Yamaha Warranty Experience!! !! Kudos!!

[Clarion]

Ten years ago, a number of family members purchased Yamaha PSR 2000 arranger keyboards to the tune of about $2000 per unit.

A month ago one of them was destroyed as a result of a pretty direct lightning hit that blew out the phone lines along with the well-pump. The Yamaha keyboard, being played at the time, gradually faded off into total silence.

So I took the unit into our local Yamaha headquarters. The cost of repairs was:

Replacement circuit board . . . $2048.98

Warranty Labour . . . . . . . . . . $120.00

Invoiced to Customer . . . . . . . . $0.00 !! !!

With companies like Sony, demanding $300 to even look at one of their defunct products for the purpose of merely providing an estimate; Yamaha on the other hand only charges $20 for an estimate; and within their discretion, will charge you absolutely $0.00!

Yamaha's keyboards also represent outstanding quality, not only on my keyboard, but also on my piano. Too bad we can't get quality engineered keyboards for our organs instead of the low end Italian Fatar junk we are being forced to endure as the only option. Fatar keyboards, under normal use, will last less than a year before they display more keyboard craters than the moon!

[arie v]

Clarion,

I don't know if I believe either end of your posting here.

Regarding Yamaha, they certainly build quality products, maybe not the most inspired always, but typically very even quality. They also stand behind their products.

Now how you supposedly got a circuit board that costs more than the unit, plus free labour, on an out of warranty product is not a good business model.

I sell Yamaha products at the store where I work, and have no problem recommending them. They have well over 50% of the digital piano market, and probably well over 50% of the over $250 keyboard market. And the store gets almost no complaints on products sold.

Yamaha is the envy of the acoustic piano world, in that they build pianos that are the same from one to the next, and the Yamaha action is very good for the price. I have a 1974 Yamaha grand, that gets played most every day, and plays fine, and sounds good to boot.

Yamaha is now suffering the results of the tsunami. They do not get reliable power each day, all day. Plus some of their ICs are fabricated in the affected zone, so there are products that they cannot build, ship or sell.

About Fatar keyboards, you had this to say just 3 years ago on this forum,
Fatar keyboards . . . and fine keyboards they are!
and also, I ended up with a Fatar keyboard; and couldn't be more pleased with the result.

Now I can only surmise you have had some troubles with your keyboards, as you now call them Italian junk.

I would not call Fatar keyboards junk, however they do reflect their price point. They feel nice brand new, not so nice with constant use. Their switching is a greater problem. As a service person, I have worked on them, and they are not nice to work on. I find however, that in churches they are not used enough to give troubles, so likely they will be trouble-free for several decades.

A lot of what goes into digital organs (classical/church/institutional), is designed from the premise of how much can be given to be sold for a certain amount of money. Hence, a lot of questionable materials, components, modules, etc. are used.
Also, I think most builders do not build their products to exceed a lifespan of say 20 to 25 years.

It is true that Fatar is the default provider of keyboards for almost all digi-organ builders. I understand that Roland/Rodgers does not use Fatar anymore. Allen uses Fatar on all models with a "F" in model designation. The custom keyboard builders have very expensive products made in low quantity. And the quality is uneven on them. I have seen most everything out there, and choice is somewhat limited. Not many electronic organ customers are prepared to spend $2,500 to $3,000 per keyboard. So Fatar is the choice, as they can be installed at $500 or less per keyboard (unless one gets the wood core caps or wood playing surfaces). Even pipe organ builders are using Fatar keyboards when price is an issue.

I can't see any other outfit stepping up and try to build organ keyboards at this time. The market is small and shrinking - likely less than 20,000 keyboards per year.

If you think Fatars are bad, you should see what some of the Chinese made keyboards are like - real trash most of it.


AV

[Clarion]

Clarion,

I don't know if I believe either end of your posting here.

Regarding Yamaha, they certainly build quality products, maybe not the most inspired always, but typically very even quality. They also stand behind their products.

Now how you supposedly got a circuit board that costs more than the unit, plus free labour, on an out of warranty product is not a good business model.

Although it's rather common for organ mfgs to offer a ten year warranty, I can't explain Yamaha's most generous gratuitous offering on a 9.95 year old keyboard that was originally accompanied by a 1 year warranty!! And only someone reaaally stoopid would challenge the final invoice!!

And in deference to your skepticism; the invoice:

Yamaha Invoice PSR 2000 -2.jpg

[andyg]

And I can tell you from personal experience (and firm knowledge of those of many others in the UK) that Clarion's experience is not that unusual - though a 10 year old keyboard fixed free is the best example I've come across.

[Clarion]

Clarion,

I don't know if I believe either end of your posting here.

"Now how you supposedly got a circuit board that costs more than the unit, plus free labour, on an out of warranty product is not a good business model."

I suppose everyone has an opinion as to the constitution of a good business model; but an important and essential captial evaluation of a business, includes GOODWILL!!

Do you really figure that investment in GOODWILL and servicing customers in a gratuitous newsworthy manner represents a "not a good business model" !! ??

[andyg]

Over here, Yamaha also operate an exchange board scheme, which means that a repair involving a board costing over £1K may only cost the customer around 1/5th of that, including labour costs. I've had a student or two who have benefitted from this, one also had the entire keyboard on their Clavinova (several years old) replaced free, just because its serial # came within a range where problems had sometimes occured. This was picked up when the engineer filled out the serial # on the return slip for the circuit board. Yamaha did the rest. I'd guess that similar schemes operate world-wide.

'Look after your customer and they'll most likely come back and buy again'. That business model was instilled in me when I first started working in a music store, aged 13. I've never forgotten it.

[arie v]

Andy,

I have a lot of respect for Yamaha (the music company). I sell the Clavinova line, as well as the YDP line and the store sells a whole raft of other Yamaha keyboards, speakers, recording devices, Steinberg stuff, orchestral instruments.

I know of the Clavinova products you refer to. They were made 10 or 12 years ago, and had serious keybed issues. At first Yamaha didn't take responsibility for the problem, but eventually instead of repairing they just installed a whole new keyboard in the units under warranty. I believe those units are still under some sort of warranty if it is keyboard related.

Yamaha takes their quality issues very seriously, even more so than say Toyota. Their name is important to them. Case in point, maybe a decade or more ago, Yamaha made a small grand piano in Indonesia. I think there was a design flaw, which made the piano fundamentally flawed. Yamaha had shipped a sizable number of them already, when they concluded it was a bad piano. Yamaha went out of their way to collect every one that was shipped, and replace them with a more expensive model at no cost. And as everyone knows, just moving a grand piano is not inexpensive. To preserve their good name,they absorbed the cost of not only dumping a costly product, but replacing it for free.

Clarion's invoice from Yamaha refers to a service bulletin. Probably Yamaha had some issues with these units, so they are under long term warranty.

I do think it is a bit bogus, to put an astronomical price on a circuit board that exceeds the original cost, or the cost of a brand new unit. I seriously doubt Clarion would have paid the price on the invoice if it was not warranted. Instead, likely we would have gotten a rant about highway robbery.

Yamaha, at least in Canada, did let a number of customers down, by stopping support on home organs sold. They stopped selling organs in the early to mid 90s and stopped supporting these instruments by the early 00s. Same in the US. I used to get calls from irate Yamaha owners, and I would tell them to check with Yamaha, only to be told that they had already done that. Yamaha, was by then not interested, as they were not in that market.

Generally though Yamaha has an enviable record in dealing with customers.

AV