Mark Kelly 92040
07-02-2012, 7:37 PM
About a week ago I posted a question about welding a cast iron jointer table in this thread. (http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?188336-Welding-Cast-Iron-Jointer-Table-Looking-for-Recommendations) I wanted to post an update.
The jointer is a Ridgid JP0610 that I've had for probably ten years. I went to the Ridgid web site and followed the prompts to their parts page and made my order. At the end of the process I was redirected to a company called Gardner, Inc., their parts distributor, to complete the transaction.
FedEx arrived with the part on Saturday and as soon as the driver stepped off the truck I knew there was trouble. From 30 feet away, I could see that the box was heavily damaged and had had a considerable amount of tape applied to try and fix it. When I opened the too-small box, I found that there was no packing and the part was wrapped in a single layer of bubble wrap. Not only was the part damaged, but the ground surface of the table was pitted and had a dime-sized chunk missing near the blade edge. There was no protective coating anywhere on the part and there was a considerable amount of rust near the dovetails. Clearly this was a used part; it even still had the gib screws in place. I refused the shipment as damaged and had FedEx return it.
I emailed Gardner over the weekend and supplied photos of the part and the damaged box. I still haven't received a reply to that email.
This morning I called Gardner and after being redirected to their "shipping" person whose voice mail answered because he is on vacation, I called back and spoke to a new person in customer service. This person told me he would connect me with a supervisor and put me on hold. He came back about five minutes later and told me the supervisor was busy in a meeting but had told him that Gardner "just ships out what the manufacturer sends them." I was also told that I'd have to wait until Gardner received the return shipment before they'd even consider crediting my account. And, to top it off, I have to call them in a "week or so" to follow up on that.
Since this transaction started with the Ridgid web site, I decide to call them to let them know what had happened. They took my complaint and said that a supervisor would look into it. About 15 minutes later, I received an email from a representative of the part manufacturer, TTI, Inc., who asked for copies of the photos I had sent Gardner. Shortly after that, I received an email asking for my shipping address and indicating that TTI was going to ship me the part free of charge and include a set of replacement blades for the jointer.
Needless to say, that was totally unexpected.
This incident is an example of both ends of the spectrum for customer service. On the one hand, Gardner wasn't interested in even taking my contact information for someone to follow up on my call. On the other hand, the part manufacturer TTI, who wasn't involved in my transaction with Gardner stepped up and took care of the problem quickly.
On a side note, after the package came on Saturday, I had decided that I couldn't trust Gardner to replace the used part with a new one so I had decided to part the Ridgid jointer out and buy a Grizzly G0656P 8" jointer which shipped today. Now it looks like I'll be able to sell the Ridgid jointer whole and at least recover some of my money spent on the new one.
Mark
The jointer is a Ridgid JP0610 that I've had for probably ten years. I went to the Ridgid web site and followed the prompts to their parts page and made my order. At the end of the process I was redirected to a company called Gardner, Inc., their parts distributor, to complete the transaction.
FedEx arrived with the part on Saturday and as soon as the driver stepped off the truck I knew there was trouble. From 30 feet away, I could see that the box was heavily damaged and had had a considerable amount of tape applied to try and fix it. When I opened the too-small box, I found that there was no packing and the part was wrapped in a single layer of bubble wrap. Not only was the part damaged, but the ground surface of the table was pitted and had a dime-sized chunk missing near the blade edge. There was no protective coating anywhere on the part and there was a considerable amount of rust near the dovetails. Clearly this was a used part; it even still had the gib screws in place. I refused the shipment as damaged and had FedEx return it.
I emailed Gardner over the weekend and supplied photos of the part and the damaged box. I still haven't received a reply to that email.
This morning I called Gardner and after being redirected to their "shipping" person whose voice mail answered because he is on vacation, I called back and spoke to a new person in customer service. This person told me he would connect me with a supervisor and put me on hold. He came back about five minutes later and told me the supervisor was busy in a meeting but had told him that Gardner "just ships out what the manufacturer sends them." I was also told that I'd have to wait until Gardner received the return shipment before they'd even consider crediting my account. And, to top it off, I have to call them in a "week or so" to follow up on that.
Since this transaction started with the Ridgid web site, I decide to call them to let them know what had happened. They took my complaint and said that a supervisor would look into it. About 15 minutes later, I received an email from a representative of the part manufacturer, TTI, Inc., who asked for copies of the photos I had sent Gardner. Shortly after that, I received an email asking for my shipping address and indicating that TTI was going to ship me the part free of charge and include a set of replacement blades for the jointer.
Needless to say, that was totally unexpected.
This incident is an example of both ends of the spectrum for customer service. On the one hand, Gardner wasn't interested in even taking my contact information for someone to follow up on my call. On the other hand, the part manufacturer TTI, who wasn't involved in my transaction with Gardner stepped up and took care of the problem quickly.
On a side note, after the package came on Saturday, I had decided that I couldn't trust Gardner to replace the used part with a new one so I had decided to part the Ridgid jointer out and buy a Grizzly G0656P 8" jointer which shipped today. Now it looks like I'll be able to sell the Ridgid jointer whole and at least recover some of my money spent on the new one.
Mark