Well I guess its official.. my new outboard is not running right. I showed my video (Tohatsu outboard video) to Tohatsu USA and Vic who I spoke with told me to take it to a service center.. he thinks its in the ignition.. I will say this… Tohatsu USA has been really responsive to my calls and questions. Its not fixed yet but to date I’m really happy with their customer support. They pick the phone up and talk to you right away and Vic who I have been dealing with has been really helpful.
I also called Outboardsales.com who I bought the engine from and they have talked with me. I sent a link to the video to them a couple of hours ago and am expecting to hear back from them soon also. (update: it is now 5:30 in the afternoon about 6 hours since I talked with them and sent the link to the video in email; no response yet. )
I will keep this post updated as the story progresses.
5/10/07
Dropped the outboard off today at Sammy’s Boats & Motors in Loris. He seems real busy so I hope he doesn’t put my outboard in a corner till later. Later in the afternoon after he talked with Vic at Tohatsu I went back and he told me to give him a call tomorrow, that Vic had given him a couple things to try. I’m crossing my fingers that I will have an engine to go racing Saturday.
5/11/07
Well I called back this afternoon to be told. “I told you I had other jobs ahead of yours what are you calling for so soon.” To which I replied “Um… you told me to call today!” It is so not a good feeling leaving my engine there. I again asked Sammy when he would like me to call back about it and he said the beginning of the week. I think that if there is not progress at that time I will pick up the engine and make other arrangements. Like shipping it back to the seller, Outboardsales.com and either getting another one or a refund. I’m not that happy with Outboardsales.com either, they never did call back after saying they would. So far the only people I have delt with over this whole mess that I’m impressed with are Vic at Tohatsu USA and a guy at internetoutboards.com who I accidentally called thinking I had purchased the engine from them. He was really friendly and helpful even when he figured out I hadn’t purchased the engine from them. The funny thing is I would probably be much more patient with all this if the people involved weren’t treating me like an annoyance they wished would go away. It’s amazing what a smile and friendly attitude will do for customer service.
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http://www.scottcarle.com/wordpress/?p=267
Unfortunately, true customer service is getting a bit on the scarce side…becoming a very rare commodity. I hope you get the problems resolved soon. Good luck. 😀
Dan
I hope so also. It is really frustrating spending all that money on somthing that doesn’t work right. I really wanted to go sailing this weekend on Sea Puppy.. oh well… they say patience is a virtue 🙂 So I can take it as an opportunity to practice being virtuous.