Disservice and Disrepair – Really Awful

All service and repairs
And purchases of spares
Provide a great excuse
For customer abuse! 

One, lacking knowledge, must
Place in such folk one’s trust,
And really must despise
Technicians telling lies. 

They tell you glibly that
The gleeblewort’s gone flat,
And putting new one in
Will cost a heap of tin.

Meantime, one nut made tight
Will put the whole thing right,
But gleeblewort full cost
Is what you now have lost. 

So, who can one believe
Is not out to deceive?
The only person who
Won’t rip you off is … you! 

I need to cut a number of trees and branches in our new property to enable pooch-proof fences or wall-raisings to go up.  My (t)rusty chainsaw gave up after the priming bulb went brittle and broke.  Then the fun started.  I went to three ‘reputable’ mower etc repair places in succession.  Responses ranged from trying to sell me a new one, to excuses regarding ‘special tools’, to claims that the parts were unobtainable.  Finally I left it with one who said they would have to order the part from Outer Mongolia or somewhere at the cost of both arms and legs, but they then phoned to say it was unobtainable and that, in any case, they didn’t have the tools for the job.  (This is not a backyard-type operation, by the way, but one of the biggies.)

To cut a long story short (using a chainsaw haha), I took it back from them and then – cursing, because I don’t have the time -did my own dissection, finding that there was little difficulty in removing the primer.  In fact, I did it all with the Leatherman multi-tool I carry on my belt.  Then I traced an agent I hadn’t known about, on the other side of town, who said they had a part which would probably fit.  I took a hike across Death Valley to get there, and could see that the part was perfectly suited.  It cost me – wait for it – R21-00 or the equivalent of about $2-00.  The spark plug I added to the purchase cost more!  And the helpful staff threw in a chainguard and a plug spanner – full marks to them.

After my return, I installed the parts with little difficulty.

 

Now, I just hope all of those fibbers will need my own expertise for editing or something so that I can give them tit for tat.  I gather some of them may be affiliated to a rival brand, and are trying to spread alarm and disinformation.

On the same trip, I picked up my repaired Sony Handycam with which I took the above pictures at night without flash.  I do hope there was no rip-off involved in that one – but they did hand me two squiggly bits of electronic equipment to show what had been replaced to restore the screen to operation.

© Colonialist August 2014 (WordPress)