I've been wanting to upgrade my planer & jointer so during Christmas I sold my 6" Jet and Dewalt 635 to a nice young fellow who is starting woodworking as a hobby. I had some extra Christmas money so I ordered a Grizzly G04543ZW 15" spiral planer and G0490x 8" spiral jointer. When I placed the order about 10 days ago, I was told the jointer is backordered and should ship around Feb 15th. Ok, I need to use it before then but I am willing to wait. Grizzly shipped the planer, it arrived today damaged. It looked like a forklift fork had pierced the upper portion of the crate and struck the planer. Not sure this was the right decision but I refused it without opening the crate, sent it back. I checked Grizzly's website and found that this planer model is now discontinued.
I'm thinking ok, I'll ask Grizzly to cancel both machines and purchase their 12" spiral jointer/planer combo. As I am looking on their website I see the 12" combo units are all backordered as well.
My gosh this is frustrating, what does a guy have to do buy one of their machines and have it delivered undamaged? I recall reading some other members stories about waiting 7 or 8 months on Grizzly backordered machines. Seems like you may need to plan a year in advance to be assured of receiving one of their machines.
This seriously has me thinking about cancelling the whole order and spending the extra money for a better grade of machine and service.