Brand new Harman Advance... and im not happy with it

Hopefully he does get it resolved, and lets us know.
I think it could have been handled better by the dealer, but that's easy to say when I am not the dealer.
I guess its easy to say he got too worked up, but its not our money and our experience either......I can say there are folks who are understanding, and for every one of those, there are those who aren't. It sounded faulty from the get-go, but geez, its fixable! And it appeared, at least to me, to be easily so........

 

Keep in mind here folks this is lordz second stove that he has had issues with from the get go so you can't blame him for his frustration. hope all works out in his favor in the end.

 

I do hope he got it sorted out and also that he comes back to hang out with us.

 

Fact is that a lot of dealers are (1) not capable of dealing with things that require any real tech, and (2) many dealers simply don't give a rip after the sale.

I dealt with a dealer on a stove back in the mid 90's and they were real A** H***s
The owner found out that I was planning on running shells and had three fits and fell in it.

I met with the factory rep for the area after the dealer tirade and he assured me that any issues would be handled promptly.

He even came to the house and watched the stove under fire with the shells and signed off on it.

A month into the run the control board died, and as I suspected the dealer would not do squat, claiming that the shells caused too much stress on the board and voided the warranty.

A phone call to the rep saw a new board in my mailbox the next day.

10 minutes max and the new board was installed and a careful inspection revealed a bad solder joint on a relay.

Took the board to the dealer and they insisted it was bad because we ran shells in the stove

The rep did not want the board back so I repaired the bad solder joint and put the board back in and it ran until we sold the stove (Stove too small and waaaay too hard to clear the ash traps)

So I am decidedly rather negative towards most dealers.

They don't have a clue in many cases, so they just try to BS their way through.

One Whit A2 I bought (Sold) came from a local couple and it had stopped running.

They called the dealer and a tech came over ($$$$$$ service call) and an hour on site.

Stove would not run.
Fire would go out and smolder

Tech told them they needed a new stove as theirs was bad.

A good cleaning in and out and some high temp oil in exhaust fan to get it "unstuck" and the unit ran like new.

What was that tech paid for ?????

He likely never opened the mechanical cabinet and saw the huge pile of pellets that had leaked out of a break in the silicone sealer on the auger tube.

The fan had ingested some pellets and was out of balance too.

A cleaning, some oil and a dab of silicone was all that was needed to get the old girl back in the game.

A service call and an hour and a half charge would have been proper.

The tech charged them $200 and did nothing but tell them to buy a new stove from the dealer he worked for.

Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat.

This is why there is little faith in dealers at my house.

 

I'm biased, I'm a dealer, anyhow.....
You are biased in that you have the advantage of being savvy about mech, CB's, etc. Its great you could interface with the manufacturer rep and solve the issues you had at hand.
I do have to say here though, and I think you realize this, that you are in the extreme minority of folks. Most folks don't have anywhere near your expertise to solve the issues such as you had.
This is why the choice of dealer is SO important when purchasing the unit. Unfortunately, there are good techs, bad techs, and sadly, some of these guys shouldn't even be cleaning units, let alone trying to fix them. Do have to say though, that most reps aren't much better, tech-wise. BUT, there are also good techs.
As for CB issues, we don't fix them either. We send faulty boards (which are still under warranty), back to Harman.....and let them figure it out. For us, time is money, so, we wont waste the time trying to analyze and fix a CB we aren't qualified to deal with.....just replace it. They have never given us a problem with a bad board, and we get credit. No point for us to deal with the board.

But yea, I meant to use this post as another example of why choosing a dealer is as important us the unit, unless you have the expertise to solve the issues yourself. Snowy is an exception......the great majority of users simply don't have the expertise to do it.

 

My dealer was fairly good with the few issues I had with the west point. Now that I have learned a thing or two, I will be going the Englander route for now on, knowing I can only blame myself if I cannot figure it out. The have good service and I have this forum as well. These really are not complicated machines and there is only a handful of things that can go wrong.

 

Sadly there are far too many dealers (not just pellet stoves) car dealers, tractor dealers, lawnmowers etc etc that have these same difficulties.

Taking care of the customer ( End user) is job one.

I retired from a business in the construction materials delivery (Heavy trucking) and keeping happy customers is a priority.

We also own a gun shop and have for years.

Taking care of this sort of stuff adds an entirely different twist to the meaning of customer service.

My big beotch is a dealer who will intentionally try to side step or blow off a client.

That clients words to others are worth a million dollars or can sink your boat real quick.

Back to Lordz issue, it sounds like he was getting the brush.

If you as a dealer take care of your clients then

As a service provider, that is our job.

 

Pretty tough to argue with anything above. And I agree, it DOES sound like Lord was getting "the brush", but, two sides to every story. I am not finding fault with Lord, but it is his side........
One cannot control the customer/client, and what they say, often true, sometimes not, works both ways.....it can help, it can certainly hurt.
Agreed, best, if possible, to keep a customer happy, within reason. Do have to say some folks perceptions these days aren't entirely realistic either....for instance, the person who feels they don't have to clean their stove.....why isn't it working? Because you didn't clean it....I mean, there has to be some responsibility on the client/customer's part, right?

 

Unfortunately there arnt many people today that want to be a tech, never mind the work it takes to be a good tech. We are at the point of trying to put on 1-2 copier technicians. At least 1 experienced but we are also willing to train someone with mechanical aptitude. We are not looking for an engineer, but if you can do basic service on your vehicle and have decent common sense then you can likely be trained for this. It has been impossible to get people for these types of positions lately.

 

Where do I send my resume...Sounds like a 6 figure position (6 before the decimal point) and just what I am looking for!!

 

Oh yesssssssss, been there done that.

"You mean I have to put something in the stove to get it to heat"

Yeah buddy, we are on the same page.

Attitude when speaking to the dealer can make a world of difference too.

Call him up with a real attitude and likely things are gonna go downhill fast.

Having had several issues with stoves, cars etc I do have a skewed viewpoint

 

That goes for any store. Short story...
We went out with my in-laws for dinner last Friday, they were gonna buy ours for our Birthdays (2 weeks apart) My wife had a "buy one dinner/get one half off" coupon and she inquired if we could use it on both sets of meals. The girl waiting on us said "no, its only good for one "half off" meal" per order...my wife said "Oh, OK then, no problem"...then the girl said "but, since you were nice about it, I will ring up two separate transactions and you can use it on both"..."but we don't do that for people that get snotty about it"

 

yea, they way I see people in retail get treated these days is befuddling. When I say retail I mean any enterprise where one has to deal directly with the public....waiters/waitresses, clerks, workers, etc. I do love commenting sometimes (as a customer) when I see someone being what I perceive as mistreated....hey, I'm a customer too. Sometimes it doesn't help, but it makes me feel better. I'm bad...sorry.

 

Amen to that. Said it before and will say it again, being in the service industry all my life drives my attitude towards others in service. 9 times out of 10 you get much better results.

Even if there is a situation that fires me up, I try and keep the tone down and will generally let them know that I realize they are only doing what they are told to do...but jeese and crow it still sucks. Then, once in a while you get the bonna fide a-hole and they get both barrells

 

Chit...still no Lordz!!

 

Is it possible that he is in litigation and has been advised by an attorney to stay away from forums?

 

maybe, but its awful soon for that........likely get a faster solution without getting the attorneys involved.....once they get involved, there wont (likely cant) be any communication with the dealer and Lord......maybe he's just busy?

 

I just re read his last post and it sounded apocalyptic.I hope he didn't murder his dealer.

 

Well, now that the election is over..

From what I read, it sounded like lordz spent a lot of time & coin just on getting the venting situated for the stove placement, from the pics it looked like he really had to 'thread the needle' with piping, and had zero wiggle room to change the vent height..

If after all that, if I got a bum stove here, I'd be highly pizzed too.

I do hope he stops back though, always enjoyed his posts (up until the 'fock FHC' nonsense), hoping it works out for him also.

 

2016 Harman Advance pellet stove and hearth pad+pellets and pipe

Hmmmmm....