to bad they are not helping you out, being an engineer i would be ashamed to have my name on something like that.
you could re-try contacting them. to often a company is judged on correspondance between just one individual, you might get a differant response if you get someone else. i know they all represent the company but they are not all the same.
i wish you luck, you got the short straw on this. i know if i had know this i would not have bought my troy-built.
I have to judge them on my situation and cannot find a reason to say anything good about their product or their service.
Everyone who is pleased with their same splitter will defend them but would you defend them if you were in my shoes?
If by miracle they fixed my problem, I would simply add here they have a bad design with failing products but are willing to try to fix it right for the ones with failed products. They prefer to spread the word of their bad product and service then to make the customers happy one at a time.
They may lose thousands dollars on sales more than just offering to fix for hundreds or even less and keep their name clean and a good reputation for future services on issues like these.