I have read all of the comments on this thread and I have come to the conclusion that an opinion from Smitty’s Lawn & Garden is now in order. While the email conversation with the store manager has not been established as he intended, I will take the authority to speak on this and let all draw their own conclusions. While an online forum is not the ideal place for a private matter, I will indulge.
My name is Richard and I am the Service Manager for Smitty’s Lawn & Garden Equipment. I have over 25 year of experience in this business on all sides of this equation and hold the highest levels of service training from both Stihl and Husqvarna. I have worked in the field as an end user in climbing and rigging, I have worked for a manufacturer (Stihl) and I am now at the dealership level.
Being around for as long as I have in the biz, I have run across my share of customers that fell that there is not much value to what a dealership can provide, unless it is warranty service and usually not even then. Smitty’s has been in business for 40 years and we send our technicians to every available training class available from the manufacturers each year to stay up to date with the latest technologies and tools. For this we spend a great deal of money investing in these resources which we pass onto our customers in the form of charging for our time which we make no apologies for, that is just business.
The individual who started this thread for discussion, Clint M., doesn’t feel that he was treated fairly by our service department. Instead of bringing it to the attention of Smitty’s management to attempt to address his issues he sends us an email referring to the damage he is doing to our name on this forum attaching a link. His email reads as follows.................................................
‘Getting some good feedback on how much ya''ll swindle the local folks on the arborist forum, Here is the thread for you to review...crying shame, ...the web is great for so many things, this is one of them.’
I am going to stop short of calling this juvenile, but there are certainly more constructive things that could have been done to help him with his, yes, problem.
We do charge a fee to diagnose a customer unit and we do collect it at time of drop off. A few too many people have burned us on this in the past, so in all fairness we collect it on every ticket checked in, no exceptions. If there is a warrantable issue with the machine, the customer will get the diagnosis fee back and the manufacturer foots the bill, very simple. In Clint’s case, what we charged for was in no way a reflection of the time spent on his Husqvarna saw. We had his unit in our shop for 5 days trying to duplicate the complaint. We checked the unit with the Auto-Tune Diagnostic tool (computer program), crankcase leakdown and pressure test, carb pressure and vacuum tests and found all readings within spec. Testing the saw repeatedly we were unable to duplicate the problem. When this occurs, we contact Husqvarna to see if they have seen or heard of this issue and if they have had any updates. While all machines get updates during the product life cycle, there was nothing pertaining to this specific issue.
I was off the day that he was in to pick up the unit and according to my service writer the response was ‘OK, if you can’t find anything’ and he took his saw and left. If there was an issue with the way he was treated or that he felt he was shortchanged on what he got for his diagnosis fee, why wouldn’t you speak up and ask questions? All we received instead was an email with his intent to discredit our services by suggesting we are charging for doing nothing.
Smitty’s Lawn & Garden is not going to be bullied by any individual that feels that he was wrongfully charged for our time. While we all know you cannot fix something that you cannot duplicate this issue, this goes beyond that. This is why we stand behind our services with a 90 day warranty on all work performed.
Mr Clint is more then welcome to take his unit to another dealer and get a second opinion on his matter of service issue. There are a few in the Olathe Kansas area close to him.
Industral Sales Company Inc, In Olathe Logan Contractor Supply, In Olathe Sisson Sharpening in Belton.
I want to thank all of you for your for your time and good Luck to Clint.
Richard