Thread: Paid for equipment - how long would you wait?

Adam,

I can understand how frustrated you must be. Some people are like that. Once they've you money they don't care will not care anymore.
Things used to be a bit easier when JET was operated by local businesses.
I would recommend Major woodworking from Sydney to you. Give Ryan a call and see if he can help you. I find them very easy to deal with. They are a family business and they have a good reputation to protect.

Good luck.

Major Woodworking Equipment - For all your woodworking tools and machinery needs.

One more thing Adam. 22 posts in 6 years is just not on. You've got to try harder.

I would go into Precision Tools, in Devonport TAS. ask for the owner, tell him your experience and let him know you are wanting more machinery - i don't think any owner of a business would be happy with his staff giving that service.

The problem is if you buy it elsewhere you have the insurance problem. and that will cost you extra - just give them a rev at the highest level and tell them you know they didn't order when they said they did so you expect better service - Pay when it arrives (or half now half later) that way I'm sure they will try harder

Cheers

david

I spent a ridiculous amount of money with WWWH, bought a table saw, jointer, thicknesser, bandsaw, drill press. Was very pleased with the service provided by WWWH. In my experience JET themselves seem to be the bottle neck in this, not the local suppliers. My JET jointer took the longest to arrive.

This is not an uncommon story in other industries either.

I tend to think that your local bloke probley isn't at fault.

I sometimes need to source computer equipment for people who try to support their local bloke & then I get let down by either the supplier in Sydney or their supplier OS.

Typical example, currently still playing out for me...
Customer asks for a recommendation of a Fax/Copier/Printer & a quote.
I do my homework, check stock in Sydney online & quote them.
They think about it for a day or so & order the printer.
I place the order & suddenly find out that they didn't have the stock they said they did & it will be a week away.
I call customer & tell them, customer says OK.
A week goes by & the wholesaler changes the due date to 2 weeks.
I call the customer & tell them, customer says OK but goes looking elsewhere anyway.
2 Weeks go by & the wholesaler changes the due date again.
I call the customer & they say that they will wait because nobody else has stock either.
After a month of waiting, the wholesaler changes the due date to the end of the next month.
I call the customer, they are a bit tired of this story now but the say that they will wait.
Yesterday the machine arrived but it wasn't due into Sydney til Monday 31st.

I bet that the big chain stores got their stock before me & I bet when I call my customer they saw one & grabbed it & forgot to cancel the order with me.

Sometimes it is not easy being the retailer when you are being told crap by your supplier.

It is a common story lately about problems getting hold on Jet stock. I have also experienced a long delay on a Jet thicknesser from a local supplier who was having trouble getting it from the Jet distributor.

Whatever the new distribution method of Jet machinery in Australia is, it does not seem to be working well at all and would require a quick rethink if Jet still want to be viewed as a premium product with the higher price to match. Whilst I am happy with the quality of the product trying to get hold of it put a black mark on the overall enjoyment of a good machine which will make me rethink the tablesaw in the future.

On a much smaller scale, I noticed that my Tormek was starting to lose power and actually stop when making even a light pass. I disassembled it and found that the shaft was badly corroded and had gouged the 'nylon' bushings. In addition to insufficient power it was also now delivering insufficient accuracy as the bushings were no longer centering the shaft. I went onto the website, identified the part(s), placed the order, paid the money ..... 3 months ago!
I have rung them, received a very concerned return call, promised delivery in the next few days .... 1 month ago!
Still no shaft or bushings.....
Yes, how long IS too long?
fletty

Sometimes it is not easy being the retailer when you are being told crap by your supplier.

Recent experience with me was the other way round. Bought a piece of equipment from a small retailer and noticed that a screw head that attaches a cover for the brushes had snapped off.
I returned it and the manager said that his "serviceman" would replace it (odd, considering it came with a 2-year replacement warranty).
It took a while and I was starting to wonder what was going on.
He returned and said "there ya go, you won't have any more problems with that." I asked him how he removed the broken screw and he replied "special tools mate!"

Went home and had a close inspection.

He had attempted to "super-glue" the broken screw-head in place to appear fixed. The long waiting time in the shop was now obvious...he wanted the glue to dry.

I managed to e-mail the supplier in Queensland and they were horrified and sent me a replacement in the mail.

Cheers.

fletty - you might want to PM Basilg (on these forums) re. your Tormek issues.

I believe that he recently had a similar problem, managed to get the bits, and now has his Tormek back up and running. Surprisingly, the replacement shaft is made of stainless (which it clearly should have been all along....)

As for equipment ordering in general, and especially where JET is concerned , I'd never pay more than a 10% deposit, with balance on delivery. There have been far too many threads on here recently about people paying in full against a promised delivery date, only to be kept waiting weeks or months.

I thought I might like to clarify something.
Why?
Because less than 6 hours after posting my original post at the top, (sales person) from Precision Tools knew of the topic on this forum. He hadn't read it, he said WWWH had phoned him about it and they weren't happy. Also they told him that Jet aren't happy either, and they mentioned "he bagged you out too".

So... What I want to make clear is that my gripe is not with Jet, and is not with WWWH, and it is not that it took 4 weeks to come. My gripe is that I was given 3 ETA's by the local business and all 3 were missed. The lack of communication / inability to return calls after I had been in on a number of occasions added to my frustrations.

I have no gripe with Jet and it displeases me that they are bothered by this topic. Prior to purchasing this machine I had communications with Jet and I found them most helpful, my intention was not to cause them any grief with this topic.

I have communicated with (someone) (not using any names intentionally in any of this) at WWWH on two occasions, once before I purchased locally when I was contemplating purchasing from an interstate supplier, and once when chasing the delivery once I found out (from the receptionist that answered the phone at Jet) that the product had left Brisbane.
Both times the conversation was polite and friendly, I found (the person at WWWH) friendly and informative on the phone. These are my only dealings with WWWH so I have no direct reason to hold any gripe there.

My problem is this. Before paying, I was told an ETA of a few days.
Three days later I was given an ETA of another 8 or 9 days.
11 days later, no word, so I went in and asked about it... It's all written in the original post above, you know what happens.
If I was told it was going to be a month when I ordered it, fine. I can live with that, I wouldn't have moved everything around in my shed to make room for it and effectively put my shed out of order for a month while waiting.
But I cannot accept that (sales person) can fail on 3 ETA's, and not follow up themselves, and not calling me back several times added to the frustration.

If someone from one of his suppliers gives him an ETA, then it's his job to follow up on it.

So the JWP-16OS thicknesser arrived in a box on Thursday evening. We got it off his flat tray and to the shed, and I took it from there. (Crap it's heavy !!) I read the instructions then assembled it, taking my time and finally turning it on for the first time Friday evening.
I've used it a bit since then, and, well, WOW!
This is a serious machine... I'm impressed!
One little problem, the feed rollers, one of the bolts that hold the rollers in was loose so the roller was sitting too high on one side, when I went to tighten it, it wouldn't tighten - it was already stripped. It seems the bolts that hold this particular roller don't fit too good, like the holes are a fraction too large, and someone in the factory that uses the rattle gun to do it up didn't notice (might have been a Friday roller).
Had to undo the bolt on the other side to take the roller out (so I could take it in & find a bolt to fit it), and that was very difficult because the whole thing kept turning.
Got it sorted, took it to where I purchased it from, they sell bolts & stuff too.
They were really surprised they aren't installing stainless bolts as they are going into stainless shafts (the shaft inside the roller), apparently different metals can cause corrosion but I'm no metals expert.
Two stainless bolts slightly longer and a hex head, gratis. Problem solved and I now have a thicknesser that rocks!

Now, to put one of these beside it...

I am glad that you've finally got the machine. Stuff Precision Tools (are you reading?). It is just not nice to stuff people around. It is the most frustrating thing that could happen to a customer. Listen up, we are in a global financial crisis here. This is just not good enough for a business. Its time to lift your game. (Still reading?)



Adam, forget about that tiny little jointer. What about one of these? She looks just as pretty as I first met her 5 years ago.

File:Powermatic jointer.jpg - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I have a 6" jointer now but it's old, I bought it 2nd hand and it has a couple of problems, long story short she's worn out.
I don't have a big shed and I've got too much stuff in it now, it was really hard for me to come to the decision of the long bed, let alone one of those monsters.

Hey, out of curiosity, anyone have any idea why the JWP-16OS thicknesser has disappeared off the Jet website?
It was there recently, and the PDF file is still there.

Like i said in Post 4 make sure the owner of the business knows about it - you might be surprised what happens when he finds out his "reputation/service record is publicly displayed.

Besides it is to your benefit to use local suppliers wherever possible - like the bolts you needed - if you dont use him he's not there when needed. (gone out of business)

Don't let pride get in the way of common sense.

Cheers

David

Originally Posted by pellcorp

I spent a ridiculous amount of money with WWWH, bought a table saw, jointer, thicknesser, bandsaw, drill press. Was very pleased with the service provided by WWWH. In my experience JET themselves seem to be the bottle neck in this, not the local suppliers. My JET jointer took the longest to arrive.

It's worth mentioning based on your last response that even though the JET jointer did take quite a bit longer to arrive, I have no regrets about purchasing a JET Jointer and bandsaw, both are awesome pieces of equipment and the quality of both tools is obvious. My JET bandsaw just worked from the very beginning no tweaking or anything required.

Even if I did this all again and knew I was going to have to wait quite a while for the long bed 6" jointer I would.

Edit - I have basically the same thicknesser in the TruPro version - great machine very happy with how heavy and reasonably quiet it is. It does a great job with the normal blades. When you get over your current challenges with the bolts you should be very happy.

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