2nd repair for :fisher:F5

[marcomo]

Just got my F5 back from El Paso a few days ago.

The bad news was the pinpoint button started malfunctioning so I sent my F5 in to get repaired for the second time:sad:. The detector would briefly power off when I pressed the pinpoint button and the detector would then revert to default settings for ground balance and tones. Worse yet it was an intermittent problem. One hunt it happened about every other time I pinpointed. Other hunts it would only happen a time or two or not at all. A couple times it happened when I would just turned a faceplate knob.

Shortly after I sent it in for repair I got a call from a very friendly gentleman at FT by the name of Lupe. Lupe tells me he took my detector home for a couple days of in the field usage and couldn't get the pinpoint button to malfunction. Said he's been detecting for fourteen years and he had found about $10 in change with my detector but that was his. I appreciated his sense of humor even though I was disappointed that he couldn't get the detector to act up. I told him I understood that intermittent problems can be tough to fix (a couple old Ford Escorts came to mind - don't get me started on that one:veryangry and that I appreciated him trying. I said that I'd wait until the problem became more constant and send the unit back in.

I thought that was the end of it, but about half an hour later I got a call back from Lupe. He said after talking to me he kept trying and was able to get the detector to malfunction. I don't know if he started working that pinpoint button like a fiend or what, but that was great news. I got the detector back a few days later and the performance is as good as new again.

So a big THANK YOU to Lupe for his persistance. A big THANK YOU to his boss (I think he said his name was Frank) who instructed Lupe to take my F5 for a couple days to try and figure out the problem in the field. Also a big THANK YOU to Felix who has always been so helpful and efficient. A big THANK YOU to Dave Johnson for his generousity and being such a hobby-friendly lead engineer and designer. And a big THANK YOU to the FT repair department for making my repair experiences as positive as possible.

 

[BH_Landstar_]

Now thats customer service at it's best, if only other companies would do the same and follow FTP / Fishers example with repairs / replacements.

 

[wltdwiz]

sounds like he earned the $10 bucks
they fixed my f70 in record time & it works great now
good hunting
walt

 

[Dave J.]

That would be Lupe Guerrero, a tech and customer service guy who has been with us for a long time and who is also a hobby beeperist.

And Frank Garcia, our QC manager.

We hate intermittents because the customer's nontechnical description often doesn't give us enough information to point to what needs to be fixed, if we can't make the thing fail here. Sometimes intermittents are not a problem in the machine itself, sometimes it's just a non-reproducible phenomenon related to the field environment or even a customer misinterpretation of what's actually happening. So I'm glad that in this case Frank and Lupe knocked themselves out trying to reproduce the problem and finally succeeded, making a repair possible.

And hey, Marcomo, don't get me started on Ford Escorts either, but for a different reason. For a few years I owned an '89 Escort Hatchback, basic model no frills. The darn thing got better gas mileage than almost anything you can buy today, the interior space was laid out so it had almost as much hauling capacity as a small truck, and it had enough ground clearance that it could handle most Jeep trails. Loved that car! Of course the way I used it wore it out before its time. Only major problem I ever had with it was it threw a timing chain at about 35,000 miles....... in Lodi, California, on a weekend. Remember that old song "stuck in Lodi again"? Well, auto repair shops in Lodi willing to handle a difficult emergency repair on a weekend, that's their favorite song!

--Dave J.

 

[jim tn]

Nice to see a report like that Marcomo. The one repair experience I recently had with FT was positive as well. No one likes problems with a new (or old, for that matter) anything...but they do happen with the most to the least expensive of things. And occasionally, more then once. I never had a Ford Escort, but I could relate several pages of experiences of repair problems I had with a Buick Skylark. I've been a Ford man ever since. Far to often we hear about the bad experiences one has with a co. and not often enough the good ones. As a society, it seems we have come to expect instant gratification and when we don't get it we demand it in some form or fashion. Enough already, it is a beautiful Sunday morning. HH jim tn

 

[marcomo]

Dave - Yep, when those old Escort timing chains broke it didn't just stop the car from running, it was major engine damage. Been there done that too.

Despite your problems in Lodi, that's a great song. Not just the original CCR version, Tom Jones covered the tune darn well too.

And thanks for putting full names to the voices I talked to. All are dedicated employees and a credit to FT.

As Jim said, no one likes to have a detector stop working properly. But when you get excellent repair service and people that go the extra mile for you, it turns a potential problem situation into a positive one. And I do appreciate it!