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Thread: Buyer Beware: Delta Tools

  1. #16
    Quote Originally Posted by Myk Rian View Post
    The problems with Delta are well documented. It seems the only Delta machine parts available are on the used market. That's why so many people prefer restoring the old iron. Me included. I can get any part for all my machines.
    I went to Delta's site and punched-in the model # of this drill press and quite a few parts are in-stock.

    The parts section of the website itself is rather new, and I've spot-checked a few models over months and it seems like more parts are coming into stock.

    So I think they're turning the corner, it is just taking much longer than anyone would hope.

    But the new owner, Chang Type is a $1.3B company, they have the money to fix it.

    Woops, no they aren't. That is TWD. So their entire market cap is only $35M USD, I think. Ugh.
    Last edited by Phil Thien; 11-01-2014 at 1:08 PM.

  2. #17
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    The only way I got replacement parts a year and a half ago was to file a report with the better business bureau in their state and to write a registered letter to their president. That finally got results.
    Veni Vidi Vendi Vente! I came, I saw, I bought a large coffee!

  3. #18
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    This problem is not limited to the tool maker industry. Many companies place a higher value on their fiduciary responsibility than producing a quality good or service. Just good enough is the mentality these days. The main motivator seems to be to meet or exceed the analysts quarterly projections. Customers are secondary to investors.
    Measure twice, cut three times, start over. Repeat as necessary.

  4. #19
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    Quote Originally Posted by Greg Peterson View Post
    This problem is not limited to the tool maker industry. Many companies place a higher value on their fiduciary responsibility than producing a quality good or service. Just good enough is the mentality these days. The main motivator seems to be to meet or exceed the analysts quarterly projections. Customers are secondary to investors.
    Fiduciary responsibility ultimately requires decent quality goods and services, or at least good enough for the price charged. Sometimes it's more about incompetence at various levels than greed at the top. Deltas products have been average to mediocre for years so none of this is much of a surprise. Their parts availability wasn't great 10-15 years ago and recent information has been that it is now worse. Dave

  5. #20
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    Anyone who doesn't know new Delta tools are crap doesn't get out much. I have a belt/disc sander that I bought for like $120 that works, but I sure did not expect much for the price and got what I paid for. I see that is an expensive drill but the Powermatic without laser costs $600 more; one would have to think about why that is.
    [SIGPIC][/SIGPIC] "You don't have to give birth to someone to have a family." (Sandra Bullock)




  6. #21
    Current owners of the DELTA name are only to blame for current production model problems. Delta today, isn't the same as your father's Delta. When owned by Rockwell and Pentair, Delta stocked every part to fix any machine they ever made. It was called customer service. Black and Decker bought both the PC line and Delta from Pentair, then basically flushed both of them down the tubes. Destroyed trailer after trailer of parts when moving them to MD. Finally realized they couldn't live up to the Delta way of thinking, so simply sold off the Delta name to highest bidder. New owners couldn't even figure out exactly what they were getting for their money. They did a nationwide parts inventory, then decided to only focus on current production machines, many of which were built by other vendors for them. They had no spare parts inventory to service newer machines either. So it's a sad day for the Delta name.

  7. #22
    At my local Woodcraft, Steel City is back, and Delta is mostly nowhere to be found. Figure that one out. Maybe there's a small spindle sander somewhere. They don't even have a Delta drill press on the floor, and that's never happened best I can remember in the 7 years I've known them.

  8. #23
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    I am not defending Delta (The only Delta I own is pretty nice) but it is endemic to the industry. They have to sell tools as cheaply as possible and something has to give. Quality and customer service just isn't what it used to be. They have turned into auto dealers.

    I got two replacement parts for my Grizzly edge sander and both were defective in the same way as the first ones; fortunately not quite as bad. (But at least they did it immediately...)
    It took Laguna 6 months to send me a replacement belt for my drillpress; the CS guy couldn't get one, so he finally went out to an auto supply house and bought one.

    But I would probably buy another Grizzly if I ever need another tool; they aren't any worse than anyone else and are well priced. No, I wouldn't buy another Laguna; if they charge a premium price they had better give premium service.

  9. #24
    Quote Originally Posted by Wade Lippman View Post
    I am not defending Delta (The only Delta I own is pretty nice) but it is endemic to the industry. They have to sell tools as cheaply as possible and something has to give. Quality and customer service just isn't what it used to be. They have turned into auto dealers.

    I got two replacement parts for my Grizzly edge sander and both were defective in the same way as the first ones; fortunately not quite as bad. (But at least they did it immediately...)
    It took Laguna 6 months to send me a replacement belt for my drillpress; the CS guy couldn't get one, so he finally went out to an auto supply house and bought one.

    But I would probably buy another Grizzly if I ever need another tool; they aren't any worse than anyone else and are well priced. No, I wouldn't buy another Laguna; if they charge a premium price they had better give premium service.
    My experience has been that Laguna CS is schizophrenic...you get what you get, sometimes great, sometimes terrible. Grizzly has always been great. Jet has always been great. Powermatic is great. Sawstop is great. Rikon's run hot and cold, but they try and it's not bad. Ever since Delta changed hands, they have been bottom of the barrel terrible, and as hard to believe as it is, they've actually gotten WORSE. At first, you could blame it on a number of things, including maybe some shenanigans after the sale. It's been years and there are no more excuses. How crazy would you have to be to buy a Unisaw today? One small part could break, and you might be down for months, or paying a machinist through the nose to custom make parts for you.

    It's not endemic. Most companies we're dealing with are actually pretty good, and many will bend over backwards to help. It's Delta.
    Last edited by John Coloccia; 11-03-2014 at 6:43 AM.

  10. #25
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    I'd contact your credit card company and open a dispute regarding the original charge from Amazon. That will get things moving with Amazon, as no merchant likes it when the card issuer takes money away from them. Then I'd lean on Amazon to take the machine back with no return shipping and no restocking fee. They sold you crap that you couldn't use from the first day.

    Also check whether your credit card offers extended warranty protection - that my help as well.

  11. #26
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    Quote Originally Posted by Marty Tippin View Post
    I'd contact your credit card company and open a dispute regarding the original charge from Amazon. That will get things moving with Amazon, as no merchant likes it when the card issuer takes money away from them.
    I tried that 3 years ago. They denied my dispute because the merchant said I was wrong. I went to a local branch and spoke to the manager. The manager agreed I was clearly correct, and called on my behalf. They told him there was nothing they could do when the merchant disputed it. However they did tell him there was an undocumented appeals I could try. The merchant never replied to the appeals within the required time, so credit card people asked me to give them more time to work on it. When I refused, they reluctantly refunded my money.

    Unless the OPs CC company is friendlier than mine, that route is not promising.

    I have never tried the CC extended warranty route. Anyone have success with that?

  12. #27
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    Unfortunately, Delta has become a non-starter for me as far as tool purchases right now. Doubly unfortunate as the 18-900 is one of only two DP's under $2500 that I have put my hands on that is worth taking to the shop. I was at a show this weekend and every DP I tried had sloppy up and down quill movement that would make it unusable for consistent hole depth work except for one. Oddly, it was the $1400 Powermatic 2800B which is the second version of the ill-fated original that came under so much fire. I am very sorry you got caught in this mess and will hope for a good ending to the story.
    "A hen is only an egg's way of making another egg".


    – Samuel Butler

  13. contact the credit card company that you used to make the purchase and see if they can offer assistance through a consumer protection warranty they may offer.

    with AMEX - for example - they replaced a pair of sunglasses that I damaged. Actually - they just credited me the purchase price, and I bought another pair.

  14. #29
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    Well, I got in contact with Delta and they were about as rude as possible. It pretty much came down to "You didn't buy it from us, so how are we supposed to refund your money? There's nothing that we can do for you."

    As for the Credit Card approaches, I purchased the tool using my Amazon.com Store Card, which I think is solely through them and not a credit company (Though I could be wrong, but can't find anything that states otherwise).

    Also, on top of this, I'm not sure who to actually believe, Delta or the SC. While talking with Delta, I mentioned that the SC said they were no longer going to service Delta tools because of this and the lady pretty much laughed and said that it's not true. She also looked up the P.O. number that the parts were ordered from and she said that the reason the parts took so long is because they didn't order the parts as "warranty replacement parts". I'm not really sure what the difference is though. She was also very adamant that they would never send used parts and that the SC was lying to me.

    After hearing a potential different side of the story, I called the SC from a different number and asked if they serviced Delta tools as I'm having warranty problems with my DP. The person on the other line said that they in fact do still service Delta tools. Later on, I called to talk about my DP and they confirmed that they will no longer service Delta tools as they don't want to deal with the company. This leads me to believe that the SC just no longer wants to work on my DP and just wants to wipe their hands of the situation.

    I'm really not sure who to believe now, I'm thinking that I'm just going to pay the $200 and have Amazon take it back and just forget about this whole situation. Unless anybody thinks I have some other avenues here?
    Last edited by David B Thornton; 11-05-2014 at 6:38 PM.

  15. #30
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    David, I'm so sorry for these issues, and its incredibly troubling to me that this (formerly great) company has been driven into the ground so quickly and so thoroughly. I can only imagine what kind of head-in-their-rear executives are making decisions and allowing story after story to damage the brand without any response whatsoever other than "you didn't buy it here why should we warrantee it...". If I were you I would bite the bullet and pay the $200 for the peace of mind and to wash my hands of the whole thing.

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