Do you service you own tools and equipment or do you out-source it?
If you do out-source it, how do you know its being dealt with professionally?
We mainly service and repair Avant Loaders and there attachments for our customers either for machines that they have bought from us or elsewhere.
This week though whilst servicing a customers kubota tractor and giving it a spruce up we had to take off the bi-speed turn gearbox to replace an 'O' ring.
Whilst disassembling the gearbox we started to come across the remains of a bearing and its casing, so we were expecting to find another job to add to the work sheet, however on further disassembling there was no damage or worn bearings in the gearbox.
So bringing me back to my original question who last serviced your equipment? as whoever dealt with this tractors previous repairs had obviously not done a great job of tidying out the previous broken bearing as a fair bit of it was left in the gearbox which as we all know isn't a great thing to do.
The customer told me that it was last serviced by a main dealer, who you should be able to trust to do the best for your tools.
So, who do you trust to service you equipment and tools?
Below are parts of the finds we found inside the tractors gearbox.
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I spent £1100 last year on servicing my 2 lawnmowers and other peices of equipment.
On the flip side of the coin i've been approached ( he approached me ) by the lad who works at the co. who services my equipment to work for me. Anyway he starts in 2 months time and will hopefully save me a small lump. He's been in the engineering / servicing game for 10 years, and is very knowledgable in terms of engines, machines and models. He's having a complete change of role, he can't work for his employer anymore (not treating him right) so i'd better ! My first employee to say i'm nervious is an understantment.
Andrew
Best of luck with your new appointment Andrew
and like you say he should be able to save you plenty in the future.
A lot of equipment is out of warranty now so it is not unusual to approach our preferred service shop to see if they can help out...like Etesia stuff, Kubota or lombardini engined stuff.
A piece of equipment has just come back from them repaired and working after multiple failed visits to an official dealer.
It's about building up trust and I would be horrified at the example above.....
I agree Gary, its all about trust.
And we couldn't believe our eyes once we realised that someone had left these parts in there, especially knowing that a few more bolts was all that was required to completely take it apart and give it a thorough wash out.
Gary RK said:
I'm still trying to find a good, reliable mechanic - have wasted an awful lot of time and money on complete idiots in the past. Tractor and mower in at a new shop this year, so fingers crossed.
Still need to find someone to service my digger though, if anybody has recommendations for south/west yorkshire? Terrified of the kind of bill i'd get from the JCB main dealers after I was charged £41 for a plastic oil cap.
Any LJM able to point Doug in the right direct for a digger service in the SW Yorkshire region?
Doug said:
The rest of the work, however, goes to our local repair shop who have a very good reputation on the repair/service side of things. Unfortunately, we're not able buy all machinery from them too because they don't stock our preferred brands for certain kit - what a perfect world that would be though!
I'll see if I can tally up what we pay per year for servicing. That would be interesting to know.
Like most of you i carry out the basics but use a local main dealer for the more complex stuff.
For example I was unsure whether to keep my ride on this year or get a new one. I talked it over with my main dealer and they agreed to go through the machine to give me an idea of the cost of the service and also to see whether it was worth doing in the first place. Once that was completed i met with the mechanic, we went through the list, with the machine in bits in front of me,part by part pretty much discussed prioritized and agreed all the work to be done. It sounds a lengthy process but in reality it took about 10 mins. I have always got to talk to the same mechanic over the years so we have built up an excellent relationship worth its weight in gold really!They are not the cheapest in terms of hourly rate but definitely are best value there local and in the summer when im busy they will prioritize my machines and i'm really not that big a customer
I have just had my Viking mower, Stihl hedgecutter and Makita backpack blower serviced and repaired for the new season by our local official Stihl emporium (The same one that takes 6 weeks to order new Stihl machines)
Haven't used the mower yet, or the hedgecutter, but the blower is on it's 3rd visit to cure a misfire at high revs and a non functioning on/off switch.
I was charged £72 for the blower overhaul. It ran ok-ish for an hour then started mis-firing and became unuseable. The on/off switch was 'fixed' but still doesn't work. I decided to have a look myself. The spark plug was hanging out held in by one thread.
I have sent it back to get the switch sorted.
Nice blokes, but God knows what they have inflicted on the mower and hedgecutter.
In future I may do the jobs myself, or revert to a previous trusted 4x4 dealer !
The Stihl handheld equipment.... strimmers, blowers, hedgecutters..... really are so easy to "service", I don't know how the dealers can even call it a "service" and then charge about £70 for what must only take them half-an-hour at the most. If they find something like a frayed cable, they'll then charge that as an extra on the service.... the only people that lose out are us! 2 stroke engines really are incredibly simple needing minimal maintenance... the 4-mix engines have the additional valve clearance adjustment which may put some people off..... once you've done it once, it's a 5 minute job at the most. If you've got the time, there's a certain satisfaction in doing the work yourself and knowing its been done properly (hopefully anyway lol).As others say..... keep the dealer for the complex stuff that you don't fancy, haven't got the time or can't manage yourself.