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Need an NY-based repair place / rant.


theElevators
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Sorry for a bit of a rant.  I'm kind-of losing my sh lately.  Had to clean my microswitches, but got 1/2 LED broken as a bonus. 

 

Long story short:

I checked 10 repair shops in my area.  3 of those have decent ratings.

 

Shop 1: Cleaned out the microswitches, but broke the LED.  Then refused to take any responsibility from breaking the other thing "It was probably on its way out".  Unlikely but possible, I guess. 

 

Brought it to Shop 2. 

 

Shop 2: Is extremely non-enthusiastic about fixing the LED.  Despite confirming that I'd bring it in, despite explaining the problem.... to a point of probably telling me tomorrow that he is not going to fix it.  "meeeeehhh, it's too much of a pain, I don't want to get involved".  That's a certified Line 6 repair shop worker telling me this on the phone. "I mean, I'll take a look and let you know, but I am leaning towards not getting involved in this". 

 

So my question is: what the heck is this???  These are all "certified" Line 6 repair shops.  Is this some kind of a sick joke?  First of all the Helix is built with components that you'll find in Chinese Xmas lights.... Then you can't find anybody to fix it. 

 

Where can I find a place to fix my 1600-USD piece of gear without getting things broken/unneeded attitudes. 

 

Should have bought a Kemper, I'm sure I'd not been getting this much idiocy. 

 

ty

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The following is offered with best intentions. I hope you understand.

 

I grew up in NYC. I know about "attitude".

I've read a lot of your posts. You have "attitude".

If you take attitude to someone from whom you hope to receive service, that person is liable to see you as "trouble" and be disinclined to help.

As someone who has been on the service side of the counter (computer service, motorcycle repair), I've had the experience of someone bringing in a device for service, then blaming me when I call back and tell them all of the other things that need fixing.

Add that experience to "this guy sounds like trouble" and you can BEGIN to understand why I'm no longer in the service business.

 

All of that said, some people are dishonest, incompetent A-holes. If you're certain that this applies in your situation, contact someone from L6 - maybe go over to the TGP D&M Forum and drop a PM to Frank Richotte. He's helped a lot of folks whose frustration levels have reached critical.

 

I'd leave out the comparisons to Chinese Christmas tree lights. ;-)

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On 12/5/2022 at 1:49 PM, Schmalle said:

To rant a little more this is the landing page for the European Line 6 authorized service center:

grafik.thumb.png.4179823e85c1c3b0dd3a9ca88b499e40.png

Unreadable - didn't change in at least the last year.

 

Really? PMS Electronics??? LMAO!

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Not justifying the guy at the service, but Id be curious to know how much money they get from tasks like these.

 

Honestly Id be probably one of those guys telling "no thanks" as those are a PITA to repair, yep I can assure you (and I do repair my audio devices on my own since late '80)...

 

 

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On 12/5/2022 at 4:13 PM, PierM said:

Not justifying the guy at the service, but Id be curious to know how much money they get from tasks like these.

 

Honestly Id be probably one of those guys telling "no thanks" as those are a PITA to repair, yep I can assure you (and I do repair my audio devices on my own since late '80)...

 

 

That is absolutely fine to say "we don't do this" or "no thanks".  You don't instead agree to work on something, then after 4 days realize it's "PITA". 

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On 12/5/2022 at 10:18 PM, theElevators said:

That is absolutely fine to say "we don't do this" or "no thanks".  You don't instead agree to work on something, then after 4 days realize it's "PITA". 

 

Agree. This is just unprofessional. 100% unprofessional.

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If you advertise that you are a "Certified Repair Facility", doing the little PITA jobs comes with the certification.

Where else you supposed to take it - "Joe's Lawn Mower and Computer Repair"?

My guitar tech would rather be doing headstock repairs on Les Pauls, but he'll do a setup on your Squier Affinity too.

It might take 3 weeks though...

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Picked up the Helix.  He stripped every single screw, and half-screwed things in.  THIS IS A CERTIFIED LINE 6 REPAIR SHOP!!!!

 

Now I need to get new screws because he made all of them unusable.  But hey!  it was free expert diagnostic free of charge!  lol

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On 12/5/2022 at 9:49 PM, Schmalle said:

To rant a little more this is the landing page for the European Line 6 authorized service center:

 

Yeah, it's gotta be a joke. Same for any vendor, btw.

And that's pretty much *the* official service partner of YMMG over here.

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On 12/5/2022 at 10:13 PM, PierM said:

Honestly Id be probably one of those guys telling "no thanks" as those are a PITA to repair, yep I can assure you (and I do repair my audio devices on my own since late '80)...

 

Well, in case you're a certified Line 6 repair shop, it might not be the best move, though. Otherwise, you might not be a Line 6 repair shop much longer...

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On 12/6/2022 at 5:31 AM, theElevators said:

Picked up the Helix.  He stripped every single screw, and half-screwed things in.  THIS IS A CERTIFIED LINE 6 REPAIR SHOP!!!!

 

Now I need to get new screws because he made all of them unusable.  But hey!  it was free expert diagnostic free of charge!  lol

 

Contact Line 6 directly. Can't imagine they'd be very happy about that. After all, at least in the US, one thing that seemed to set L6 apart from others (not sure whether that is still the case) was their support (has always been extraordinarily bad in Europe, though).

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On 12/6/2022 at 6:10 AM, SaschaFranck said:

 

Well, in case you're a certified Line 6 repair shop, it might not be the best move, though. Otherwise, you might not be a Line 6 repair shop much longer...

 

Not sure how it works over there, but never heard of "certified" centers, just authorized. (worked myself in one of those "authorized" centers for Quad amplifiers when I was very young)

 

An authorized center isn't forced to do anything (it's an indipendent bench, that's it), they just are authorized from a specific manufacturer to do a task, access parts, and stay compliant with the manufacturer process and warranty regulations. Then, if you have problems with a repair shop, you contact your local/area distributor, which is the proper entity that has to help you finding another one.

 

There is no such thing as corporal punishments if you don't do a job you don't want do, lol!

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I have not had good luck with the certified repair places in my area. One, I took my HD500 in for a fix that Line 6 had authorized regarding it. This was a repair every HD500 sold at the time was getting regarding a flaw with the footswitches. Basically a factory recall. When I got it back, it kept on shutting down after a certain amount of time. 10 minutes to a half hour. Repair person refused to take responsibility for it. Wound up sending it to Line 6. Another one "repaired" my JTV89F Variax. His solution to the problem I had was to put a piece of something on the cover to the JTV electronics so that when you put the cover back on it would push the part that was the problem, physically down so that it would stay connected. I'm no expert, maybe it's just me, but I think that repair was below standard to put it kindly. Wound up sending it to Line 6. My policy now is to just send it in to Line 6 as well. It's the only way I can guarantee my repair. That is unfortunate for anyone outside the US. Line 6 itself took care of the issues totally to my satisfaction which is why I still think their customer service is very very good. It's the other guys, not so much.

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On 12/6/2022 at 3:46 AM, PierM said:

There is no such thing as corporal punishments if you don't do a job you don't want do, lol!

My point is that if you're an authorized shop, you need to know what you are doing.  If you take on a repair job, then you complete it.  Instead of that, the guy opened it up, said "f this", and then stripped all the screws, didn't put the lid back on properly and said "I think we'll pass".  This is unacceptable. 

 

This applies to other things, like cars.  I have a Ford and ever since the beginning my car was constantly treated like a piece of junk, even when it was a few months old.  Just a general lack of care, responsibility. 

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On 12/6/2022 at 2:55 PM, theElevators said:

My point is that if you're an authorized shop, you need to know what you are doing.  If you take on a repair job, then you complete it.  Instead of that, the guy opened it up, said "f this", and then stripped all the screws, didn't put the lid back on properly and said "I think we'll pass".  This is unacceptable. 

 

This applies to other things, like cars.  I have a Ford and ever since the beginning my car was constantly treated like a piece of junk, even when it was a few months old.  Just a general lack of care, responsibility. 

 

Yeah man, I said already I totally get your point as that guy was really unprofessional. 

 

I was just pointing out that an authorized repair shop remains an independent bench, so he can refuse any task, but wasn't an argument against your POV, which remains totally justified. (In your shoes I'd be pissed off like you, if not more)

Also, there is no "certification". It's just a repair shop that has a deal with yamaha to take care of their stuff, but again, they are forced to do nothing if they don't want to.

 

That guy should have said NO THANKS since from the start. That's where he messed up.

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I contacted Line 6 over the phone, and wrote down all the info regarding the 2 service centers with receipts in a Service ticket they opened for me.  Let's see how Line 6 will address this. 

 

I have a European / Canadian tour in Jan/Feb so will have to make do with 1/2 LED working.  I'm really glad I have 2 Helixes, if I only had one, then I'd been really screwed with these service centers, etc.  I'll take 2 Helixes with me on the road, can't afford to have any more funny stuff happen in the middle of Europe.... 

 

At this point I have invested so much time into building my presets on the Helix, that doing all of this work all over again on a new piece of gear is out of the question.  That means I'm stuck with the Helix tech for the foreseeable future.  When the new version of the processor comes out, the price falls, I'll probably get myself like 3 spare Helixes lol.  Pod HD 500X go for like 250 bucks mint on eBay, so hopefully the same will apply to the Helix. 

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On 12/6/2022 at 1:55 PM, theElevators said:

My point is that if you're an authorized shop, you need to know what you are doing.  If you take on a repair job, then you complete it.  Instead of that, the guy opened it up, said "f this", and then stripped all the screws, didn't put the lid back on properly and said "I think we'll pass".  This is unacceptable. 

 

This applies to other things, like cars.  I have a Ford and ever since the beginning my car was constantly treated like a piece of junk, even when it was a few months old.  Just a general lack of care, responsibility. 

This is one of these times where you've unfortunately gone to someone who just isn't very good. Choosing not to take on a repair is one thing, but ultimately he's wasting your time because he's unsure of what he's doing, which is a disappointing experience, plus he's not put it back together probably which makes you extra angry. You get this with everything these days though, it's so important to get recommendations or read reviews first, more than ever I think.

 

What's worse in your case is that you actually rely on the unit for work so to speak. I feel your pain!

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  • 2 weeks later...

So, I've yet to experience the second-to-none customer service all the fanboys are raving about! 

 

All kidding aside, I opened a ticket with Line 6 after calling them on the phone with all the info as I was instructed.  Today had a follow up call assuring me I'd receive an answer today 2 weeks and 1 day later.  Maybe it's the Xmas season.... IDK.  But I'm starting to get more and more annoyed with everything hardware/service related.  I actually gave up on the L/Mono bug... priorities...

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On 12/22/2022 at 9:52 AM, bobruz said:

The Lifetime Service Center in Williamsville, NY (Buffalo) has been

excellent for warranty work on my Helix and Variax gear.
 

Address: 

1955 Wehrle Dr.
Williamsville, NY 14221

 
Hours: 
8AM - 5:30PM
Appointmentslifetimeservice.com
 
 

Thanks, but I'm in NYC  :)  Good news, Line 6 responded that they would fix the light for me, and that's what I will do as I cannot afford any more stripped screws, and other shenanigans.  Will do that once I'm done with the touring, because it's cutting it way too short.  

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