A while back I went to look at a Vaillant that was giving its user problems. User didn't have a manual for it and neither did I so I phone Vaillant and pressed the appropriate buttons for their literature department. Couldn't get through to a human but left a message requesting a manual for the particular model, prefereably electronically and was there somewhere I could get PDFs of all their manuals for when I go to a customer so I can actually do something useful for them at the time? Some weeks later I got a bundle of glossy brochures for the model I was after and some others - no servicing instructions.
Later I phoned tech support to ask about the particular problem. Took 10 or 15 minutes of being told how important my call was to them and how they were doing their "utmost" to help - utmost except for actually having enough staff on to answer it.
More recently phoned tech support about another of their boilers, which had condensate dripping out of the heat exchanger and seemed to have a problem with its condensate syphon not getting rid of condensate quickly enough. Asked specifically if the syphon was supposed to fill up and then dump condensate out quickly (which is what Worcester Bosch ones I'm familiar with do) rather than dribble it out, which this one seemed to be doing. After almost 10 minutes of being told how important my call was to them, againg, finally got through to someone who assured me that it should dump condensate rapidly. I pointed out that the holes feeding the condensate output spout were rather narrow, but assured that it should dump rapidly and if it wasn't doing so, time for a new one. None at local stockist so ordered on t'interweb and got new, improved design model condensate syphon today. Tried it out: filled it up and it .... dribbled out. It actually dribbles out more slowly than I've seen condensate coming out of the heat exchanger while I was running the machine into a bowl instead of the syphon, during the v. cold weather last week. No wonder the sodding thing's backing up into the HX!
And now I've got a customer I put a Vaillant in for* last May who's having problem with teh machine making howling noises from within while it's running. Suggested he contact Vaillant since it's surely under warranty. He did and what did they do? "Sorry to hear it sir, our machines shouldn't do things like that, we'll be round pronto to fix it." Did they bollox? They gave hime some old tosh about getting a receipt for proof of purchase from me (i.e. my receipt when I bought it). (Like, if he'd had British Gas install it, they'd give him a copy of their purchase invoice?!). And warned him that if it was "installer error" they'd charge for it.
- I only installed a Vaillant rather than a W-B at his insistence: apparently Vaillant are a more ethical company. (Why is it that ethical and competent don't seem to go together?) I'm sticking to W-B from now on. Their tech support aren't 100% (e.g. there's an arcane problem regarding their Ri series (at least) with Honeywell-pattern Y-plan valves, which I only got a correct solution for at third attempt) but they have stretched their normal 2-year warranty to look at a seeming boiler problem a few weeks outside the nominal warranty period, and have generally answered the phone promptly and been reasonably clueful.