Real customer service isn't dead yet
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We remodeled our bathrooms back in 2008. The "hall bath" (vs the en suite in the primary bedroom) has Danze plumbing fixtures. We started to have a pipe thumping problem in the Danze tub/shower valve in that bathroom when another faucet in the house is turned off; I noticed it when I turned off the vanity faucet in the same bath.
When I pulled the handle and escutcheon off and diddled with the shutoffs that are built into the valve, the cold water side was leaking a little. And some black rubbery bits came out of the spout when I turned the water on. Looks like the stops are failing and need to be replaced. Figured that out thanks to a commenter on Amazon who was trying to find the right replacement parts for his pipe thumping problem.
I have all the documentation from the original install, including the parts diagram with replacement part numbers for the various components. A lot of the part numbers changed after Danze was acquired by Gerber some years ago. I couldn't find a direct match for the Check Valve Set in question when I did my own searches, and Claude and DuckDuckGo's AI bots tried to help but I wasn't confident they were giving me accurate part numbers so I could order something.
I called Gerber this morning and a very nice CS lady (not AI) listened to my story, asked a few questions, and processed an order to send me replacement stops under warranty. Gerber didn't even require a copy of the original purchase receipt (which I have). Took less than 10 minutes and I'm pretty sure I'll get the parts I need. She said 5 to 7 days for the order to get here.
Now off to look for our infrequently used metric socket set I'll need next week to get the old leaky stops replaced and the new ones in...
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Glad to hear they’re still honoring the warranty and aren’t screwing around with original receipts and such. It’s a level of class that’s rapidly disappearing from American companies.
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Glad to hear they’re still honoring the warranty and aren’t screwing around with original receipts and such. It’s a level of class that’s rapidly disappearing from American companies.
@Steve-Miller Tell me about it.
Regarding a completely unrelated matter, I've been going around in circles with a company who a) references a 1 year warranty on their website (with no details, just "will replace free of charge within 1 year"), b) reviews my photos and says "you can buy a replacement for 50% off", and c) after repeated requests for a written copy of the warranty simply ignore me.
These young entrepreneurs are focused on branding rather than product quality and excellence in customer service. It's a company that got an investment from Mark Cuban on Shark Tank. He's known for actually reading his emails; he may be my next stop. It's not about the money anymore; I'm just POed.
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You have more patience than I do. Whatever it is you’re trying to get warrantied would have been thrown into the trash at my house as soon as I figured out the warranty was a scam. Things like that irritate me all out of proportion to their affect on my life.
Not to be that old guy yelling at clouds, but some old things were better than what you can buy today. Not all old things - a lot of new things are much better or didn’t even exist 20 years ago. Cars, for example. Electric yard equipment, streaming music and video, high efficiency furnaces, digital thermometers. They’re much cheaper now as well, especially electronics.
But I’ve always enjoyed well made things and tinkering on them. Things that I might have wanted years ago but were unjustifiably expensive are now available on FB Marketplace for little or nothing and YouTube videos make repairs easy. AI will tell you which ones have parts available and which ones don’t.
So I go around buying sturdy old things and fix them up. I guess a lot of old guys do this and I find it very satisfying. Kitchen Aid stand mixers, Sunbeam Mixmasters, 70’s stereo equipment, vacuum cleaners, knives, tools. I wouldn’t say that these things are necessarily better than the new ones but they are repairable, parts are available, and I get satisfaction from sinking $50 in parts in to a 30 year old $100 mixer and coming up with the mixer I wanted years ago and couldn’t afford.
Downside is that I’m running out of people to give them to.
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You have more patience than I do. Whatever it is you’re trying to get warrantied would have been thrown into the trash at my house as soon as I figured out the warranty was a scam. Things like that irritate me all out of proportion to their affect on my life.
Not to be that old guy yelling at clouds, but some old things were better than what you can buy today. Not all old things - a lot of new things are much better or didn’t even exist 20 years ago. Cars, for example. Electric yard equipment, streaming music and video, high efficiency furnaces, digital thermometers. They’re much cheaper now as well, especially electronics.
But I’ve always enjoyed well made things and tinkering on them. Things that I might have wanted years ago but were unjustifiably expensive are now available on FB Marketplace for little or nothing and YouTube videos make repairs easy. AI will tell you which ones have parts available and which ones don’t.
So I go around buying sturdy old things and fix them up. I guess a lot of old guys do this and I find it very satisfying. Kitchen Aid stand mixers, Sunbeam Mixmasters, 70’s stereo equipment, vacuum cleaners, knives, tools. I wouldn’t say that these things are necessarily better than the new ones but they are repairable, parts are available, and I get satisfaction from sinking $50 in parts in to a 30 year old $100 mixer and coming up with the mixer I wanted years ago and couldn’t afford.
Downside is that I’m running out of people to give them to.
You have more patience than I do.
Usually I would give up. These guys have just gotten under my skin and I'm out to make their lives miserable.
But you're right to point out that this is a waste of life energy. You may have gotten me to throw the towel in and move on.
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