| Product: |
Flymo Turbo Compact 330 |
| Date: |
02/06/05 (3867 review reads) |
| Rating: |
 |
Advantages: Bright colour so you can find it in the shed broken
Disadvantages: Does not work, Poorly made, Customer service diabolical
Bought a Flymo 300 compact about 2 years ago. We have atiny lawn and if anything, the machine was a bit overkill - would deal with our lawn in about 5 minutes. Anyway, used 6 times then developed wild vibration and grinding noise. Contacted Flymo who told me where the local agent was - nice and handy, only 2 miles away. So I took it there and demonstrated the fault. No problem they say, we'll phone you when it is fixed. 2 weeks later I phone them - "oh we have not had time yet, we are very busy, we'll phone you when it's done" (meantime of course, lawn looks like a hayfield and continues to grow). 2 months - yes, two months later when I phone they say "oh, it's been ready a couple of weeks". So when I go to collect it, they tell me they can find nothing wrong with it and I owe them £12 for sharpening the blades!! Told them to get lost regarding the blade sharpening as A - I could see it had not been done and B. It was only used 6 times on my stnoe free lawn so was uneccessary anyway. - Strangely they backed down. Got the machine home, switched it on and.... wild vibration and grinding noise. Checked the screws and found they'd never even been undone (still had grass on) - yet invoice claims full strip down....
Stripped it myself and found loose screw causing main plate (which holds motor and bearing) to wobble at speed. Tightened screw. Sorted.
2 years on, bearing seizes - dealer wants £30. Try Fylmo web site - part not listed. e-mail Flymo parts dept - no reply. E-mail again .. no reply. Telephone... no reply - until 3 pm when answering machine comes on saying customer services closes at 3pm!
Terrible service, rubbish product, total lack of care by dealer (and attempted rip off it over sharpening it has to be said) and total lack of customer support or care. British service at it's most typical I'm sad to say.
Summary:
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Last comment:
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- 30/04/06 I am a customer adviser at a large DIY store and I'm supposed to "advise" customers who want to buy this stuff.
Flymo has really gone down the pan. I have a 22 year old bog standard basic Flymo which is still going strong.
As we are less young and fit than we used to be, I took my wife into my store recently looking at Flymos that collect the grass so that we don't have to rake it up and bag it away. Having been a design engineer in my younger days, the look and feel of the flimsy plastic hinges, catches and attachments put me more in mind of something out of ToysRUs or MotherCare -- whose products actually seem far more robust.
Our old Flymo still working fine, the best approach I can advise to buying anything is to look thoroughly around the web at sites like this, scanning forums and reviews. Then take a look at the products you narrow down to.
You don't have to be an engineer. All you need is some basic spatial imagination with an eye for detail and a good sense of feel in your finger tips.
Further to that, you don't have to have a degree in economic philosophy to realise that the existing world market economic system is at a point where it is showing its un-sustainability.
Thus, if Flymo made a mower these days that would last 20 or even ten years, they would soon go out of business and sell very few more mowers. It is essential to continuing in business to deliberately build obsolescence into modern products. This goes under the slight of hand that technology is always improving. And this is emphasised visually by continually changing styling with no real technological improvement. In fact, it attempts to hide the built-in obsolescence.
If it's high on style, all touchy feely smoothy translucent Starship Enterprise colours and shapes, it is more likely to be low on quality. Like most British education, media, politics and culture these days - dumbed down, full of form, empty of content. |
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