Online purchasing and warrenty

[Mr. Nice Guy]

Hello,

I saw all the posts about buying online. I was looking into the prices for an Apex reg and went to some online sites. I then went to Apek website which states that purchasing online for their regs, cancels the warrenty. For those that bought a apek reg online was that not a concern?

Thanks

 

[bridgenet]

I bought a bunch of equipment from DiveInn in Spain beginning of last year and went through the same questions myself. It is really hard to justify the prices at the local shop and I was willing to pay a bit more but not what they wanted. I needed two complete sets of everything... Got Apexs TX100/T50 regs, Suunto Cobra computers, Apollo Bio fins, Zeagle BCD's (LeisurePro)...

Both DiveInn and LeisurePro will fix the equipment and yes I may have to send it back to Spain but the Cobra was $390 and my shop wanted $700, regs were $350 (gone up now) and shop was double... sorry that is a rip off. I'll pay an extra $100 for service but that's it. Story line I got was they couldn't discount much but would give me a free tank... sorry I'm buying two sets of gear here.

I can buy an extra reg and computer for all I saved. In the mean time I'm studying on how to service the reg myself. Figure if I can rebuild a carburator from scratch a reg should be a snap (bought tool kit from DiveInn for yuks). First I'll try my LDS and say I got the reg at a swap, offering to pay, if they won't help me then its back to DiveInn in the winter or I'll do it. I think its good to know how to fix your reg anyways and there is alot of information on this board about books to get (Airspeed Press). Also figure Apexs makes awesome regs and they are less likely to fail.

Regardless get the Apexs it is awesome, I don't like the TX50 octo, uncomfortable (newer ATX50 might be better), TX100 is great, ATX200 better. If I ever feel rich again I'll make the TX100 my backup and ATX200 my primary, trash the TX50 (only after trying a different mouthpiece )...

 

[UFGatorDiver]

i bought at dive inn also, and i cannot justify paying double to buy lds. anyway, if you moved from say, ohio, to say florida and you had equipment already, you would have to service it somewhere, right? i would just service it at my local lds. pay them to do it by all means.

 

[happyfish]

But I have found out a couple of things.

I actually e-mailed the Apeks people (www.apeks.co.uk) and they said..."We are pleased that you are interested in Apeks. Our warranty is worldwide and is available to the first owner of the equipment. Should there be a claim against the warranty the equipment would have to be returned to the authorised dealer where the equipment was purchased or direct to our factory in England."

I asked specifically about Diveinn (www.diveinn.com or www.scubastore.com) and also a company called seaquip (www.seaquip.com). The helpful guy at Apeks wrote back and said he did not actually know if these companies were authorised dealers and that I would need to contact the distributors of Apeks in those particular countries to find out i.e Tecnomar in Spain (tecnomar@tecnomar.es) for diveinn and the distributors in Australia for seaquip. So I have written to the distributors to find out.

I also wrote to diveinn regarding this. I got a very prompt reply as follows:
"All of our products come with their warranties and manuals etc. The warranties are international ones, and sometimes, depending upon where you live, the warranty process can be lenghty, for this reason we also guarantee the product for as long as the manufacturer does. In this way, if you have a problem with an item, we would arrange for it to be picked up at our expense and either shipped to us or our facility in Florida and have the product either repaired or replaced. We then ship theitem back to us, again at our expense. We have found that our customers have been very happy with this way of doing things as it takes less time, it is usually a matter of days to resolve something."

However for somone living in New Zealand it's not so easy to just ship something back, so I replied asking specifically if they were authorised dealers and am waiting for the reply.

I know that the www.aqualung.com and seaquest.com site states that you cannot purchase equipment online or you will void the warranty and that they are the US distributors for Apeks/Suunto etc. However none of the other distributor sites I have been to e.g. New Zealand www.aquanaut.co.nz or Australia www.aquanaut.com.au have messages like that (don't know about Tecnomar www.tecnomar.es as it is in Spanish).

I hope that some of this might have helped. I am still wondering about it, and hopefully will get to the bottom of it soon.

Cheers

Shaneel

 

[happyfish]

Hello,

I know that my last message was a bit long, but you may be interested in this tasty little piece of follow-up information, it is how you say "from the horses mouth" (the friendly talking and informative horse at Apeks that is)...

As I said before I had e-mailed manufacturers / distributors / internet sites and was waiting on replies. I have just received the following from Apeks (direct from the UK manufacturers):

"We would repair/remedy any Apeks regulator sent to our factory that had a claim against the warranty. There is no question about this. But we always recommend that divers use their local dealer for regulator purchase as they can offer technical advise and support for this important equipment and you can take your regulator back to the place of purchase quickly should there be a problem and this again will be sorted out for you faster than sending the regulator back to us here in England. Another point of consideration is that as we do not recommend purchase of regulators from Internet suppliers should there be a problem under warranty then the cost of returning the regulator to us would have to be taken by the diver. Also our authorised dealers have been trained in the specialist service and repair of our equipment. If using your local dealer is impossible we would then encourage divers to contact their distributor to recommend a reputable dealer."

This answer was in response to my question as follows -
"In your first reply you said: Our warranty is worldwide and is available to the first owner of the equipment. Should there be a claim against the warranty the equipment would have to be returned to the authorised dealer where the equipment was purchased or direct to our factory in England.
Now this may be silly but...does that mean if I was to buy from a dealer that was not authorised (but I was still the first owner) that I could send it direct to the factory in England if I had a claim against the warranty.
The reason I ask is some online dealers seem to claim that they are authorised, some don't."

So it would seem that:
1. Yes, the manufacturer recommends buying locally from an authorised dealer.
2. But they will cover any first owner of an Apeks regulator if the owner sends it directly to their UK factory, but the owner carries the shipping costs.
3. From my previous reply to this thread, the shipping to the UK would explain the comment from Diveinn that the warranty process might be lengthy, hence the reason they supply their own warranty.
4. The US distributors are telling what seem to be untruths. Sure you might not be warranty covered by your LDS that is an Aqualung/Seaquest/Apeks dealer, but you can always send it to Apeks in the UK.
5. For someone like myself in NZ, shipping to the UK or the US is going to be a pain, and the difference in dollars is for example:
@ diveinn for Apeks ATX200/ATX40 octi shipped + 12.5%GST when it gets to NZ = NZ$1395.28
@ diveinn for Apeks ATX100/T20 octi + 12.5% GST -->NZ$1151
@ NZ RRP $1715 for Apeks TX100/T20 octopus
(neither the ATX200 reg or ATX40 octi have arrived in NZ yet).

So I guess for me it will depend on whether:
1. I am happy with the shipping hassles should anything go wrong.
2. I do really like the guys at my LDS so hopefully they will be able to sort something out (once the newer stuff arrives). And I am willing to pay them a premium for their service. And I haven't yet even talked to them about it.

I hope that this helped, and good luck Mr Nice Guy!!!

 

[metridium]

Btw, www.simplyscuba.com in the UK is an authorized dealer for Apeks, and allows mixing and matching of various Apeks regs...something which diveinn does not appear to do.

There's still the matter of sending back to the UK in the event of a major warranty issue, but in terms of cost, I'd still be ahead of buying locally.

Then factor that against the actual likelihood of having to send it back there.

 

[happyfish]

Hello again,

Have just got the following follow-up to my diveinn/tecnomar inquiry:

Yes, diveinn.com is an authorised dealer.

Regards.

Tecnomar

in response to:
I was wondering if the company www.diveinn.com is an authorised dealer of Apeks equipment? I contacted Apeks directly to try to get this information but they reffered me to you as they said that Diveinn is a Spanish based company.

Does this mean if they are authorised dealers of a product (e.g. Apeks) and that product is covered by an international warranty, then it should be no different to buying a product at a different LDS e.g. overseas / on-holiday etc. So therefore if you take a regulator to another authorised dealer under warranty, you should still be covered. I am not trying to rip anyone off or anything, I'm just curious.

That would mean that sure you lose out on services such as getting a reg in the meantime, but for the money you save you could hire a reg.

Once again I am not advocating any of this, I am just trying to find out what the story is.

Cheers

Shaneel

 

[ScubaCRNA]

I have also purchased equipment online, such as my Sherwood Oasis regulator. One consideration for buying at "authorized" dealers is that, when you register your product warranty, you are placed on a "notify" list by the manufacturer who may contact you in the event of a recall or other vital information needing dissemination. What bothers me is that the manufacturers insist that you purchase the product at shops that mark up their products 200%. I believe shops should make a profit but this day and age of computer shopping should be consumer oriented. Perhaps if everyone wrote to their equipment manufacturers and requested that they allow places like LeisurePro and other online services to be "authorized" then those who want to take up the sport will be able to better afford to do so.:doctor:

 

[scottbeach]

Great discussion... I had come to the same conclusion.

I performed similar research, finding Technomar diving as a authorized distributor in Spain for Apeks and reading the warranty statement both online and in its Spanish documentation. The "method" of procurement is NEVER discussed. And after reading your post, I feel comfortable that my new regs carry warranties.

The actions on the part of LDS' and the US distributors like SeaQuest and AquaLung are tantamount to outright blatant lies. It is unfortunate that LDS' can't understand that we are an intelligent global economy that utilizes mail order and the internet in every phase of our daily lives. The statements on the part of many LDS' are embarrassing and disgusting.

If you carry inventory and offer a fair price (note I did not say an equal price) I will by from you. If you don't carry any inventory for me to see, touch, try the product and it takes you a month to get my order to me after I special order through you (at a higher cost) I'm going to go to the more efficient service model, an online purchase or another LDS who "gets it".

I've heard the argument from many LDS' that tank fills and instruction are subsidized by list price gear purchases and that if people go online they lose money. Do you realize how dumb that sounds? If you're Ace Hardware, you figure out how to compete with Home Depot. If you're Alice's Dress Palace, your differentiate yourself from WalMart. If you can't, I guess there's always a job for you as a greeter. I'm sorry if this seems unsympathetic. If it costs you $10 to fill a tank and you charge me $5, maybe you're a little narced. Maybe tank fills and instruction shouldn't be loss leaders. Maybe there is a middle ground. But I'll let you in a little secret... manufacturers make product and sell it. Do they care about the individual LDS? Not really. The next time you think manufacturers care about the mom and pop shop, catch a flight to Bentonville Arkansas and watch manufacturers drool and literally BEG WalMart to sell their product.

As customers, we'll get used to returning gear to service centers for repair. We already do it with electronic equipment (Best Buy won't repair your TV at their store), computers (IBM doesn't fix your laptop at your house), and clothing (seen an LL Bean store lately to fix that tear in your polarTek jacket?)

I have one LDS in town I respect and love. They offer me the same price online, in their catalog, and in their store. They have 7 shops in the southeast and get better warranties out of manufacturers than the manufacturers offer in writing because of the volume they do.

My gear purchases were 35% with the LDS who taught my classes ($650), 40% with my local favorite LDS ($825) and 25% at DiveInn.com ($500)... but the 65% I spent with my good LDS and online accounted for over 85% of my gear.

Fix the business model, realize that manufacturers won't back you on this in the long run, and differentiate where you can. Here's an idea... $5 fill with $75 purchase (the inverse of the fill-up/discounted car wash).

My $.02, or rather my $1.50

 

[seabass]

I totally agree with you Scott. I went to a LDS the other day and they said that they would match online prices, but not give you a warantee. They also said the warantee for every regulator manufacturer except mares includes free parts as long as the regular is serviced every year. This doesn't seem correct to me, but I am curious if anyone knows the truth.