Funky Dunky Posted May 14, 2015 Share Posted May 14, 2015 (edited) You may remember I took delivery of a shiny new SUB Ray4 in February of this year. You may also remember me posting about the battery being flat some three or four weeks later. Well, I replaced that battery, and now the second one is dead too. I'm on to my third battery snce February. That can't be right, surely? I emailed Praxis to tell them, and they replied telling me there must be a fault in the preamp - something is completing the circuit and causing battery drain. Since I bought the bass from from Thomann, I have to ship it back to Germany for warranty repair. Does anyone have any experience of this with Thomann, and if so can you tell me what to expect in terms of service and approximate turnaround? The mysterious part of the whole battery drain is this: I've only plugged the bass in a handful of times. If it were indeed a problem such as Brian at Praxis described, would it not go flat much much sooner? It's more as if the act of putting a lead in the jack somehow drains the battery, even with only an hour or so of playing time. I'm confident it will be a minor issue, easily fixed. I'd take the screws off and have a peek myself, but I don't want to risk voiding my warranty. Just wondered what happens in terms of shipping costs, packaging and turnaround if anyone knows? Thanks Edited May 14, 2015 by Funky Dunky Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
anzoid Posted May 14, 2015 Share Posted May 14, 2015 Had more or less the exact same thing a few years back with an active Rockbass Corvette - battery drained in a matter of days. Bought it from Thomann and they were very helpful with the warranty repair. It went back once for repair at their cost. Came back not fixed, sent it back at their cost and got a complete refund - Thomann were great, Warwick's repair centre... less so. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Funky Dunky Posted May 14, 2015 Author Share Posted May 14, 2015 Did Thomann send you courier labels and packaging? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
anzoid Posted May 14, 2015 Share Posted May 14, 2015 I have to admit it was a while ago... I had kept all of the packaging that the bass came in so just boxed it back up in that and printed out the PDF returns label that they sent by e-mail (just found the label in the archives... dates from March 2011). Once it was all boxed up I think I just had to drop it at the post office (I was living in Belgium at the time but I would imagine that it would be similar in the UK) which was a bit of a pain but still less hassle than waiting in for a courier. Thomann customer services were really good but, in my case, were also having to deal with an external service centre that wasn't being quite so helpful. In the end I requested the refund because Warwick were being hopeless, not because Thomann weren't willing to sort it out - but they would have kept going longer with the return/repair cycle than I was prepared to put up with so I did have to point out firmly that I was well within my rights to request the refund for non-functioning goods and didn't have to put up with a series of botched repairs - out of the three months I owned the guitar it was in my possession for about two weeks... I did end up spending the refund money with them anyway and have used them ever since. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Funky Dunky Posted May 14, 2015 Author Share Posted May 14, 2015 Cheers, that gives me a good idea of what to expect. It's a shame I can't get it repaired in the UK, Praxis insist that, as I bought it from Thomann, it must be repaired through Thomann. I would have thought it a better idea if "your local Sterling approved service centre" could handle it, but no. I don't know if I will have a right to refund at this stage if there should be any problems. I'm the type of impatient consumer who knows full well that mistakes are occasionally made and goods are occasionally faulty, but that does tend to make me lose confidence in the brand/product. That's my problem though, not Thomann's nor Sterling/Praxis'. But add this problem to the fact that the stock preamp is too 'hot' and farty anyway, and I'm not wholly impressed with the electronics on the Sterling Sub Ray4. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
anzoid Posted May 14, 2015 Share Posted May 14, 2015 Under consumer protection law and the like I think you actually have quite a lot of room to manoeuver in negotiating for what you want. Looking back through my e-mails from that time, Thomann took the bass back under the 30-day guarantee based on when I reported the problem. They said initially they were going to look at it in house but ended up sending it to Warwick. When I enquired further they said that Warwick would take the decision on whether I would get the refund or not. I replied pointing out that my contract was with them - they'd already failed once to fix it, they had my bass and my money, I had nothing and I wasnt going to accept that I told them that the guitar was not fit for purpose and that I was getting rather fed up - I did this very politely and their responses were always very polite - but I got what I wanted. And ended up spending more money with them anyway - maybe saying you'd like to put the refund towards other stuff they have for sale (if they have stuff you want) may help. Customer service reps have a lot of leeway in what they can do but will try to fob you off anyway. If the battery is draining at the rate you have put then this indicates a fault with the guitar. Thomann's 30-day guarantee is a courtesy but actually, under European law they do have a responsibility to make sure you get what you paid for. The place you might get stuck is covering the cost of shipping because you're outside of the 30-day "window" but it would be worth asking for a good faith gesture from Thomann. A random Google search turned up: http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/bills/article-1677034/Two-year-warranty-EU-law.html There it's stated that you should report the fault within two months, contacting Praxis may or may not count... but the fact you wouldn't even have been able to identify the problen until March - when the battery went flat means that you might have some slack. The fact that Praxis have identified a faulty pre-amp should (hopefully) carry some weight even if they've not inspected the guitar. This link: http://www.theguardian.com/money/2011/apr/17/consumer-rights-refunds might be useful too. Key terms in the whole discussion appear to be "fit for purpose", "as described" (i.e. working ) and "of satisfactory quality". I think in part it also comes down to how long you should expect an item to last - for a cheap toaster you might be out of luck, but a guitar should have a long life so three months is nothing much. If you want a refund I guess I'd just say - go for it. Be really really unfailingly polite and state exactly what you want them to do, how they can put things right and I think you may well get your refund. Just to note: not a lawyer, not legal advice etc. but stick up for your rights! And hope you get a good result on this one! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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