Thread: quality of some parts these days

Originally Posted by JDNSW

Quite a few years ago I got a carburetter kit for the Zenith. The new needle valve had exactly the problem you show, and was useless - could not be screwed in.

The retailer who sold me that has lost a lot of my custom as a result!

[snip]

John

That's a shame as it isn't the retailers fault.

People would not believe how often any service business gets faulty/broken/wrong parts or they just don't turn up or are perpetually on back order.

Just in the last three weeks, I'm still waiting for a circuit board (three weeks and counting) for a popular brand washing machine, (but at least the water pump turned up) and two weeks on a pair of circuit boards for an air conditioner (brand new, warranty job, customer not happy...)
Door seals for probably the most popular dishwasher range in the country took nearly three weeks to arrive, it's been nearly four weeks to assemble all the bits for a very popular front load washer and it's happened twice when I've opened a circuit board box there's been a second hand/faulty board inside, one was complete with a service techs appraisal of the fault !
The funny thing is I can get most all commercial/industrial refrigeration bits overnight. Just the difference in stock levels held and most nearly all the time things are correct and as ordered.

Only on Friday the local tyre service/quad mechanic opened a box for a Honda quad to find a choke cable when he ordered a brake cable....
This is almost a daily occurrence for Don and I (most of the district get all our deliveries dropped at his shop)
We have on average twice weekly grizzle sessions on how many wrong/broken/incomplete orders we receive.

Isn't it interesting what large companies are thinking, 20 years ago quality was the big buzz word at the time and bucket loads of money was spent to improve quality standards and the quality of products.
Now it seems they think by using unskilled casual/contract labour they can save a quid and make more profit. When a customer is given a faulty or incorrect part they just replace it for another (maybe faulty) part.