rec.autos.simulators

I spent 2 years replacing springs (and a bungee cord)
on a Tmaster T-2 wheel. When the new "Nascar Pro" wheel
came out, I thought I'd give them another shot, hoping
the quality had improved. It had not.
About 6 months after purchasing a Nascar Pro wheel, my car
(in N2) developed an occasional sudden jerk to the left.
I completely uninstalled N2, patched back to the current
version and the problem remained.
Long story short, appears it's a bad steering pot in the
wheel.
Emailed Tmaster, four days to reply. Replied to their mail,
still (3 days) and not heard back.
I just finished a tech support call with Thrustmaster.
The recording said wait times were from 15-25 minutes.
MY wait time was about 50 minutes AND I pay for the call.
After all this, the best they can do is an approx 2 week
turnaround for repair. No refunds unless Curcuit City would
take back something I've had for 6 months. (figure the odds)
"There is no special treatment" was what I was told from
Tmaster.
Seems to me if I've spent two years fixing a product that was
engineered poorly, gave your company another chance and got
another lemon, you darn well owe me fantastic service.

If you're considering buying a wheel, do yourself a favor and
buy something else. Pay the extra money for a TSW. I've heard
great things about them. I emailed them about wait times for
new TSWs and heard back the next day.

To say I'm disappointed in Tmaster is an understatement. To say
I think their service is below par is a gross understatement. To say I
believe the quality of their products is poor is being generous.
These are my opinions and if you've had better luck, count your
blessings.
Guess I'll order a TSW (which is probably what I should have done
to begin with), anyone want a good deal on a Nascar Pro
wheel in a few weeks?

-Kev
nxs.net is the domain and kf-lan is the username

What he said. Every word, except I just received my TSW and it is light
years ahead of anything TM has sold. Had 'em all, repaired 'em all and
got suckered into buying 'em all. My garage is a TM graveyard. If I had
bought a TSW to begin with it would have been half priced if you
subtract the three $100+ versions of TM's toys that I bought and broke.
The new Nascar Pro won't last long due to poor parts quality but it is a
good concept poorly executed.

        The TSW has good on center feel that won't deteriorate over time like
the TM bungee cords do because TSW uses quality springs and a bicycle
chain-like connector betwween the springs. Gives me a woody whenever I
hit a chicane on the edge<g>. If you spend a lot of your time on racing
sims make a good economic decision and get a TSW. Support is great and
you don't it need too!!

 YMMV but I doubt it.

Always remember and never forget: "No matter where
you go...there you are." Buckaroo Banzai

I can't believe you posted this today as I was pissed off earlier today too
about Thrustmaster and was going to write something here too. I spent 45
minutes today (45 yesterday) trying to call them and never got through. I'm
on the East coast and I called 1:00PM their time. How many calls could they
be handling at that time? Expensive call and more importantly a waste of
time. I need a steering pot NOW and also my gas pedal spring is broken and
I'm using *** bands. It's looking sad. I actually love the wheel though.
It has always worked great. I don't mind replacing the parts considering all
the use it's had. But 2 weeks? I'm in big trouble. Anybody want to help us?
PLEASE?

Dave

I needed a new GP wheel and sent an email. They replied the next day and the
wheel was couriered to New Zealand within a week - at no charge to me!

Seems pretty good service to me...

nxs.net is my domain and kf-lan is my name.

I emailed them as well for replacement springs.  Got a response 2 days
later.  Its 14 days and still no springs.

Scott

Well these experiances are totally the reverse of mine! I have an
original T1 (metal body) and have had 2 occasions to call for tech
support. About a year after I bought it I got a new desk, and needed
new "velcro" attachments. I called TM support, they took my address
down and within a week I had 2 sets of "velcro" and an extra spring
(just in case they said).

About a year later I could not configure the wheel under Win95 so I
called them back and was told I needed an adapter. Again I recieved it
within a week.

Both times there was no charge to me at all, and this was all shipped
up to Canada. I have nothing bad to say about TM support and wish all
companies were up to this standard.

Of course all this was a while ago (a year?) so maybe things have
changed, I hope not...

I'm sorry to hear about the delays in answering calls/emails/etc. and I
apologize on behalf of ThrustMaster.  We probably sold more wheels in the last
two weeks than most companies have sold in their existence.  I don't offer
that as an excuse, but as an attempt to provide some kind of perspective on
what goes on around here - especially during the Christmas season.  We do
roughly 50% of our year's sales in the fourth quarter and therefore we get a
lot of people calling with tech support questions this time of year.  We've
added more techs, more phone lines, more service people.  We have people doing
support that normally don't and we've tried to improve our processes in the
way we give support.  In spite of this, the call level has exceeded our
expectations and it is difficult to train people in short notice and then let
them go when the call level returns to normal.  

So, in the meantime, we appreciate your patience during this rough time.  

let me know what parts you need with your mailing address.  Although this
isn't a regular channel for support (and certainly won't work if I'm out of
town, sick or fired) usually the parts requests that are sent to me go out in
the mail that day - or the next at the latest.

Thanks,
Alan

I just wanted to post to try to give this group a little perspective. I am
the Customer Service Manager at ThrustMaster, Inc. Your satisfaction
guarantees that I have a job. Actually it is more accurate to say that the
satisfaction of the greatest number of ThrustMaster customers is
guarantee's my employment. You did not specify how many springs you
replaced in your T2. That was an acknowledged problem, but it was not a
problem with 100% of our users. This group needs to realize that a) you
actually represent a very small portion of the buying community b) you
admit again and again that you use the daylights out of your products.
This is not to say that we do not value this group. We do. You are the
worst case scenario that we try to build our products to satisfy. Aside
from the pot on your Nascar, what other quality issue did you run into?
Some people have had problems with our springs, but I assure you, I get to
see all of the numbers, how many we have sold versus how many springs I
have shipped. That number is less than half of a percent. This group sees
the problem more because they use the wheel more strenuously and
consistently than the average user. We should have over designed the
springs on the Nascar to accomodate this fact. I was pretty pissed off
when we got the first call about broken Nascar springs. I thought we left
that problem with the T2. Again, it is a small threshold problem, but one
that frequents this group. I can only try to fix the problem and take care
of the customer. As far as pots go. I have had exactly 15 requests for
pots for the Nascar since we started selling it. I assure you that is a
TINY number. Not even a hundredth of a percent of the total number of
Nascar's we have sold. I am sorry that you had this problem, but that is
why manufacturers offer a warranty. We will take care of you. 14 days
should be an extreme estimate of the total time required to repair your
wheel, I'll check with my group to make sure they are giving the right
information. You have to ship it to us (6 days assuming ground shipment),
we have to recieve it (1 day), repair it, (2 days as it waits in line)
then we ship it to you (2 days because we ship back to you via air
shipment). Total time: 10 days. We should quote 48 to 72 hour turnaround
once we recieve it, then 2 days to get to you. If you ship it slow, it
takes longer, if you ship it fast, it goes faster.
As far as phone wait times. Our message quoted 15 to 25 minute waits but
also told that hold times vary throughout the day and to be prepared for
an extended wait. We have taken 9,000 phone calls since December 15th. We
are doing our best to get everyone taken care of. We have mowed through
6,000 emails since then as well. Now I understand that you could say
"Jeez, your product must suck" Well, 30 % of my phone calls are game
setups, helping people get their products working in a game, that is
typically documented either in our documentation or the game's
documentation. Throw in the fact that Nascar2 is shipping with the need
for the patches and we get quite stacked up. The rest is divided between
joystick setup (using win95 control panel or Propanel), part/service
requests, issues that aren't my problem, presales calls and general
information calls. There is a balance required to make sense of a service
organization. It does not make economic sense to hire 80 people for two
months when 6 can take care of it by adding longer hold times for an extra
month. The hold times reflected in our message are an accurate AVERAGE.
Remember that averages are made up of big number and small numbers. Some
people got through in 5 minutes on that day. I am sorry you got the losing
number in the hold time lotto. I am striving to provide satisfactory
venues of communication.
We are striving to process email parts requests within 3 days of reciept.
Add six more days to arrive by US Mail and you get 9 days. My guys should
be quoting  7 to 10 days. I have one of my guys going through this thread
and checking the status of each person who said they were still waiting.

Why don't you (RAS in general) tell me what you think is good service. We
used to pick up the phone in less than 10 minutes (we will get back to
that as volume decreases), then we would ship the same day, or next day. I
consider that to be EXCELLENT service. It may not be possible to keep up
with the way we used to do business. We are shipping in volumes that
boggle the mind. This is good for us, but can be bad for the long time
customer who is used to the small business feeling that we had. No one in
this industry has an 800 number, last time I did a poll, hold times were
15 minutes for all of them. It is easy to pick up the phone in 5 minutes
when you only sell 25 units a month.
I do mean it when I ask you to tell me what you expect. I have been
contemplating putting in a voicemail box for parts requests. The part that
takes the most time is answering the email to confirm that we have gotten
your message. I don't think that is necessary. I want to just get your
information, slap it into my database and know that it will get shipped in
the next 3 days, maybe sooner. Do you need confirmation?

Again, tell me what you think is reasonable. Please email me directly at

let me know and I will check into it for you. We are not that far behind
so 14 days seems ridiculous.
Again, I apologize for any difficulties you may have had and hope that
this message may give you some perspective.

Thanks for your time, patience and support.

Steven T.A. Carter
Customer Service Manager
ThrustMaster, Inc.

I must say, my experience with TM service has been quite the opposite.
I'm still driving with a T1 that I bought when Indycar came out! Yeah,
I've replaced alot of springs and pots over the years. But I prefer
the feel of the wheel over the T2 and Pro wheels that are out today.

I purchased a T2 for my kid a while back. After a few monthes worth of
usage, something went wrong in the steering shaft and required to be
sent back to TM for repairs. When I called, thier tech shipped out a
replacement unit BEFORE I sent mine in. 3 days later it was at my
doorstep. Shipping out a replacement before the defective unit is
received is almost unheard of.

My T1 is better than 4 years old now, and TM never fails to send me
the parts I need whenever I request them, at no charge. I have nothing
but praise for them.

I didn't expect this and now I feel a little bad for complaining. Thanks
Alan for the help and the explanation as to the support problems. It
certainly made sense. I'm sure we all appreciate it very much.

Thank You,

Dave

Had a similar experience. After I had my T2 for about 4 months, both
springs broke. I wrote them an e-mail, after three weeks had passed
withough any sort of answer, I called them up. I was put on hold
forever. A tech support guy finally came on the line, but he wasn't
too bright. It took me forever to explain to him what I wanted :
"I need some new pedal springs for my Thrustmaster T2."
"Huh??"
I do have to say that the springs arrived after a few days, and at no
charge.

However, a month or so later, I started having problems with the
wheel. I couldn't calibrate it right anymore, it developed a mind of
its own (suddenly pulling sharply to the left or right for no reason).
I tried to clean everything, but that didn't help. Finally, the half
of the interior (cord and some plastic parts) just flew apart. When I
tried to call, I didn't get an answer. That was about a year ago.

I saw a GP1 on sale, and bought it along with CH pedals. I havn't
had any problems with them whatsoever, and the wheel was doing fine
until recently.

It takes awhile I sent an email, and I got a response in a week, and got the
springs, about 3 weeks later, of course I ordered the springs before I got the
wheel cause everybody says that they broke, so I pre-ordered them, haven't had to
use them yet though :)

You've probably already tried it, but if you haven't, a shot of Radio
Shack's Tuner Control Cleaner and Lubricant in the old steering pot may
solve your problem, pronto!  I had exactly the problem you describe, used
the tuner lube on the pot and solved my problem in about five minutes.  I
had read about this product here on ras for several months before finally
getting a can of it because I just couldn't believe solving the "pot
problem" could be so simple.  It was for me, and for less than ten bucks and
five minutes it might just solve your problem, too, and if it doesn't you're
not out much at all.

BTW, I emailed TM about needing a new pot and got a completely new *wheel*
sent second day air.  Nice gesture but it wasn't what I needed, and this is
when I made my visit to Radio Shack.

Good Luck

Jerry Morelock

     There has been several posts recently about Thrustmasters service
and the quality of their wheels. Well,I have had my T2 for about 1 1/2
years. And have averaged 1-2 hours per night with it.

     Over that period of time,I have broken numerous springs,and worn
out several pots. A simple email to Thrustmaster has  always solved my
problem. The replacement parts have always arrived within 1 week free
of charge.

     For the price,you just can't beat a Thrustmaster.

Regards,

Joel Willstein