Please help with warranty confusion

[myScubaLogin]

basically, i'm very confused with all the warranty rules and procedures...any help with be greatly appreciated.

If I understand this correctly, for any warranty coverage, you have to buy from an authorized dealer, which is understandable, but it also sounds like if you buy a product on line (specifically regs and computers), even if it is from an authorized dealer, your LDS may not honor the warranty? This makes no sense to me

This scared me for one specific reason and that is if I go somewhere else, Europe for example and need to service it, my warranty won't be worth anything?

Very confusing...please help...Thank you.

 

[DiveMaven]

The bottom line is that if you buy from an authorized dealer (whether it's an LDS or on-line) ANY authorized dealer is supposed to honor the warranty. However, I'm not sure that would apply outside of your country of origin, so contacting the manufacturer with that question might be smart.

One sticky point is that some American LDSs act like babies and won't honor a warranty from an on-line source, but I hope those are few and far between. Keep in mind that if you're diving away from home, nobody knows where you bought your gear, and many on-line places have actual stores. For instance, ScubaToys has a huge store in Dallas and Leisure Pro a large store in New York. My LDSs have no idea whether I ordered my regs on-line from ScubaToys or walked into the shop...and does it really matter at the end of the day?

Frankly, if a shop refused to service my gear under warranty, I'd be calling the manufacturer, finding out who the local rep was, and making some pretty big complaints about that shop.

 

[NadMat]

If the shop where you buy them is an authorized retailer and the shop where you want them serviced is also an authorized shop, then the local LDS should service them or you need to tell manufacturer they are not honoring the warranty.
To be fair, I would give them an chance to beat the online price, or at least come close and if so I would buy from them direct. But if LDS wants way more than what I can get it at online with an authorized (per manufacturer) retailer than I would spend the money online for sure.

 

[Kern]

:

This scared me for one specific reason and that is if I go somewhere else, Europe for example and need to service it, my warranty won't be worth anything?

Very confusing...please help...Thank you.

If you buy Aqualung equipment from an authorised dealer anywhere outside of Oz, & then move here, you will have no warranty from the Oz distributor. Not sure about other brands but Aqualung regs have serial numbers & Aqualung know where every one of them was sold.

 

[myScubaLogin]

thanks guys.

It sounds that in case of AL, each distributor is for itself? Makes you wonder why they are so high on their dealer/service network.

I assume this applies to Apeks too?

Are there other manufacturers known to deal with this issue in a much more convenient way?

 

[Kern]

thanks guys.

It sounds that in case of AL, each distributor is for itself? Makes you wonder why they are so high on their dealer/service network.

I assume this applies to Apeks too?

Yes it applies to all the manufacturers that are owned by the Liquid Air corp. I won't deal with Aquanuts OZ, so I buy my Apeks regs from Spain or the USA. As I get them delivered to my door in about 4-7 day's at half the cost of buying in Oz I couldn't give a toss about the Aquanuts warranty.

 

[myScubaLogin]

Thanks everyone. This is definitely somethig to keep in mind when figuring out the whole warranty thing.

 

[garyfotodiver]

thanks guys.

It sounds that in case of AL, each distributor is for itself? Makes you wonder why they are so high on their dealer/service network.

I assume this applies to Apeks too?

Are there other manufacturers known to deal with this issue in a much more convenient way?

Your concept applies to all merchandise that is sold with a warranty. Part of the price you pay to the seller goes to cover them if that need to make any warranty repairs. If the seller buys from the country's authorized distributor, part of what he/she pays goes for warranty coverage. Therefore, if the repairing seller is not the original retailer, he/she might not want to spend the $$ to fix your item because the distributor might not cover it.

If you bought an item in another country, even from a brick and mortar retailer, the item would be covered by that country's authorized distributor. Etc., etc., etc. Sometimes you would see a warranty card from the distributor in another country, or even (as in Nikon cameras) from the manufacturer. I have had a few warranty cards that were printed in Japanese.

Way back when I worked as a line mechanic for the Chevy dealer in Ft. Lauderdale, FL, the cost of new automobile warranty work was billed to GM. Of course, the labor rate was discounted and we had to use the GM flat-rate manual, not Chilton's. And we would fix a Chevy that was bought from any dealer in the US or Canada. The new automobile warranty is through the manufacturer, not the dealer.

Now, having written this, I pose a question. If your regulator fails at 60fsw, do you REALLY care about the warranty? Speaking for myself, I would have other more pressing things on my mind.

 

[philmayer]

There are a lot of LDSes out there that don't like the competition from online dealers. So they spread horror stories about poor service, no warranties, etc.

Remember that you will need to get your gear serviced locally. So pick an LDS that is willing to work on your gear even if you didn't buy it there instead of one that wants to scare you into buying from them.

Do you really think those LDSes wouldn't honor the warranty on the gear of someone who moved there from another city?

Buy from an authorized retailer and your warranty is good.