Thread: Any experience with GMC Warranty Claims

hi sir stinkalot, (strange name didnt your ma & pa like you,,,lol)
in answer to your 1st question , no experience with warranties on gmc cause i wouldnt own one!!!!
edging , it wouldnt matter if you raised the bit a little when edging cause you can go down to your correct depth on finishing pass to clean up. it is recomended to do cuts in a few deepening passes, rather than to do it in 1 cut.
seeyousoon mik.

Don't know why pepole knock what they don't use. Plenty of people rave about Dewalt tools and they are really a Black & Decker. GMC has a similar quality line of tools in their "Platinum" range. I speak from experience here.
Anyway....
GMC are ok to deal with. I have had no waranty claims but have done a couple of "upgrades" and the people were great to deal with. Mr Makita could take some lessons from these people.
Anyway, if it broke, send it back. The product should have been able to do the job. Something about goods being fit for the purpose acording to consumer affairs.
Good luck,

Personaly I have never even seen one. However I would think there would be a stop you can set for the plunge depth that would stop this problem.

If I am doing a molding for a table top or similar I set the routers depth and lock it in place with the locking nuts and the plunge lock. It is much safer this way. I have never found the need to cut in steps with the smaller profiles. For larger ones it is only an incinvenience of a few seconds to undo the lock nut and re adjust the depth. The added security of this is well worth the extra few seconds.

However for safety sake the plunge lock should be working properly and if not then I would reckon you have a good claim.

One of my sons purchased an even cheaper brand of tools in a set from the local market, also with 2 year warranty. Jig saw packed it in after a bit of pretty hard work. Took it back to the market and the guy gave him a new one, no questions asked.

Cheers - Neil

Ok,
Thanks for the replies. I have been using it within its limits so I will take it back and get the plunge lock looked at. Thats why I bought the thing so I would be covered for the two year period.
I will let you know how I get on.

------------------
May the stink be with you

I've been using a (really cheap) GMC lathe & GMC table saw (which has now been converted permanently to running a Triton sanding disk). Both purchased from Bunnies. Can't remember the details of the problem that developed, but the local bunnies did a direct swap of my fault component for a new one, even without any proof of purchase. Guess they don't have any problems working with GMC claims dept.

stuart,

Was it your GMC table saw or lathe that broke?

I often wonder why some lathes are like a couple thousand and others are a couple hundred...sure the more expensive ones are better built, solid and probably last a little longer...but in the end, don't they just spin a bit of wood around between the two pointy bits?

and just out of interest, my mate who is a builder has owned a DeWalt 12v cordless drill and a Bosch 12v cordless drill as well as a cheapie GMC drill.

Guess which one has outlasted the rest? The GMC. He was quite amazed and didn't find a whole lot of difference between them in terms of power and functionality in his everyday use...but there you have it...To me, a drill is a drill and often the cheaper ones are just as good.

I say don't go bagging cheap brands. Sure many of them are cheap and nasty, but you can save a few dollars if you don't always live by the 'dearer is always better' principle.

I have a variety of tools of varying quality/price..

Triton Circular Saw & Router (Both higher priced items...both excellent)

Delta 16" Scroll Saw (middle of the range...and ok so far!)

Ryobi Jig Saw (still going strong)
GMC Cordless Drill (working well!)



[This message has been edited by Dean (edited 26 November 2002).]

I will tend to agre with you there Dean.
I have a GMC 12volt drill with dead batereis (they lasted 2 years) so I wired it up as a corded drill and it now works from a special low voltage socket on the back of the 4wd for fence repairs and the like. 2 years is as long as I got out of the Makita that the GMC replaced.

Gidday Dean,

It was the lathe tool rest (overtightened the bugger, and because it is cast, combined with the vibration cracked one side of the hold-down arm. Bit hard to describe, however no immediate danger involved, but meant there was a higher risk of not having the tool rest fully locked.

The replacement part was quite a bit thicker, so obviously between my purchase (it was a present actually), and getting the replacement, GMC had already made a product improvement. I have now had the replacement going for 9 months or so, with no further occurances.

The table saw keeps doing its thing, although now is not getting loaded anywhere near as much, running just the sanding disk, rather than a blade.

I'm sure you'll get heaps of feedback wrt cheap vs expensive, and there are a lot of reasons for the better quality/cost lathes.

I stall mine pretty easily (trying to take off too much at once!, it is not perfectly dynamically balanced, so although it is turning between centres, there is a vibration to the whole lathe, especially noticable at slower speeds. The 4 jaw (purchased separately) is hard to adjust/centre work, and seems to have some specific diameters that it's not able to grab.

However, for an introduction, it has been great, and I am really enjoying using it. I will unquestionably upgrade one day, and on that day will probably curse myself for not doing it much earlier, but until then, the GMC is giving me a lot of fun.

Stuart a mate of mine uses a gmc lathe and we found the vibration was stopped when he bolted the bed down in several places along its lenth....proir to this you could see it bendin as the tailstock was tightened
Pete

Cheers for that- I will have to readdress my "bolting down" because at the time, I didn't have a woodworking tool to my name, so the "bench" I made for the lathe isn't actually flat...... This Christmas is going to be busy, part of which will be bringing the shed up to a standard that I'm not embarrassed by!

I also bought a GMC router back 1 1/2 years ago, and this I am about to get my fourth warranty claim. It seems that the fault in al my warranty claims is the on/off switch,which becomes faulty after a short period of time. My advice is return the router, get a new one sell it to anyone who would like to buy it, or maybee a chrisi present, and spent a few more hundred dollars and get a good one.

cheers
Tony

Hello,
Thanks for all of the replies.
I have taken the router back to bunnies. Placed it on the bench and explained my problem. The lady behind the desk said that it must be a problem with the spring. I didn't think that it was but didn't complain. Within a minute I was presented with a new one.

How can you go wrong?

Thanks

------------------
May the stink be with you

Stuart, girls and boys

I am interested in your experience with the GMC lathe. It is certainly cheap enough ($175 from Mitre 10 at present) to play around with and discover whether I am might become interested in turning. However, it has omly a 1/3 hp motor and I wonder if it would turn into a white elephant.

Does it have enough power for hardwoods, such as Jarrah? Assuming that I bolt it firmly to a permanent bench top, will it provide enough stability? I am a complete novice in this area - how wide a bowl could be turned?

Any other recommendations?

Regards as always

Derek (in Perth)