A real Lemon!

[dsm]

Greetings sthnreb,
<snip>

Johnny,

I kept right out of this thread from early as I could see where it was heading. Be assured that there are forum followers here who clearly understand your support policy and the difficulty you have been placed in by this never ending thread. Your post is well received.

Cheers

DSM

[WAFlowers]

I kept right out of this thread from early as I could see where it was heading. Be assured that there are forum followers here who clearly understand your support policy and the difficulty you have been placed in by this never ending thread. Your post is well received.

Rather than add a lot of additional verbage, let me just say: DITTO.

[WillSucceed]

Sure, Sthnreb is being stubborn about this. If I had coughed up big bucks of my hard-earned cash for a medical device that turned out to be wonky, I would want a new replacement, NOT a refurbished machine.

AND

Mr. Goodman is trying to run a business and is as trapped by Respironics policy as Sthnreb is. It sounds like cpap.com is trying to help this man as best as possible.


I think the real culprit here is Respironics. They charge premium price for a medical device that should work, flawlessly, right out of the box. After being sent to them for a repair, it should absolutely work, without flaw or further problem. Some machines are lemons and the manufacturer should have the stones to admit to this and fix things by making the customer "whole" -fix things such that the customer is treated in a manner that fully wipes out the errors and problems.

Perhaps this large community of users, including cpap.com, should be directing the winter of their discontent at Respironics -encourage them to have policies that are fairer to the consumer and punish them by not buying their product until they do.

As an aside, when I first got my PB 420E, I thought it was having a problem (turns out it was not). I called the supplier person where I bought the machine who told me she would call the PB rep. here in Ontario. She called me back a few hours later and told me that if there was any problem with my 420E, it would be replaced immediately with a brand new unit. Now that's a policy that I can live with.

Sthnreb:
Don't shoot the messenger! I don't think that the badguy here is cpap.com. Get satisfaction from Respironics with cpap.com's help.
Good-luck!

[Sleepless on LI]

All I can say is, I'm glad I'm not alone in my thinking and that I share it with reputable posters such as Will and RG. I still feel sorry for what this man is going through and if they can't fix his machine, he should get what he paid for, a NEW WORKING machine, not someone else's ex-headache reconditioned. What is the real problem here, failure to live up to what the manufacturer should be providing to its customers, a brand new working product?

[sthnreb]

You are absolutely correct Rested Gal in what happened. There has been some very abusive and confrontational people responding and I intend to end my part of it today. I will probably return the machine today for Cpap to return to Respironics for them to look at it again, as per the warranty. I would like to thank all that responded either positive or negative. I did try to post responses as honest as I possible could. I've never expected something for nothing ($1569). Because of some of the responses, it has proven quite stressful for me. It is simply not worth the money to me to continue under a stressful condition. If necessary, I will purchase a new machine. I will remove the auto notify from the thread after this one. Perhaps Johnny Goodman may want to remove the topic at this time to end all remarks. I realize I could have made some of the Cpap owners/employees unhappy and I apologize to them also. Once again, thanks to all for the informative responses.

[johnnygoodman]

Greetings,

This thread will remain undeleted/unlocked and available to users. In the future, cpap.com customer support issues will be dealt with exclusively through cpap.com.

For those interested, here is the Respironics, Inc. Warranty taken directly
from a BiPAP-Pro 2 User Manual page 51

LIMITED WARRANTY

Respironics, Inc. warrants that the system shall be
free from defects of workmanship and materials and
will perform in accordance with the product
specifications for a period of two (2) years from the
date of sale by Respironics, Inc. to the dealer. If
the product fails to perform in accordance with the
product specifications, Respironics, Inc. will repair
or replace - at its option - the defective material or
part. Respironics, Inc. will pay customary freight
charges from Respironics, Inc. to the dealer location
only. This warranty does not cover damage caused by
accident, misuse, abuse, alteration, or other defects
not related to material or workmanship.

Respironics, Inc. disclaims all liability for economic
loss, loss of profits, overhead, or consequential
damages which may be claimed to arise from any sale or
use of this product. Some states do not allow the
exclusion or limitation of incidental or consequential
damages, so the above limitations or exclusions may
not apply to you.

This warranty is given in lieu of all other express
warranties. In addition, any implied warranties -
including any warranty of merchantability or fitness
for the particular purpose - are limited to two years.
Some states do not allow limitations on how long an
implied warranty lasts, so the above limitations
lasts, so the above limitation may not apply to you.
This warranty gives you specific legal rights, and you
may also have other rights which vary from state to
state.

To exercise your rights under this warranty, contact
your local authorized Respironics, Inc. dealer or
contact Respironics, Inc. at:

1001 Murry Ridge Lane
Murrysville, Pennsylvania 15668-8550
1-724-387-4000

[WillSucceed]

Interesting that the Respironics warranty, as posted above, does NOT make mention of sticking the consumer with a refurbished unit.

[Guest]

A silly question, How does one know what Respironics warranty is unless they buy a product first to read it in the manual. Is that not a little late then? Is it posted on cpap.com?

[Guest]

Move down to the bottom of the first page of all posts and there is an explanation of all symbols.

[th]

sthnreb, I don't blame you. I have had the same thing happen to me with a Dell computer. They(Dell) have you format the hard drive over & over until your warranty runs out and they know that there are more problems than a format will fix........I wish the best for you and hope you get this resolved soon

your northern neighbor in North Carolina
th

[rested gal]

If the product fails to perform in accordance with the
product specifications, Respironics, Inc. will repair
or replace - at its option - the defective material or
part.

Looks like this is the sticking point.

"Replace" - with what...New? or Used/Refurbished? Regardless of what the warranty says, if anyone at Respironics first told either sthnreb or cpap.com that Respironics would send a new machine as a replacement when the problem was reported to Respironics within that first 30 days of use, that's what Respironics should do, imho. Fair is fair....regardless of the fine print.

"at its option" - lets Respironics decide which it will do..."repair or replace."

Willsucceed is right. cpap.com is caught between a rock and a hard place. Respironics is the one that should forget the fine print and really think about what happened in the first 30 days with one of their machines...and happened again after Respironics attempted to repair it.

I believe Respironics should take back sthnreb's faulty machine and give him a new one. Respironics can then take their time repairing and refurbishing the returned machine -- and hope that when they send it out as a "refurbished" replacement to someone else someday, it works with no further problem.

[christinequilts]

I know a lot of people think the warrenty clock should be rolled back so you get a full two year warrenty if the machine is replaced but warrenties typically don't work like that. I know with some purchased extended warrenties if they replace the entire item you have to purchase another warrenty on the replaced item. It doesn't seem fair but that is why you need to read the small print on any warrenty so you understand what your right are.

I realize this is a manufactures warrenty which is different then a purchased extended warrenty but is still a warrenty. It does appear to me that Respironics is holding up its end of bargin- they can't repair a machine they don't have. Respironics may have changed its policy but company policies are always subject to change- they are still following the warrenty sthnreb agreed to. The BiPAP was not returned within the first 30 days of purchase by sthnreb- from what I understand it didn't 'fail' in his words until after 3 months of use. Another key point is that the warrenty from Respironics begins upon purchase by the dealer- not when the customer purchases the machine from cpap.com. This is pretty standard with high tech item- it was the same with both of the hard drives I bought for my computer last year also. I assume from the volume of bussiness cpap.com probably doesn't have machines sitting in their warehouse for long but local DME's often do. Should a manufacture have to warrenty a 4 year old item that they no longer manufacture just because the DME didn't 'sell' it for that long?

It is up to Repironics in this case to decide if they want to repair the BiPAP or replace it but sthnreb hasn't given them a chance. And there is nothing in their warrenty that says it has to be a new machine either. sthnreb seems overly concerned about getting 'his' same machine back....who's to say they don't use refurbished parts to repair it- their warrenty only says they have to repair it, not replace with new parts. As far as Respironics replacing the curcuit board on the first one doesn't mean anything was wrong with it in the first place. Many times they will replace the most likely source of the problem if they can't replicate the problem just to be safe.

I think at this point Respironics need to be able to evaulate the machine- they can't tell what is wrong by just relying on a user saying it stops. My Synchrony ST started cutting out randomly a year ago. With mine it was obvious it was power issue- Synchronies have audible alarms for different types of power failure pluse I had a light pluged into the same surge protector that also turned on & off at the same time. If it would have happened in the middle of the night I would not have figured it out as easily and could have easily blamed the machine. In my case it ended up that the cord had gotten caught on my adjustable bed some how and was easily taken care of. I know sthnreb has said he's checked everything power wise but do you know how much money appliance repair people make off house calls to plug in refridgerators...even after they recomend the owner checks it just to make sure? Most machines have error codes that the repair techs can acess to determine what failed so they have more to rely on then just the users descriptions, but again they need access to the machine to do this.

One thing I would wonder about is if there is any chance of the auto-off misreading what is happening if you are having a central apnea? I don't think any of the BiPAP STs have an auto off feature because of that possibility.

[tater pie]

I've been on both sides of this situation with equipment that doesn't work well. My husband and I owned an auto repair shop for several years and we had warranty issues many times with customers. Sometimes, people would bring in a pile of rundown junk (and it seemed like it was always people with a real junker that did it) and only want the brakes fixed. A few days later, they would show up and want us to fix the transmission under the warranty because "it wasn't doing that before I brought it in here". We were sued 4 times and won 3 out of the 4 and the 4th time, we just gave them their money back. I know there are a lot of dishonest mechanics out there but there are some pretty dishonest customers also. We have a small computer sales and repair business now and we have similar problems with warranties but we've learned to deal with them better. Every time we reload software on a computer, we have the customer read and sign in front of us a statement saying that there is absolutely no warranty at all on software. You don't know how many times people will take their computer home and screw around with it and then want us to fix it under the warranty even after the time on the warranty has run out.

I've been on the other side of the warranty issue also. I don't think reb is just a troublemaker and complainer. I would be hacked too if I spent over $1,000 for a piece of equipment and it wouldn't work. I know from working in the computer business that quite often a distributor can get a manufacturing company to do things better and quicker than an indivudual can. A distributor sometimes knows people within the company and can get things going. Usually, a big company will just blow off an individual. They have big legal departments and know exactly how their warranties work and will just transfer you all over the company until they get rid of you. I know Cpap.com is not technically responsible for reb's machine but maybe if the two could join together, they could get this thing resolved. I also know that reb should have read the warranty completely but how many of us really do read the warranty when warranties are usually several pages long and written in legalese and in print so small that a termite with bifoculs couldn't read it. That's just my two cents and that's probably what it's worth (the two cents).

[Snoozernow]

I must not have read the same thing you did. Is not a machine sent for repairs refurbished? If so, why doesn't it receive the same warranty as a refurbished, 2 years? He said the warranty was replacement with new for less than 30 days when he bought it and that later changed. I must have missed that it took 3 months to fail. I thought it was the first month Paying for new and getting a used machine wouldn't sit well with me either even if 3 months old.

[chrisp]

After all this I think I'll just avoid Respironics products altogether .

Sure glad I don't need c-flex.

:twis ted: