Who was the Distributor

From my vantage AP has a negative karma value as far as the big picture goes.

They happily have users help them debug their product ~9 months after first shipments by asking users to send log files so they can find software bugs, all off the clock for the public. Lots of people view this as "AP's active involvement" in the pinball community and as a positive thing, to me it is a one way flow of energy towards AP.

When situations like this FET problem show up, AP stands by their policy and don't extend any energy towards this supporter of their company.

Bad Juju

The company did take care of you...they got you to spend another $95.

This...........
Stern and Chas has never turned me away. Thank you stern.

Don't enjoy saying this, but yes I'm now hesitant. 4months in major component failure $7000 machine and your told to take a hike. No thanks......

Agreed. Stern has always helped me, even after the warranty was expired.

Apparently the consumer protection laws are non-existent in the US?

1) legally speaking, American Pinball did nothing wrong.
2) not everything legal is right.

Probably no different than Wms/Bally, Gottlieb and any video game manufacturer back in the day.

The OP had to know about the warranty prior to buying, this has come up before here, then complains afterwards.

PT Barnum comes to mind again

It's a different time and market these days.

90 days is a joke, some people do not even open up games right after purchase. I think warranty needs to be at least a year on all parts. Stern is successful because of their great warranty service. Service what you sell. I do not see this being good for American pinball, they need to change their policy. More and more people are dumping their Houdini's due to poor design, now people will start dumping them due to poor customer service. I want to support a new upcoming pinball manufacturer, but there is no way in hell I will buy one from a company that has a 90 day warranty. Stern has taken care of my issues way beyond the warranty period, and because of this I am a strong supporter.

what are the warranty periods for stern and jjp?

"on paper" 90 days, reality is much longer. I've gotten service from Stern a good year or 2 out with spare parts mailed. JJP seems to be the same thing. If they were sticklers, than AP's policy wouldn't stand out, but when you're the new guy you need to be twice as good as the big guys.

I’ve had both JJP and Stern replace parts at no cost on games more than a year old. Apparently AP sticks to their warranty period and it is their legal right to do so. The OP bought a new board which is what most of us would have done. I wouldn’t have started a thread about it but I was entertained to hear how pissed off our TWIPY award winnering podcaster was about this thread.

I understand the warranty, but what AP (and really any business) needs to decide is how much is your reputation worth?
As a new company selling their 1st product, I would do just about anything to avoid negative press.
Heck, my company is 15+ years old and we still do anything in our power to make a customer happy regardless of the cost to us.
Because the reality is - negative press like this will cost you a lot more in the long run.

Agreed. They could have spent $50 to avoid this negative publicity.

For comparison everybody knows that Stern's stated warranty is pretty weak, however they REGULARLY provide support and parts outside of the warranty period. It's fine if AP doesn't want to do this, but they'll have to deal with the negative repercussions and potentially lost sales.

They should at least extend it out to 6 months. Then they can claim twice the warranty of the competition. Has anyone successfully used credit card extended warranty protection on a pin? Costco Visa gives you an extra 2 years coverage on most stuff. I think they even give you 4 months of accidental damage protection.

The reality is home owners need better service and care.

Ops in the old days would just solve the problem themselves and not give a shit about a warranty.

All these new companies that like selling to the pinball show crowd need to accept who their customer is.

Theres more than one way fix to this terrible CS crap........ have a fellow pinsider with a recent Houdini purchase get ya one.

After hearing this AP will most likely not be getting anymore of my $$$$.

This is clearly and simply about service. I own an Houdini and have had it for twice as long as the OP and if I had the same issue, their response would piss me off.
I'm aware that they have him on the technicality of the warranty, but that's ridiculous.
I run and own a company in LA and my invoices state on the bottom that "all claims must be made and spoils returned within 10 days of delivery date". Do we accept product returns after 10 days? Yes, every day, and hell I even credit customers on product that isn't even mine in order to keep them from being pissed off.
I look at it like this, there are a lot of options out there for people to buy my product and if I don't honor the quality of my product (regardless of what the bottom of my invoice says) somebody else will.
Remember that if the OP's post makes just one person (probably more) think twice about buying a Houdini then this costs them much more than $95.

Trash can thread...

Stern helped me well after a warranty on a game in which I was not the original owner. This makes me feel more comfortable when buying a Stern now (NIB and used). Maybe I got lucky and the next time they will say go to hell, however that experience went a long way in my book.

Another thought I had was that the Multimorphic stuff comes from another company, AP just OEM's them and puts them in their machine.

Mentally they might be thinking "That's failed part comes from another company, deal with them." Wash their hands of someone else's failed part.

Notice that they are completely absent from this thread, although I'm sure they are reading it very carefully. Another face of AP

I hate the OP has had this issue, but I thank him for bringing this to our attention. Is AP within it's rights to deny coverage? Most likely, yes. Is it a questionable customer service approach to deny coverage in this instance? I think so, particularly if it is accepted by all parties that the game was HUO.

I was thinking about AP game #2 but this post has impacted that thinking. Stern and Spooky have been great with customer service for me and I understand JJP is similarly good. With the variety available now to consumers, I'm personally not inclined to drop that kind of change on a game and worry about it not being supported on day 91.

Doesn't matter with American Pinball. I predict this company will be bankrupt in less than a year! Wait and see! Too many new pinball machines flooding the market. Heck even the used market is flooded with pinball machines from top collectors who are trying to fund their new purchases and people are asking crazy prices for it. There is not enough buyers of used machines to fuel the purchases for the new pinball machines that are coming. We all knew this would happen eventually but there is a crash coming....you can see it on the horizon!

What's the lesson here.

AP...... stand up and back your machine or this company will sink faster than the value of these new games.

The thread was started 12 hours ago. I don’t think Rosh and Barry live on pinside like you some folks. Give them time to respond before casting judgement.

AP are sticking to their terms and conditions. Unfortunately modern games are much harder to fix with various types of cheap boards.

Stern has driven me nuts with their QC issues.......

But, I have stuck with them because most of the time they make good, even when technically a node board is out of warranty.

If Stern enforced their warranty on node boards I would not be a buyer.

AP should make this right.

They're gonna need all the goodwill they can get when they release Oktoberfest.

(Stern also took care of me on an out of warrantee issue.)

Right on.

Stern has stuck by their issues (for the most part); I would not touch these guys unless deeply discounted - not worth the risk. Plenty of other new titles coming out to enjoy.

They did. Basically told him to go pound sand and contact Multimorphic to see if they would help.

Right now they have only two options..... Accept the bad PR or take a pie in the face and give the guy a replacement.

They can take all the time they want including forever. I know they "live" on this site though.

My casting of judgement has little to do with this one "small" problem and more to do with other disturbing things I've seen.

This is one thing I really back Stern on. I had a node board go out on my GB Pro when I installed an OEM shaker motor and my machine was over a year old at the time. Called my distributor "Gameroom Guys" and Stern sent me TWO replacement node boards. No issues. I was very appreciative.

One question that you may have answered. Are you the original owner.

If not ..... I kinda understand why they would not replace the board over the warranty period.

An odd choice made by ap.

Seems short sighted.

Lulz that a Podcaster has already lost his mind over this issue this morning. Quite a polarizing issue to say the least.

To you.
To me and many others it was very informative.

Winner!

Haven't read this whole thread, but when did you receive the game? The warranty should be from date of purchase, not the build date.

Bravo! My exact feelings. Freakin whining petulant children.

As I posted earlier, not only did Stern replace a part for me on a machine that was well over a year old -- they did it for me and I wasn't even the original owner! How's that for standing by your product?

Wish I could give you an extra thumbs up just for the Fez Whatley avatar.

Cookie......

Stern does. Are you not reading the examples people are giving on this thread of Stern's post warranty work?

OP consider yourself lucky. I've been trying to get a sound board issue resolved with Capcom and they won't even answer the damn phone.

Chicago Coin isn't returning my calls either.

I've been calling Williams weekly in an effort to buy the Police Force hat for $6.95 that is advertised on my machine. Nobody cares to answer there also.

Is it too late for AP to step in and make this right?
The ball is clearly in American pinballs court whether they choose to take the winning shot or not is up to them.

You'll have to try Scientific Games.

702-897-7150