Husqvarna Chainsaw Fiasco

Simple. Take the bucks you saved by buying off the internet and pay the dealer to fix it. Live and learn.

This has been a huge debate in boards that deal with topics like this. Where'd you buy it online? Did you get an actual warranty? Dealers don't like Electrolux's (owner of Husky) bid to put their saws in box stores and whosalers, but a good dealer should service anything that has a real warranty. Maybe it won't be at the front of the line, but they should service it. Find a dealer who's less of an asshole.

In general it's always better to develop a reliationship with a dealer when you get something like this. They'll give you freebies, will promply work on stuff you've bought from them, might give you loaners, free instructions, parts, etc.

GTO(John)

Not where I live...

FWIW about 20 years ago, driving around town, was this new Ford Van with "This vehicle is a lemon and I bought it from Joe XXX Ford" and all such painted, quite neatly, on the van. "They will not honor their warrantee" and such other statements were there also.

Larry

I have never found anything on the net that I couldn't buy almost as cheaply in my local market area. All I do is compare the price locally and on the net then I factor in just the cost of shipping the item back for repair or exchange just once. In my opinion and experience it's almost all ways cheaper to buy locally if the item is something that could possibly need service or repair under warrantee.

Maybe it's just my 30 years of experience running a small service business because I can almost always find an honest reputable local dealer willing to make me a competitive deal and I never even mention that I'm expecting them to match a mail order price. On tehrare occassion I purchase something that not up to spec and the dealer causing me grieve I can deal with them in much easier than I can a company I delt with over the internet. Example Home depot really screwed up on a $750.00 special order I placed before christmas and I got a $200.00 discount and a 10% discount on any purchase I make up to $2000.00 and they removed to time limit from the discount coupon.

For those Canadian's on the group I 'm always shocked by what looks like a real cheap US price then I find the same item in Canada for the same price or less in Canadain dollars.

Doesn't matter if your American or Canadian in my opinion when ever possible you should always try to support your local businesses because in my experience they in turn they will support you.

My rant for the day

Jimbo

What a crock. I suppose if you told them you got it as a Christmas present from your father in law across the country they wouldn't service it either?

You buy the product, you buy the company, and you should get the warranty. Period. If Husky says that a local dealer can refuse you service, then Husky should service the machine themselves.

Take it to the next level at Husky.

When I was in the business of servicing printing presses one of my suppliers had us sign a contract protecting our local territories. I didn't like the idea at first but the following incident sure made me a believer.

A smart assed dealer some where out in the boon docks decided to sell the $2000.00 attachments at a discounted price by mail order. This was a very sensitive peace of equipment that required a lot of skill to install.

Customer tried to install them and they didn't work properly ergo the manufacturer flew a service person from head office out to repair the attachment and billed the selling dealer, and that bill was usually around $1500.00 to $2500.00. As you can imagine nobody tried selling outside their normal service area again.

Jimbo

I'm with the dealer. We sell power equipment our thought is if you bought from some internet site, then that's where you should have it fixed. On the other side of that, we tend to hand out demo loaners to our customers if the shop can't fix the machine in a couple of days. Bet the internet sales site doesn't do that.

Equipment dealers are independent businesses and they don't profit from warranty work- warranty repair is a neccessary evil.

So how much did you 'save' (and don't forget shipping) by shortcutting the local dealer?

-Carl

I'm with Carl all the way. If a dealer makes a profit selling a product why should another dealer have to service it at a loss? If the internet dealer had to service the unit and pay shipping to and from his shop he'd have to very quickly up his prices well above what your local dealer would charge. Yes they make a smaller profit it but they have no risk.

So I assume that your dealer agreement allows you to decline warranty repair jobs on products not purchased from you?

Jimbo,

What you are talking about doesn't compare with a retail commodity item. A better analogy might be a washer and dryer. Let's say you buy a new set, and within the next 2 months your company relocates you. Are you saying that you expect your machines to now be out of warranty because you took them with you?

Selling service contracts is completely different because the price is separated. Husky did not give Rich the option of buying the chainsaw without a warranty for a reduced price. I don't know of their warranty language, but unless Rich violated a clause in the warranty, he is entitled to service.

Sorry for the rant, but these local dealers make their own bed when they sign up to be service centers. I can't imagine any of these places sign up for warranty service to lose money.

So help me with this hypothetical Carl. I am a traveling lumberjack, and I happen to have my spanking new Husky break on me while in your area. I come to your shop, and because I didn't buy the unit from you, you're going to deny me service?

If that's the case, I'll never buy another Husky again, and I'll be damned sure to tell my friends about it too. Pretty soon, you won't be able to give them away.

Unfortunately this is true, even if you *do* buy your stuff from a local dealer. They still hate doing the warranty repair because it is $$$ out of their pocket.

I've seen cases, locally, where the standard approach to warranty repair is the "sunshine treatment" which means the item or vehicle is simply left out in the sunshine with the hopes that the magic solar rays will fix it.

This goes on until the customer gets fed up and goes elsewhere. Because of this practice you now see lemon laws, they do that three times and they just bought back your car.

This flip side is why I'm not shedding too many tears for a dealer who is contractually required to do a warranty repair, gets stuck with this sort of thing. Consider: if the dealer's price were more in line with the internet price, the entire thing could be avoided...

Jim

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Question:

Was the original seller of the chain saw an authorized dealer? A lot of the stuff people buy off the net are not be sold by authorized dealers. The sellers are just discounters who buy old stock from bankrupcies etc. and resell it cheap to unsuspecting buyers.

Rick: You make some very good points and the manufacturer would be a fool not to check the serial numbers of the equipment before turning down a warrantee claim on either the chain saw or the washer dryer.

Grey market products are flooding the market place and a lot of consumer don't realize they are not covered by the manufacturers warrantee. My advise to anyone buying on line or through mail order would be to ask for a model number and serial number before purchasing. Then they should call the manufacturer and find out date of manufacture and the warrantee status of the product.

If the product was sold by an authorized dealer there is no way the manufacturer can legally refuse to service it. Whether or not the local dealer is obligated to fix it is another story because we don't know what kind of contract the manufacturer has with the repair depot.

I'm retired now but this business of people buying stuff off the net and expecting a local company to repair it under a warrantee for well below the regular shop rate really upset me.

Jimbo

Jimbo,

The flip side of this is that many manufacturers actually pay a higher reimbursement for those items serviced at a dealer when the item was not purchased there. Not sure if this applies to Husky, but it sure does for Toro and Ariens.

I agree about the authorized dealer part though, and if Rich bought gray market then he's on his own. I also know that part of the problem with Husky is that they now sell through chain stores, although their models are a bit different than the ones in the dealer's storefront.

Perhaps I was rash and maybe we're not hearing the whole story from Rich. I still can't understand the argument that a dealer - in business to make money - would ever take on service work that would cost him money.

You have a right to be upset. But I'm not clear who you should be upset with. I can recall my dad's anger 40 years ago. He signed up as a dealer for DuMont televisions and on his first warranty repair, he was reimbursed $.40 for finding and replacing a defective capacitor (condenser then).

So the problem is not new. Clearly, dealers should be reimbursed at a profitable labor rate, but short of legal action I don't think it's going to happen.

On the other hand, the dealer signed the dealer's agreement and agreed to provide warranty support. I suspect this includes products purchased elsewhere. If not, the manufacturer should make it known to Joe Consumer *before* he purchases the product.

I believe there was a huge lawsuit involving Ford and whether or not a consumer could take his car to an arbitrary dealer for warranty service. The verdict was yes.

Ultimately, this is a dispute between the manufacturer and the dealer. As long as neither bother to inform the consumer of his status before he purchases the product, he is not to blame.

Perhaps the amount the dealer gets reimbursed on warranty repairs is much less than his normal shop rate? I owned a small engine repair shop. Warranty sucked eggs as far as I was concerned. More paper work, we had to retain the replaced parts just in case the manufacturer wanted the parts back, no profit on parts, and then the best paying manufacturer was reimburseing a bit better than 50% our normal shop rate, many were paying less than 50%! More work involved, less payback! I did warranty for anyone reguardless where the item was purchased, but hated every minute of it! Greg

I really be interested to know how much Rich paid for his chain saw including taxes and shipping? Then I'd like him to tell us what his local dealership was asking for the same exact unit? Then I would like him to post the model and serial number of the saw so that some knowledgable person on this group can tell all of us what a fair price would be for the same unit purchased through a local dealer.

I'd almost be willing to bet the difference in price won't add up to any more than it will cost him for 1 hours service at full shop rate to get the saw running properly.

Jimbo

So, will the internet dealer perform the warranty work?

R, Tom Q.