Just for the History, it’s the second time I’m visiting New Zealand. The first time was in 2000 when I started my life at sea. At these times qualities of the services were ok! and you had to have a look on what they were doing, and be clear on what you wanted. “Good enough” was already the rule. The hour rates where reasonable, around 30.- NZD/h.
10 years later I had again couple of jobs to have been done apart the usual maintenance that you can do yourself at an unbeatable rate of 60 minutes an hour.
Nothing is for ever even the old technology. Time came to change the drive unit of my autopilot. I approached THE man of the situation, Wayne from Waypointelectronic with no hesitation. For details, see: NZ, May 2010, Whangarei, drive unit editorial.
It cost me 2’755.- NZD and ¾ h at 80.- NZD consulting time. For the price of the motor I would have include the consulting time, but I was so happy that I didn’t argue about. What counts is that you get the right stuff.
3 month later I’m on the passage from New Caledonia to Australia and suddenly the yacht gets out of control. What’s happening?
The new drive unit is not working! After a quick check in a 4m formed sea (not too comfortable), it came out that the clutch is not working; I have to wait for a sheltered place to see what I can do.
I send an email to Wayne, explaining the situation. He answers me that it can happen when there is a misalignment between the sprockets.
Ones we stopped in Torres, I checked the alignment and found nothing wrong about it. Then I took apart the clutch and checked the solenoid. Applying 12V on the terminals, I can see that he is not “sucking” the plate that pushes the pins in the holes every time.
I send again an email to Wayne explaining the situation. He keeps answering me that there is a misalignment between the sprockets.
That is the point where it breaks my nerves. There is a guy 2300 miles in strait line away from me pretending a misalignment, and I’m half a meter away from the problem and there is no misalignment. It’s just disgusting!
What are your chances to claim for a warranty case? Almost nil, from where I am, my leg is not long enough to kick his ass, and I need to solve this problem.
So I send him again an email asking for the references of the coil and the details from the company he got it from to order a spare. There is no reference for the coil and I get the details of the company. Its Electronic Navigations, phone # is 09 373 5595 and email contact: nickf@enl.co.nz
I ask them to give me a quote for the solenoid of a 12V DC Yaskawa Coursemaster Print Motor Type PMEE-12-PY21.
After one week, I get an answer telling: Unforturnately I need to know the model number of your coursemaster
autopilot..ie CM80 or CM800..etc
So, one more time I send an email to Wayne asking him to deal with them. Finally I get an answer, the details are on an attachment that sailmail deletes. Useless. . .
Keeping on insisting, I finally get a quote. The solenoid cost NZD 225.00 freight NZD 60.00 +12% NZ taxes (for an exported item?) and 150% import duties in Indonesia. That makes a total of NZD 480.00. A bit too much to prove a solenoid failure.
In the same time, I get an answer from Wayne asking me what to do, keeping on insisting that these motors are very reliable and there is a misalignment problem. That I’ve lost parts taking it apart, and if I pay the freight both ways, he’s happy to fix it for me.
What’s the cost fast courier of an 8 kg heavy item?
Hum. . . I put an end to the story sending an email Salulami OUT!
“Warranty” is a word that does not exist in Kiwi language.
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