A while back I went to look at a Vaillant that was giving its user
problems. User didn't have a manual for it and neither did I so I phone
Vaillant and pressed the appropriate buttons for their literature
department. Couldn't get through to a human but left a message requesting
a manual for the particular model, prefereably electronically and was
there somewhere I could get PDFs of all their manuals for when I go to a
customer so I can actually do something useful for them at the time? Some
weeks later I got a bundle of glossy brochures for the model I was
after and some others - no servicing instructions.

Later I phoned tech support to ask about the particular problem. Took 10
or 15 minutes of being told how important my call was to them and how they
were doing their "utmost" to help - utmost except for actually having
enough staff on to answer it.

More recently phoned tech support about another of their boilers, which had
condensate dripping out of the heat exchanger and seemed to have a problem
with its condensate syphon not getting rid of condensate quickly enough.
Asked specifically if the syphon was supposed to fill up and then dump
condensate out quickly (which is what Worcester Bosch ones I'm familiar
with do) rather than dribble it out, which this one seemed to be doing.
After almost 10 minutes of being told how important my call was to them,
againg, finally got through to someone who assured me that it should dump
condensate rapidly. I pointed out that the holes feeding the condensate
output spout were rather narrow, but assured that it should dump rapidly
and if it wasn't doing so, time for a new one. None at local stockist so
ordered on t'interweb and got new, improved design model condensate syphon
today. Tried it out: filled it up and it .... dribbled out. It actually
dribbles out more slowly than I've seen condensate coming out of the heat
exchanger while I was running the machine into a bowl instead of the
syphon, during the v. cold weather last week. No wonder the sodding
thing's backing up into the HX!

And now I've got a customer I put a Vaillant in for* last May who's having
problem with teh machine making howling noises from within while it's
running. Suggested he contact Vaillant since it's surely under warranty.
He did and what did they do? "Sorry to hear it sir, our machines shouldn't
do things like that, we'll be round pronto to fix it." Did they bollox?
They gave hime some old tosh about getting a receipt for proof of purchase
from me (i.e. my receipt when I bought it). (Like, if he'd had British Gas
install it, they'd give him a copy of their purchase invoice?!). And
warned him that if it was "installer error" they'd charge for it.

* I only installed a Vaillant rather than a W-B at his insistence:
apparently Vaillant are a more ethical company. (Why is it that ethical and
competent don't seem to go together?) I'm sticking to W-B from now on.
Their tech support aren't 100% (e.g. there's an arcane problem regarding
their Ri series (at least) with Honeywell-pattern Y-plan valves, which
I only got a correct solution for at third attempt) but they have
stretched their normal 2-year warranty to look at a seeming boiler problem
a few weeks outside the nominal warranty period, and have generally
answered the phone promptly and been reasonably clueful.

/rant

--
John Stumbles -- http://yaph.co.uk

A stitch in time saves nine. If it ain't broke, don't fix it.