The "official" policy is one thing, and for legal reasons probably needs to be as stated, but has anyone had an experience yet where JJP did not try to take care of a problem they were having with WOZ?

Wrong. Distributors have games to sell, I have a WOZ LE that I am selling. There are other WOZ LE's from distributors that I expect will come up as well. Not all distributors go and find a buyer in order to commit to games ... I didn't and there are many others who didn't as well, so when they get theirs there will likely be some popping up for sale.

So is this a question of confidence in their product or a question of business model/process? Seems to me like it could be the latter. Bene wants to seem to bypass the business model set up by jjp

Ok, let's use this example. You buy your "something" from Best Buy and register the warrantee. Then you sell it to me. I contact the manufacturer with a problem. What does the manufacturer do?

Everyone will have opinions on the answer to that question. They will range from what they "should" do, to what they have to do by law. But in the end I have heard of exactly one example of someone not getting a board they needed, and it was because the manufacturer was currently out of stock.

Which part didn't you understand?

This is NOT true, spoke with JJP 2 days ago regarding this very topic and they claim that even after the 1 year they will take care of all known issues, WOZ light boards etc.

What if the original buyer did not register the warranty? than anyone who owns said item is entitled to repairs within the warranty period.

My post sounds harder on JJP than I would have liked, because I think both of them are probably right in their own ways. JJP's post got under my skin a little to be honest.

In this specific example of Bene's game, a buyer would have to weigh the lower price with a 90 day warranty vs. a higher priced one with a year warranty. I think Jack purposely exploited that fact to make it harder for bene to sell the game. I don't think that's a cool move if that was in fact his motive.

Misfitdart are your reading the thread ???
Read what Jack posted.

is must be kindof obvious to the group here that if the warranty transferred then there would be ALOT of people flipping the games, speculating on games, not charging sales tax (where distributors have to), making it hard for the manufacturer to know the history and situation with a product that they are trying to maintain ... put yourself in the situation of a product which readily gets passed around (unlike a stove or refridgerator), and can you imagine the mess that a mfg would have to deal with ... there are usually reasons why things are the way they are.

"Because they know all they sold ya was a guaranteed piece of shit. That's all it is, isn't it? Hey, if you want me to take a dump in a box and mark it guaranteed, I will. I got spare time. But for now, for your customer's sake, for your daughter's sake, ya might wanna think about buying a quality product from me." -Tommy Boy

Agreed, you're just following standard industry practice here. I do think you're going to have some of the same concerns as JJP, simply because your tech is new, and the "well just fix it yourself" attitude that would apply to old MMs won't be the same with your MMrs. But you're using standard hardware, like the BeagleBoard, so that will probably help.

JJP should sell a warranty to second owners if they prove they are the ones opening the pin.

That would REALLY get the poopnado winds flying. Can't you hear the screams from the usual suspects? They would go I to a tizzy.

Yeah, that policy has *really* prevented people from speculating on Stern LE's in the past few years.

Derek is the biggest Stern fan ever, he gets excited about every new game coming out. You can't begin to understand the passion he has for Stern largely because without them JJP wouldn't even exist and we would most likely have no new pinball right now. He is not a shill however, he doesn't get a dime from stern. They should probably hire him as a PR man though, no one has the passion for Stern that he does.

I like turtles.

_{Post edited by Joshmx19 : Meh I have no dog in this fight! Why bother...}

There were a lot of individuals that proclaimed WoZ was the "best built, highest quality pinball machine ever". This was before any were delivered to cash paying customers. Can anoyone out there still say this with a straight face?

Not imho, by the way.

Soo....I have to send my woz to Japan.....faq...

Now that's interesting. Wonder what a warranty would look like that someone could buy at any time similar to apple care. Maybe exclude routed games.......based on number of plays or something. Would have to expire at some point, but wonder if something could be slipped into the code to track overall games played and total powered on time. As long as the game is under certain thresholds, someone could buy in on a warranty. This would be more for electrical components vs broken plastics and playfield wear - electrical vs mechanical. Not sure if thats feasable, but kinda interesting. Like pinball owner insurance. Lower monthly rates to defer the one time big cost of something major going? eh actually sounds like a crappy idea.

How much do the common failures like light boards and the computer cost? It would be good to know this to decide if buying used is worth the gamble and to negotiate prices. Seems to me that it would be more wise to buy used but open and played because if any problems were to come up they would have hopefully happened already and would have been fixed under warranty.

See my story about LTG giving out a Williams part number and saying It could be purchased online from pinball life or marco. JJP wouldn't even sell a replacement one! And that's on a one-owner game purchased directly from JJP!

Something's up.

IMHO.

I have only had my game for 3 days, but after opening, inspecting, and playing mine, I can confidently say that it is the "best built, highest quality pinball machine ever" I say this with a straight face, and with a history of owning dozens of games from many companies. You are more than welcome to come by my place and inspect the difference yourself.

No hate or spin intended.

Yawn....I like turtles.

Good one dude! Shouldn't you be asleep though? Wouldn't want to be late to work tomorrow, Jack hates that.

They never ever received them in the first place to need warranty, Phoenixing companies is definitely something that needs to be tightened up here.

Where can I see this story?

Quality products from quality companies should have quality service and warranty policies. Warranty should be at least one year from date of manufacture regardless of where you bought it. There is not a problem with transferring warranty when buying a used car. And pinball prices are approaching that category. Perhaps the FTC should get involved and protect pinball consumers from manufacturers that cannot deliver a reliable product.

This eye opening warranty issue might have lost both JJP and PPS some pre-order sales.

Jack's message says the warranty is not transferable. No warranty service from a game bought from an unauthorized seller. That game must have originally come from an authorized seller, so he is very clearly saying non transferable. If I'm an owner who bought nib, I'd be very upset with this as no warranty means the value of my game just fell in the secondary market. What they do in practice may be different, but I dont know that jack should have suggested the warranty is nott transferrable.

They should honor the warranty regardless of owner.

I know from experience that stern provides free parts regardless of owner even beyond the warranty period. I was the third owner of an xmen and was able to get parts, had to go through the original distributor, but no questions asked beyond that and part showed up in a matter or days, and it was an expensive part (DMD).

I didn't buy one on the secondary market not because of the warranty but because there is only one source for parts and if that source decides not to sell you a part then out here that is what they call electronic waste and you have to pay to dump it.
Pinchroma says that you will be taken care of, Jack says you won't.
All games get old and resold so you can get a fresh title, I didn't buy it simply because I didn't want to get stuck with a broken white elephant nobody wants.
I run a biz that depends on repeat customers, if I blew off old money while chasing new money I would be out of business.
Customer service is job #1 that is how I put my competitors out of business.

It wouldnt get flipped around if it was a keeper to many...

Okay, I looked into buying a new WOZ from an authorized dealer.

They are available at basically $8,500 for a standard and $9,500 for an LE. With that type of markup, I don't see the difference between what "flippers" are doing and what "authorized dealers" are doing except that buying from the authorized dealer means no risk of the warranty being voided. Both the authorized dealers and flippers are playing the market and it seems like the flippers are simply more able to react to the market and this is reflected in lower prices. As a customer, if I buy from an authorized dealer I'd be paying $2000 to $3000 extra for a 1-year warranty.

Something about the entire business model seems off to me. If customers are expected to capitalize the business then it's natural for them to want special treatement and this causes a whole host of problems which we continue to see played out here. The better model would be traditional capitalization but I presume that's not available for one reason or the other.

Haven't read much post the opening thread so pardon if this had been repeated before. In aus if you buy a car from the show room and on sell the warranty is still valid and so it is with the woz if it ever arrived. Is the case the same car wise in the land of the free?

This great news should result in a significant discount in the secondary market. Even so, future availability of replacement parts makes WOZ ownership a risk not worth taking to me.

http://www.villagebbs.com/forum/index.php/topic,23691.msg196922.html#msg196922

People w

People will continue to buy WOZ it's a great game and not because of a warranty so don't expect a big price dip because of this although there probably will be a dip because there are simply more of them out there. I didn't buy a Ford over a Lotus because Ford has a nicer warranty. Likewise if a potential parts problem scares you then I'd move on to something where it's not a problem.

I wouldn't have a problem buying a WOZ without a warranty IF most of the game specific/high fail parts like light boards/power supplies/Crystal ball screen, gear motors, etc. were readily available to purchase from parts stores such as Pinball Life or Bay Area at a reasonable price. I would also be concerned that if there was a shortage of parts that priority might be given to warrantied customers over non- warranteed customers if there weren't enough parts to go around. Single source vendor stuff like this scares me as I wouldn't want to end up with a 350 lb paperweight.

If any of my Bally/Williams/Stern games go down with a problem I just order the parts and fix it myself since parts are available. - There's really no need for a warranty in that case.

You won't end up with a paperweight, but your concern is legit. Maybe it's time to price some of these high fault items like light boards just to see what you're in for.

How/Where are you going to price them from? They aren't available anywhere.

Correct. People have tried to buy a set and JJP refuses to sell them.

Really . JJP wont sell replacement parts, but will only warranty the part, but if you don't qualify for the warranty you don't get the part?

Is that a hidden way to discourage reselling and grey market sales? Kind of like, I guarantee your machine will break down, but if you didn't purchase it from an approved source, you have a paper weight?

I have no idea and couldn't get a straight answer, all I could do was check for parts availability and couldn't find them or any idea what the boards would cost if I could.
I passed on the game, not worth the headaches with so many other titles out there.

Gee, did anyone pick up the phone and ask Jack direct? (I hear he's not that hard to get a hold of)

Unauthorized sales... Black market pinball machines lulz...

ted, did you see vid's post about three up from you?

I don't know ANYONE who has had a problem getting parts. Do you?

Maybe you and I just interpret things a little differently.

How? Find ONE person to post here that could not get a part and their machine is a paperweight.

Your right ted.

I will disregard mr do's earlier post about a switch, here in this thread, vid's post confirming mr do's last post, and heck I will even disregard tracelifter's post.