saturday morning from their store
in Reading, some 10 miles away. I hate going into Reading town
centre on Saturdays (come to thing of it, I'm not excited at the best
of times) but went and parked up and bought the required CD.
I got it home and discovered that there were two of one CD and not the
second. Of course daughter *had* to have it that day, so back I
went. Everything on the shelf was the same, but then Virgin found
another box with the second CD and put it all together. There was a
short discussion about compensation for wasted trip, time and parking.
They gave me £30 of vouchers.

Surely you should have explained to your daughter or, better still, her
line manager that, by way of recompense for the inconvenience her
unreasonable behaviour had caused you, you would be spending her
inheritance on a Kango pneumatic hammer with which to insert a drawing
pin once every year (although eighteen months and one-and-a-half drawing
pins later, you'd discover it had a basic design flaw which rendered it
unfit for purpose and have to exchange it for an even more expensive
Hilti).

I preferred the outcome that I got. Everybody was happy. Daughter
got her CDs. I wasn't out of pocket. Virgin retained a customer and
made sure that their supplier was more careful.






--

..andy

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