My quad developed a fault, confirmed by Neural, who after a bunch of emails then told me to contact my original retailer.n
A bunch more emails to them, and I arrange a collection date, 22nd Sept. It arrives at my retailer, Andertons in the UK.
I don’t hear anything for some time. Upon chasing this, I’m told it was received by Neural on Friday - nearly a week and a half later.
Has anyone else sent theirs for repair and what was the experience like? At this kind of price point, I’d be expecting them to receive the faulty unit and ship out a replacement (even a b-stock) and then deal with fixing mine or doing whatever with it on their own time.
I’ve only owned it 6 months, it was an incredibly expensive piece of gear for me and I don’t have the budget to own a secondary quad as a backup. I’ve got gigs looming and no clarity as to when I can expect it back.
Further to that, the fault is likely an faulty output jack - if this is the case, a local tech could have repaired it quickly and easily.
So far, sat at a month to repair a faulty jack socket that could have been repaired locally inside an hour, and I’ve been left without a rig during this time.
Pretty poor. It’s obviously great having a 3 year warranty, but if the most basic of fixes take over a month, they need to look at a better option such as sending out a replacement unit and fixing the faulty one in their own time - whether to sell as a b-stock or refurb or whatever.
I wouldn’t trust just a random place nearby to fix the QC. It’s not like fixing a basic tube amp…. Yes I’m sure there are some parts you could replace, but don’t think it’s worth it.
First, I know it sucks to be down while waiting for repairs to be completed!
Since you initially had to send to Andertons, it sounds like your QC made it to NDSP around early-to-mid October and I would expect a fairly quick time frame for your repairs, then it will likely be shipped back to Andertons. In a majority of repair cases, most are repaired and back to the owner within 2 weeks which is pretty normal IMO. I would suggest seeing if your repaired QC can be directly shipped back to you instead of first going to Andertons etc.
Lastly, I agree with @SelfTitledLP that repairs should always be coordinated with support. You don’t want to risk and damage and or impact your warranty.
I think the hoping for a quick turnaround ship has sailed.
The inefficiency of having to send it via Andertons is likely at fault here, rather than Neural, but it was Neural that insisted that’s the process, so you can see why I’m frustrated.
As I understand it, my quad is now stuck at customs, which is neither the fault of Neural or Andertons, but frustrating regardless - and the timeline for this would have been quicker if it hadn’t had to go via Andertons where it sat about for a period while they “verified the fault” etc.
All in all, very disappointed in the entire process. As I say, for a failure this early into the product life for an item at this price point, I’d be expect a replacement and then NDSP can do what they want with repairing the faulty unit - whether it’s used as spares or sold as a refurb after repair.
Yes, I agree and honestly feel your pain. I will also provide feedback to support on the time-frames to repair in hopes they are able to possibly make changes internally to decrease the overall turnaround time.
I think the ‘replacement’ option may sometimes depend on how hard you push for it with the dealer. Sweetwater sent me a replacement option upfront and let me ship back my unit after receiving the new one. Granted, that was several years ago and maybe each seller does it differently, but I usually recommend pushing them for the option if it all possible.
I sent a used one for repairs. It was during a weekend and a holiday. It was back in less than a week. This was a little while ago more than a year. I won’t send it to a store first. Straight to neural. As long as they allow me. What’s the store going to do? Nothing. That’s been my experience.
I fully agree, but Neural (even now, after over a month and me chasing it repeatedly) are defending sending it to the retailer first because “The routing through the dealer is our standard warranty process for UK customers; they coordinate both collection and return delivery to ensure everything’s handled properly under warranty.”
“Everything is handled properly under warranty” - what does that even mean?
Whole situation is an absolute joke. Neural also told me last Tuesday they were going to reach out to the retailer that day and get me a definitive date for delivery and I haven’t heard from them since.
Customer service has been absolutely shocking from both Neural and Andertons.
I’m located in the US and, fortunately, haven’t had any problems with my QC. The way your repair is being handled is horrible! Rumor has it that NDSP has a repair center in California. If I ever need to have mine repaired, I hope the procedure here is (way) more streamlined.
Yeah, I think the biggest issue here (apart from the overall timeframe) is a lack of clear communication from both NDSP and my original retailer.
I’ve had a mail from NDSP today (after I followed up their mail from last week where they said they’d chase it up and get me a definitive delivery date that day then didn’t respond for 6 days ) stating that the item has now cleared customs - where it was apparently held up because of a payment issue! So fingers crossed it should be back with me in the next few days, but it’s absolutely wild that it’s taken so long.
The other thing is that despite me having to chase NDSP and Andertons several times, neither company has offered any actual resolution or gesture of goodwill at any stage, basically just a “sorry, nothing we can do” and that’s it.
I haven’t seen many complaints about slow repairs and I’d imagine that customs can be an unforseen wrench-in-the-works so I think your repair mishap is an exception, not the norm. No less frustrating when it’s happening to you. Especially when folks are not getting back to you, even if just to say, “we’re waiting to hear back from the shipper, customs, etc”. Hopefully you’ll be back to blazing in a few days.
I didn’t realize you got it back. I wrote this whole thing and then saw your response as to what happened. Well I’m glad you got it back although maybe it was just customs holding things up.
Yeah, it arrived yesterday and to be honest I actually think the fault lay almost entirely with the retailer - it sat at customs awaiting payment for 13 days!
I was hesitant to say something because some of the mods are very close with that store but here in the US there’s a great store and I’ve learned not to send it to tech first because it sits on the bench. I could send it to the company, I don’t need the in between retailer to do it for me, but it sounds like you were told to do it. Personally, my issue would be with the retailer because they get busy and they put your thing aside and they move on and forget about it. I’m assuming they get busy. It’s important to us to get it moving and so I do what I want and I send it straight to them. I only had to send it one time it was a used one. I bought a back up it fell actually and it hit my dresser and it’s still working so fingers crossed because I don’t know what’s going on over in Finland they’re right next to Russia and I wonder if that affects them in any way. I wonder if anyone has looked into that also we have tariffs now which are pain so i’m just glad you got it back. I think it’s a great unit I’ve had all of them except the axe fx which I’m not gonna sit there all day and tweak cause that was the problem with the others. I just couldn’t get it exactly the way I wanted it to sound and I didn’t like the feel and I realized I never once played a song with it. But with the quad cortex I play all the time with songs like backing tracks and actual songs all right buddy good luck. Again I’m happy with it. I still use my amps first, but the quad stays. I don’t use the plug-ins anyway I don’t care if they’re there or they’re not there.
) stating that the item has now cleared customs - where it was apparently held up because of a payment issue! So fingers crossed it should be back with me in the next few days, but it’s absolutely wild that it’s taken so long.