Bowling Ball Warranty?

[Jase]

I need a little help here!

I want to know why bowling equipment in this case a ball, that’s only worth let say about $400.00, is so hard to get a warranty claim for.
Correct me if I am wrong but I would have thought it was like buying a new car!

If some thing is wrong with that car in lets say in Sydney, and you purchased it in Brisbane you can take it to a lets call them a SUPPLIER to get them to look at and repair that warranty claim that you may have.

Now with bowling balls things seem to be a little different.
Can someone please explain this too me!

I would have thought that if you have recognized company equipment and you have a problem with it why do we seem to have so much of a problem getting a warranty claim on it!

The reason I used a car as an example is because that’s the trade that I am in, so weather it be a battery, new part fitted or a new car warranty claim you will normally find a supplier that sells that part or car and get the claim through them.

Surely anyone who sells the equipment could send it back to the manufacturer and ask them to warrant it it’s not like they have to fork out for it.

Just my thoughts

Jase

 

[daniel]

Jase,
Where did you buy the ball and what brand? You should, like you said, be able to take it back to the supplier/centre that you bought it from. We might be able to give you a hand, leave some details about it or send me a PM.
Cheers
The Big D

 

[Brenton_Davy]

Jase,

In my experience as a pro shop proprietor, I have found warranty issues to be a logistical problem. It works like this:

1. Bowler brings defective equipment to pro shop.

2. Pro Shop questions customer about their care of the equipment.

3. Pro Shop contacts the suppplier of the equipment in question.

4. Supplier request pro shop sends the equipment in question back to supplier so they can inspect it at cost to pro shop

5. Supplier inspects equipment and either
a) agrees equipment is defective or
b) equipment is not defective and damage is caused by owner or centre negligence.

If a) then the equipment is replaced with like equipment or nearest possible replacement (with negotiation between suplier. pro shop and customer).

If b) then the equipment is returned if the customer wants it (at pro shop, hence customer cost).

In some cases in the past, the supplier has sent the equipment to the manufacturer, (usually in the USA for balls, and Asia for bags and shoes) in order for the manufacturer to make a decision. As a result it can often take up to 2 months for a decision to be relayed to the customer.

I believe it is encumbent on the pro shop operator to inform the customer about proper care of bowling equipment, not just balls, but shoes, bags and accessories. I have found that this has drastically reduced the incidence of warranty returns.

In many instances, the customer expects the pro shop to automatically replace the equipment and then follow up the warranty claim and try to recoup the cost. For an independent operator like myself, this is simply not a viable option as often the warranty claim is rejected by the manufacturer or supplier.

Hope this helps Jase answer your questions as to why warranty issues re bowling equipment in Australia are difficult.

 

[Levithian]

The problem is jase (heh, same trade) we have a vast supply of parts avaliable to us, the same thing happens as brenton has described in the auto industry. If you arent part of a factory network you have to go through much the same process, the difference is it is localised within this country so the time taken for each step is significantly reduced. It's slightly different in the bowling industry, to compare it to the auto industry i wouldnt class pro shop operators as distributors, they are more like after sales service. So even though they have sold the goods, they still have to deal with the distributor before replacing anything by warranty. It is different for you, you may have a part fail within the manufacturers warranty period, you could replace the part at your own cost, then have your supplier refund / replace the part for you. They send it back to their supplier (or in a lot of cases, to the manufacturer) and it just follows on down the chain. As brenton said, it doesnt work that way in the bowling industry.

It isnt quite the same when dealing with bowling balls, there are so many human errors which have to be factored into the equation, i cant imagine the defect list for warranty returns would be that long (i would say it is pretty much limited to manufacturing defects / errors), something simple as an incorrect drilling can void the warranty. For someone operating a pro shop, you arent going to know if the warranty is going to be honoured until you send it back, if you replace goods before checking on their warranty status, as brenton said you end up paying out for goods with no means of restitution. It isnt quite as clean cut as we have to deal with, it's rather simple in most cases for us, either the part has failed or it hasnt, the only other thing generally considered is did it fail under normal use, well what can you say is normal in the bowling industry? there are just too many variable's, that coupled with the lack of an established network of manufacturers>>suppliers>>distributors, makes things hard.

Just one of the problems that we have to deal with due to isolation.