Dell, the window lickers of the IT world.
Why did I give my money to dell and expect to receive what I ordered? Why did I do this?
I bought a new netbook about a month ago, which I will concede has been awesome, and was a bargain.
Today I acquired a 3G Broadband SIM card which I have "borrowed" from work for the purpose of testing the WWAN adapter which came (or so I thought) with the netbook.
Having inserted the SIM card into the provided slot (something covered over on models without the WWAN option). I opened up the Dell Wireless Broadband Manager software expecting to see some options for configuring the device a per my providers requirements. Instead I found a "device not found error" which confused me, as I had no rogue uninstalled devices in device manager, and I had installed pretty much all of the available drives from the Dell site.
This confused me as the Order Confirmation, Order Acknowledgement, Order Invoice, and Order Despatch Note from Dell all quote "Mini 1012 Netbook with WLAN Antenna and 3G Mobile Broadband" and "Inspiron 1012 : WLAN Antenna, 3G WWAN, GPS Module, White Base". These two particular lines appearing in all four Dell documents would lead me to deduce that in fact my netbook does have a WWAN adapter for me to connect to lovely 3G mobile broadband.
Confused , and almost beginning to doubt my ability to locate and install a device on something which is no more than a very basic PC I decided that the next course of action would be to dismantle my netbook and discover the part code on the WWAN adapter, allowing me to identify it and download the appropriate drivers and software.
The netbook itself I must say is beautifully put together, and very easy to take apart for the purposes of diagnostics or upgrade.
So anyway, having dismantled it, and visually scanning the innards, I noticed a lovely EMPTY slot with the label "WWAN" on a rather useless piece of cardboard.
It would seem, that in infinite uselessness and retardation, the genius' at the Dell production line haven't in fact even bothered to install a WWAN adapter into my netbook.
Of course tomorrow I will be making a rather displeased phone call to Dell consumer sales (I wont call the retards on their technical support lines, they're based in India and most of them don't even own shoes to throw, let alone a laptop) to express my displeasure and demand that they do in fact send me the required WWAN module, and an upgraded WiFi module for my inconvenience.
I doubt very much I will get the WiFi module, and I suspect that they will try to RMA the laptop, but as this isnt a technical support issue, it is still a sales issue, I would expect a decent and respectful response, but basically I want to bend over and have them lick my testicles from behind whist they tell me how sorry they are for being complete and utter bollock jugglers.
I am sufficient to say, displeased. THANKS DELL!
Dear Triumph….
So having had no success whatsoever from Pure Triumph Birmingham I have decided to express my views to Triumph directly.
This afternoon I have sent them the following;
Dear Triumph,
I write to you in a mood of complete dissatisfaction.
At the end of March I took my bike, a 1998 Triumph Dayton T595 (in tip top condition) for a 24,000 mile service at “Pure Triumph Birmingham”.
I paid them pennies shy of £600 for a 24,000 mile service.
On collection of the bike I noticed a considerable loss of power; (my ~150bhp Daytona was now only capable of 110mph at a PUSH!) This was very odd so I returned the bike suspecting that they had put the wrong ECU mapping on the bike.
Having returned the bike for the ECU to be remapped and the issue persisted.
On returning the bike for the second time they advised that their main engineer was not available, but they had a look at the bike they could not find a fault.
They sent me away once again to come back for a third time at a later date. I returned with the bike and left it with them for a further day to be called and told that the issue was due to moisture in the tank (which was apparently my fault).
I advised the salesman/technician that the bike was delivered to them in a tip top condition with no problems (it only needed a service) and that they have delivered it back to me with significant problems. He simply stipulated that the issue must be caused by “bad fuel”.
The bike has always been filled with premium fuel at a regular station and I had a good ride over before dropping the bike of with no issues. This to me seems to be an excuse for not being able to find an actual cause of the issue.
I have since been in contact with Pure Triumph who advised me to run 2 tanks of high octane through the tank which would fix the problems. Suffice to say, it has not.
Since having the bike back it also fails to start first time and doesn’t seem to be running as smooth as it used to.
So far Pure Triumph Birmingham has cost me;
- £600 for a 24,000 service which was not completed to any level of satisfaction.
- £400 for 3 days of my time taken off work to take the bike back and forth multiple times to get issues remedied.
- £80 for an additional “hour’s” labour to diagnose a moisture problem.
To date this has cost me over £1000, for a 24,000 mile service!!
This is something which has completely destroyed my plans to go to Austria this month for a Tridays trip, something which I have been planning all year with several colleagues who are all Triumph owners.
Suffice to say they will not be using Pure Triumph Birmingham in the future; I have now booked my bike into Knott’s Motorcycles in Stratford to have them rectify the problems.
I would like to know what, if anything you intend to do to keep my Triumph custom. I am inclined to ask for my money back and further compensation for what the ordeal has cost me.
Yours Sincerely,
Mr S Spiers.
I am hoping that this will promote some sort of response, hopefully one offering me an adequate amount of compensation for my experience.
We shall see...
Want a job done properly? Take it to a Triumph dealer! (or not)
So the weekend before last I took my motorbike to Pure Triumph in Birmingham (a Triumph Dealer) and paid top whack (£595.00) for a 24,000 mile service on my 1998 Daytona T595. The reason for this complete diversion from my usual policy to attempt diy motorbike maintenance was mainly because I wanted the job done thoroughly, quickly, and reliably by people who know the bike through and through (having done many many previously).
The plan was this, drop my bike off at 9am on the dot Friday morning, collect the bike at 5pm (before close) Friday afternoon. A whole day should be enough for a service right? Wrong! It's okay though because they're open on Saturdays and they should have it finished for me so that I can enjoy the weekend. Wrong again! I called on Saturday expecting some sort of collection update only to be told that the bike wasn't even on the ramp yet! Apparently there were "smaller" jobs they wanted to get out of the way.
Okay I thought, that's OK, they'll devote the whole of Monday too it and I'll get it Monday after work. No. Tuesday? Maybe? No.
Having made several calls chasing the status of the service (not one was made to me informing me of any sort of progress) I was finally advised that I could collect the bike on Wednesday lunch time, only a full 4 and a half DAYS since I dropped it off.
This didn't bother me too much at the time, I was excited to get my bike back in a tip top 100% serviced and ready to ride condition, hoping that the super service would have regurgitated a few extra horse power from the near£600 service.
I had a wet bimble home from the dealer (thanks to whoever it is for the rain/snow/sleet), riding fairly cautiously in the damp not wanting to bin my freshly spring cleaned beast, it went straight home and into the garage for a drier day.
Safe and home, I was quite happy to get it back.
Then comes the sunshine next weekend, oh yey! oh yey! I can get my bike out and have a fun filled ride on my freshly serviced machine. I get the bike out of the garage only to notice two rather important bolts/screws missing from the right fairing! This mean't only one of two things, either a) they didn't put them back in after the service or b) they put them in so loosely that they fell out due to engine vibration on the ride home. This to say the least annoyed me more than slightly, but I rode anyway and found the missing fairing bolts not to be of major issue. Disheartened by the shoddy loss of fairing bolts I returned home after a very short spin indeed.
I called the dealer advising them of the issue and they have promised to post me the missing bolts. This was a week ago, and still no sign of the missing bolts.
Not the end of the world you might think? Well read on.
This last Friday night I thought that given the lush weather I would go for a blast up the M5/M42 to my uncles for a chicken biriani (any excuse to get the bike out in the nice weather, fairing bolts or no fairing bolts) and given the excitement I thought I would see what the girl would do when pushed.
Hitting 120mph (please don't message/mail/anything me about the irresponsibility of speeding, I really don't care, you'll be wasting your own time) the bike seemed to immediately loose power and drop to only 5,000rpm. I eased off the throttle and slowed the bike down to a more law abiding 70mph only to find the bike still wouldn't rev over 5,000rpm. The immediate thought through my mind was "those injector shims they replaced on the service, did they do them properly?".
Having enjoyed my curry I departed from my uncles on my journey home and had to see if I could replicate the issue or if it was just some freak one off. Yet again I gave it the beans on the motorway and it quickly hit 120mph, then again the loss of power came, this time the engine refusing to rev over 7,000rpm. Very strange indeed so I bimbled home at a relaxed and legal 70mph.
I have called Pure Triumph and the bikes going back in on May 1st (quick service huh!). I am incredibly displeased by their service. Having called them this Saturday morning regarding the issues I also asked for a price for some new rubber. The lovely lady said she would get a price and call me straight back. Having waiting 3 hours for a call back I gave up and rang them again only to be told that "the tyre place is closed on Saturdays, we can get you a price on Monday". I expressed my displeasure at not receiving a call back as promised (even to tell me that they couldn't get me a price until Monday) and she assured me they would call me Monday morning with the price.
This morning lunch time came closer and closer, and surprise surprise no call from Pure Triumph. Once again I had to chase them up to finally get a heavily inflated price for some fairly standard tyres.
To summarise I have paid them £595.00 to take my 165mph bike for 4 days and turn it into a 120mph bike! I might as well just ride my CB500!
They sure as hell wont be getting any more of my money, and definitely no sort of recommendation to any of my Triumph owning friends! Sorry Pure Triumph (hang on, what the hell am I apologising for?!?!).
First post on new blog.
Created yet another blog for absolutely no reason whatsoever. There might be something interesting or useful here one day, perhaps...