VPI service problems

Charhas,

I did not offer a lifetime warranty as I do not work for VPI. My speculation is based upon prior experiences as clearly indicated in this quote:

"I am naive enough to believe that if I had ever sent that 25 year old HW-17(f) back to Mike for service, he would have cured it of its ills and returned without charge."

In addition, HW himself speaks to this issue in the Vinyl Asylum parallel thread dealing with this topic. I am paraphrasing here, but HW states that VPI often performs repairs on products well outside the warranty period. If you poke about that thread, you will find that information.

I do not know, but I believe whether or not you are any original purchaser may weigh into that decision – i.e. whether to charge for repair work or not.

In any event, I am sure this topic has been fairly well exhausted despite the fact that I remain unclear as to the final resolution. If you read the Vinyl Asylum thread, there are many more comments on this topic including from HW himself.

It is now 6:30 AM here at the beach and time to take the golden retriever, Shiloh-the-Dog, for his walk. I will be back in the classroom/lab in a few short weeks, and consequently will have little time to dabble in the world of BLOG – if that is what this is.

Christopher

Yes, Birdie, when the teacher has nothing relevant left to teach it's time for a walk...

As I have watched this thread develop for the last couple of weeks I have been amazed at the reactions both pro and con to my original posting.
So many accusations and so much invective has been hurled back and forth (especially on the AudioAsylum website) that I thought it was time to try and clear up a few things.
First I am glad to hear that so many people have had such good experiences with VPI both from a sales and service perspective. It somehow makes me feel better that I did buy
the right product after all. Clearly Harry and VPI have their strong advocates and loyal fans. Unfortunately he also seems to have some strong detractors. I don't count myself in either camp. As I have said I have never had any contact with Harry in any way shape or form. (I'm
surprised that in spite of all of these postings that is still the case).
Secondly, All I can do is relate my own personal experiences with VPI and allow other members to glean what they will from it.
I have however had a lot of emails asking about the warranty situation with VPI. It seems to be unclear to many of the members. Now my HW-27 Typhoon would have
been out of warranty when the first vacuum motor failed as it was just past the two year mark from being purchased. When after a month of waiting and emailing trying to make arrangements to get it fixed I finally got thru to VPI, I queried them about the warranty as I was unsure at the time what it was. I was told in no uncertain terms that the HW-27
came with a 90 day warranty. When I stated that I thought that it had a longer warranty than that I was told to look at my owners manual and there in the back, on the last page, lo and behold it says quite clearly that the warranty is only 90 days. Now if you go to VPI's website and look at the advertisement touting the HW-27 and scroll to
the bottom it states it comes with two years of warranty coverage but if you click on the HW-27 owners manual word document and go to the bottom you will see the
warranty coverage as being 90 days. here is the link http://www.vpiindustries.com/clean_typhoon.htm
Now I know that people are going to start right in with "Oh no that's wrong" and "They have always repaired my XXX model for free even when it was long out of warranty" Well, all I can say is that this is what they have listed on their own site and this is exactly what I was told my
warranty coverage was. If the coverage is something different depending on if you are buying or in need of repair than that needs to be pointed out up front not after the fact. If the warranty is somehow different as
I am sure that VPI will claim then one would think that they could get it accurate on their own site. It seems like a chance to play fast and loose with the warranty coverage depending on who you are or what the circumstances are. When I called because my second vacuum motor had
failed after only five months my only question was if that replacement part had a warranty at all and if so was it more that 90 days. I still haven't gotten any response to that question. That is what led to my original post asking for help from the members. Boy oh boy, if I had
only known what I was letting myself in for by asking that simple question. (As a complete aside, with the help of several members I did find a replacement motor from Ametek for $72 dollars instead of the $240 listed on VPI's website, but when all of this warranty stuff came up I went the extra mile and managed to locate the engineer at Amtek who
designed the motor who kindly let me pick his brain and having never heard of VPI asked me a bunch of questions and asked me to send him pictures of the inside of the HW-27. He made a couple of suggestions and is going to send me a different motor to try out that may be better suited for this application. But he did point out that all of these
Amtek motors come with a two year warranty from the manufacturer and asked for me to send the defective motor back to him to look at which I will do at some point in the future. But I digress)
So I guess the answer to everyone's questions about warranty
coverage is that I don't know exactly what it is. I suppose that I will have to go with what it says on VPI's own site in black and white and say that it is 90 days parts and labor warranty at VPI's sole discretion. I don't know if that clears things up or makes them more cloudy but this seems to be the current state of affairs.

I must say that I have also been down the same road with VPI.....Some days are good and some are not so good....I had a Plinth repaired there, It was repaired expertly and without flaws......But it took a long time and I had some problems with communications.....I just tried to buy some parts this week but again bad communications......I got a answer from Mike on my first e-mail about a tonearm base and price but when I e-mailed again about the payment I got no answer, so I e-mailed again and again and again, still no answers....To give credit, VPI makes a wonderfully made in USA product......But they need better communication or they will not survive in this business world of today.......Will