Northwood Warranty

[Miles]

We have bought two routers from NW in the last 2 years. They are both under warranty. They are both constantly broken down. We replace the rotary union about once a month on each machine. We have replaced belts on one machine about 10 times due to a bad ballscrew and we are now having the same problem on the newer machine. We have two older machines and never had these problems.

Northwood also switched to a different laser on the new machines and both of the lasers shut down any time it is above about 80 degrees. So, since we are in the south, our lasers don't operate much of the time.

To top it off, Northwood requires that you pay for parts and labor before they will send them or send anybody out. This is on warranty issues. Like today, our 10 month old machine is down for the 100th time and Northwood is requiring that we pay 3500 up front before they will send out a technician. And it's for the same problems we've had constantly on both of the machines.

We have purchased 7 Northwood machines. About 2 or 3 years ago, we noticed a big change in the equipment and the service.

[Miles]

I will give you an example. When our router was six months old, the vacuum pump went out. We had requested a tech to come down to do non warranty work on an older machine and we asked that the tech change the vacuum pump at the same time on the new machine. Well he showed up with no vacuum pump. So we called NW to find out what to do and they said they would send the pump and we could change it ourselves (even though it is under a parts and labor warranty). Then they said we would have to pay 3600 dollars up front and they would refund our money when we sent the old pump back. Think about that. Their tech could have brought the pump and changed it out while he was doing th 16000 dollar repair we were paying for on the old machine, but instead, they made us pay 3600 bucks for a warranty part and change it out ourselves.

Then it took us several months of arguing with them to get them to refund our money. And before they refunded it they accused us of sending back an old pump that was not under warranty.

[Mid Missouri Surfaces]

We have had a vacuum pump go out and have replaced the rotary union about 8 times, and are due to replace it again here shortly. Haven't had any belts go out yet (fingers crossed). Miles we actually bought our fabcenter after seeing it run in your shop a little over 7 years ago.

[Miles]

Garret, I have always been a big proponent of NW equipment and service. That's why I have bought so many. But the experience I've had with the last two, three actually, machines has been different. Parts seem to be low quality and service sucks, frankly.

[Joe Durfee]

This isn't the first time I've heard about bad rotary unions on their machine. I've never bought replacements from NW, I've always got them from from another source. Give me a call in the morning and I'll see if I can find the source.

I can't say much about the other problems since we've gone German in the router/Sawjet Dept.

[Miles]

Thanks Joe. That would be great.

[Alex DiPietro]

This is good for people looking for machines. People buy machines off of people's "recocomendations" on this forum all the time. Unfortunately often these recommendations are made by people who are unable to give an unbiased opinion of what they bought.

This isn't the first time I've heard something like this about NW.

What better place to air their dirty launder than here?

Sounds like there will be a bunch of used north wood equipment available soon.

[Andy Ross]

Thanks for the heads up Miles! Appreciate you caring enough to post your experience so other fabricators can be a little more informed on machine purchases.

[mikedean]

Todd, Jean, Dan and Miles.

I have removed a couple of posts that were not on topic, trying to keep the original post on topic.

The deleted posts did nothing for the original post, and frankly are not needed or wanted by most.

I apologize to all of you for deleting a few of these posts, and hope you understand the reasoning.

Please keep the topic on hand.

Thanks.

[Miles]

I will give you another example. The 2015 that has had so many belts replaced, a NW tech finally told us that the ballscree was bad and needed a o be replace. We said fine, it's under warranty. We waited and waited and NW finally sent someone out with the wrong ball screw. They told us someone would be back. Nobody came back. We waited a couple more weeks and called NW. They finally sent somebody out after claiming not to know anything about it. He showed up with wrong balls crew again!

So we told NW that our other new machine in our other facility was down and they could send the tech there to do warranty work. We said we also had our old machine down (3 of 4 routers down) and we would be glad to pay to fix it. It had an error code.

So NW tech comes down and spends half a day working on warranty machine and 30 minutes in non warranty machine. He said it had a sunflower seed in the fan that caused the error. Then they bill us almost a 1000 dollars for non warranty work! They said they had a 4 hour minimum. Keep in mind, our warranties machine in Chattanooga had been down for -a month because NW sent the wrong part out twice.

I sent an email to the owner saying I would pay the nearly 1000 dollar invoice if that's what he thought was fair, but I didn't think it was fair. I got no response.

So yesterday, our newest machine is down again, like always. NW says we have past due invoice (the one they didn't respond about) and we had to pay 3500 upfront for the warranty work and they would let us know afterward if it was under warranty. It's the same x y axis ball screw problem as other machine.

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[tim farr]

This thread just makes me like my intermac even more. I've never had a problem with them taking care of me.

[Miles]

I will also point out that 2300 of the quote is for tech travel and lodging. We just had an Omag saw installed and we didn't pay 2300 for the tech to fly from Italy, food and lodging for a week. The NW quote is for four hours service,

And this machine 10 months old and under warranty!

[mark s]

In a former life I managed a large service organization in the printing industry. A machine down for a month? A MONTH? Someone at the OEM should be shot.

The comments about the loss in service response and competence (sending the wrong part out TWICE!?) likely indicates a significant change in direction from senior management. Typically a new person at the top comes in that doesn't understand the service business or manufacturing and all he sees are costs - labor costs, inventory costs, material costs, travel costs, costs, costs, costs.

So the new guy embarks on a cost saving program that fires some people, reduces spare parts inventories, stocks cheaper parts, and also starts beating up the customers to get more money. Loss of experienced personnel is how you get the same wrong part shipped twice. Also how you get cheaper parts that fail repeatedly on new machines.

What's really unfortunate is that a competent service organization can have very happy customers and also have the highest Return on Investment of a capital equipment business

This kind of problem tends to be self correcting particularly today with forums like this to educate potential buyers on the poor performance of their current new machine offerings and their service.

For a long time Northwood had an excellent reputation for their machines and service. Hopefully they'll wake up and fix the problems.

[Miles]

In a former life I managed a large service organization in the printing industry. A machine down for a month? A MONTH? Someone at the OEM should be shot.

The comments about the loss in service response and competence (sending the wrong part out TWICE!?) likely indicates a significant change in direction from senior management. Typically a new person at the top comes in that doesn't understand the service business or manufacturing and all he sees are costs - labor costs, inventory costs, material costs, travel costs, costs, costs, costs.

So the new guy embarks on a cost saving program that fires some people, reduces spare parts inventories, stocks cheaper parts, and also starts beating up the customers to get more money. Loss of experienced personnel is how you get the same wrong part shipped twice. Also how you get cheaper parts that fail repeatedly on new machines.

What's really unfortunate is that a competent service organization can have very happy customers and also have the highest Return on Investment of a capital equipment business

This kind of problem tends to be self correcting particularly today with forums like this to educate potential buyers on the poor performance of their current new machine offerings and their service.

For a long time Northwood had an excellent reputation for their machines and service. Hopefully they'll wake up and fix the problems.
[

I agree 100%. NW had some kind of change a few years back and the service department seems to have gone from a service department to a revenue producing department. The change was sudden and very noticeable.

Keep in mind, I have spent somewhere around 1.5 million with Northwood. I have helped them sell 20 or so machines. Many of the members here that have NW have come to my shop and I have vouched for NW. I have spent entire days with NW prospects. I started to make a list of people that visited here and bought machines, but I've brought it up and they don't seem to recognize any value in that. To summarize, I have paid them about 1.5 million, and they have paid me zero.

Yet, every time we call we seemingly have to prove that our machine is under warranty. We have to get accused of not paying bills that we don't owe. We have to pay upfront for warranty service, they fight to get our money back. We get accused of sending back old parts instead of new ones.

We bought our last two machines and shipping was included in both. NW billed us over and over again for shipping. I had to ultimately send THEM a copy of THEIR OWN contract and emails from the sales manager to me saying that the shipping was covered. And they still kept billing me. The refused to service our machines because we hadn't paid a shipping bill that we didn't owe.

It's been a nightmare.

[Joe Durfee]

I'm trying to keep this thread open and in the public eye to give NW some time to see it and respond. I, personally, don't think it would be a good move to delete or move the thread to the lounge. I think that it would do more damage to NW to have it in the lounge giving members more of a chance to add on to the thread with no way of NW to see/address it. Kind of just letting a wound fester as opposed to getting air and giving it time to heal.

I guess what I'm asking is that is that we stop adding more to the thread and see if NW will/wants to respond. That's what is keeping me from locking the thread.

[Miles]

Joe,

I welcome a response here. Because they haven't responded to me personally.

[Richard R.]

As a longtime member of this group and representative for Northwood in this group I feel I should attempt to respond. Based upon the current tone, all I can offer is our side of the story and hope fellow members can put down the pitchforks and torches and at least attempt an objective view at the situation. I am certainly very disappointed that Miles and Jairo have felt slighted and that they feel that we have provided an inferior product and services. That is certainly not representative of all the amazing people who arrive here every day to do their best to build the equipment that helps to the fuel the success of all of our customers. I don’t believe or even feel it is possible to respond adequately to the way that Miles feels we have treated him, I can only state the facts about how Northwood operates and has operated for as long as I have been here.

First, in regards to warranty requests. We have always had a policy to charge for the part in question prior to evaluation. This is not anything new for our operating procedures. We do not treat customers differently based upon the amount of equipment they have. We expect the highest level of service from all of our staff whether someone purchased one machine or 100+ machines. We do not treat customers differently whether they purchased a $40k used machine or a new multi-million dollar five axis machine. I know this seems counter intuitive to typical business, but the point is that we are here do our best to insure the success of everyone who has made an investment to purchase our equipment.

Secondly, in regards to the quality. I assure you that we are still using the same vendors, buying the same quality components and are not skimping on any items that are used on our equipment. I wish I could pinpoint for you a reason why you are experiencing the issues you are having on the most recent machines. The one item that I would ask from your side is that objectively you can say that maintenance and operator skill level are the same today as it was when you first purchased our equipment.

Lastly, in regards to the laser. We are using the same brand of laser, but the model did change. We have been working with our vendor to ensure that this new model has all the updates in them to operate in death valley if we so please. I certainly apologize for that and own that issue.

Beyond that, I don’t know any other way to respond and certainly know that an impersonal forum posting is not going to mend the relationship that Miles and Northwood (and me personally) have moving forward. All that I can offer is an extended hand to do what I can to help this issue moving forward. I am committed and have always been committed to the success of our company through the success of our customers and that includes Crowe Custom Countertops.

[Miles]

Richard,

As we speak a NW tech is repairing the x and y axis and a broken belt on our 2016 machine that is 10 months old. Same as we did 10 times on the 2015 machine before you guys changed the ballscrew. I am suere it is the same problem on the 2016 machine. We never had problems on the old machine.

We change the rotary union on the new machines every month practically. We never had that problem on the old machines and they had different rotary unions.

We changed the vacuum pump after 6 months on the 2016 machine. WE've changed the main control cable on our 2013 sawjet twice.

We never had a problem with the old laser. We, and everybody else, has a problem with the new laser.

But the biggest problem is that NW treats us like criminals whenever we call. I could post a hundred emails of the back and forth on bills that I've received for shipping that we were never supposed to pay. Bills that I've received for service that Robbie told me not to pay. We've been refused service many times for bills that were supposedly not paid that we never owed in the first place.

If there is anybody in this industry that has been more of a proponent of NW than me, I want to meet them. Please, listen to what people are saying. The machines are not what they used to be. The parts are not what they used to be. The service is not what it used to be. It's not just me and Jairo. And as a matter of fact, people inside of NW have asked me to complain about the service directly to Ben so that he could hear it.

Please. Fix this.

[Miles]

And I sent a long email to Ben a month ago, just as requested by someone in your orginization, explaining the problems we have had with the machines and service. I did not receive any response.

I sent an email to Ben and Robbie yesterday and a text. I got no response.

[Joe Durfee]

Unless anyone has any major objections, I'm going to lock this thread (not move or delete it) in an hour.

I think the cards have been placed on the table and I don't think leaving it open for comment is going to do any good or further the discussion in a positive manner. I think this type of conversation is best held privately, but I don't really have a problem if a fabricator has a problem with a company putting it out there to try and get resolution.

While there obviously isn't a resolution here, I think the dialog has been started.

I hope this works out for all involved. You all have my contact info should you need to contact me.