Could-care-less Manufacturers and Authorized Dealers Bash

This thread is for everybody who wanna fan out their frustration on manufacturers who don’t care about supporting their products.

I get that they love you to pay full retail and brand new thru their dealer network. But then again, what do they care if I am willing to pay full repair cost for out-of-warranty and/or non-warranty repair?

(please, real personal experience only ... what happened to your friend doesn’t count)

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My top 3, in any order ....

1) MBL
Got an 110v MBL from Canuck Audiomart Canada. Somehow an AudioTekne power cord toasted it (if you happen to use LossLess active cables with MBL, watch out too). Sent it to my local tech guy. Got ZERO cooperation from MBL with no schematics. Sent it to an ex-Krell repairman’s shop in Connecticut who services MBL too. Got ZERO cooperation from MBL neither. OK, I shipped it to MBL service center (in Los Angeles) MBL America couldn’t get a schematic to fix that from Germany neither. Had to ship it (again!) to MBL Germany to have it fixed.


2) Jeff Rowland
Got an pair of Model 1 - one of them stopped making sound for absolutely no reason. Sent it to the local authorized Rowland service center. That shop in Verona NJ (email me if you want the name) let it sat for 2 weeks, then charged me $95 "inspection fee" then told me to take it away. They said Jeff Rowland refused to send them the schematics needed for the repair. Contacted Jeff Rowland via emails. Got the 5th amendment treatment. Lost my shirts to sell them as-is.


3) Rotel
Once upon a time, stepped into an authorized Rotel dealer showroom and drove away an brand new Rotel receiver, even thought the dealer refused to demo it ("oh it’s too much effort to connect one for you when we have stuff a zillion times more expensive for demo for our big spenders"). What an insult. Anyway, once the unit was unpacked and then plugged-in, sparks abound, smoke came out. Totally dead. Talked to the dealer (email me if you wanna know that place in Summit NJ) - blamed that I don’t know how to plug the unit in (really????). Want me to ship it to the service center instead (which I recall, at that time, only in Japan). I argued and threaten dispute with credit card company - they didn’t care, just waved the receipt with fine print saying ’cannot be held responsible for misuse’. I lucked out since I didn’t fill out the warranty form and an Japanese member happened to like to buy one (it was considerably cheaper in USA than in Japan) and he was going to Japan. I gave him $200 discount and he was happy (he told me Rotel gave him a new once he moved to Japan).