Bad Tech Support (Don't let this happen anymore!)

I had a depressing experience with CH Products support. I bought the CH pedals. Worked great for 2 - 3 weeks. Then the right pedal went nuts and I was unable to calibrate it. It would start with a decent value - and end with a decent value, but inbetween was chaos. Full travel is only 16-360 or so... but Nascar and IndyCar2 measured spikes in the thousands. After all the tests, it was obvious that one of the pots was bad. Only the right one was flakey, it was repeatable, followed the pedal set from one computer to another. Even their software showed the device to be bad - even claiming it was "not installed" in two different places along the travel of the pedal. I was going to be "nice" and offer to replace the bad pot with a new one myself if they'd just send one out.... after all, shipping a pot that fails in 3 weeks is hard to catch.... No blame necessary. CH wasn't so friendly. CH Products tech support blindly blamed it on the gameport. Even after Lots of tests (including their own software) which all pointed to ONE pot being bad or dirty. I felt as though he was planning to blame it on the gameport all the time ,from the very first response, and just had me run a bunch of tests to keep me busy for a while. Or maybe to make me think he knew what he was doing. I wonder if "the problem is in your game port" is the only thing he knows how to say. -*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*- I'd like to send a message to CH and other companies like them: Some of us have been "doing hardware" longer than they have....and certainly longer than some of their newbie techs. Don't be so quick to blame everything on someone else's parts. And teach these children some LOGIC skills!! If you can't teach 'em, hire someone with skills. Really. It's only your company on the line. Sheesh! Even after he didn't "get it" on the third e-mail message, I explained what the tests meant. (see? I'm a nice guy) -= In the end, I win. =- Instead of a happy customer, they get this: a) I took the product back to the store. b) I will buy someone else's product. c) I will "dog" the company for bad tech support on public forums for months! ...and all for a $3.00 potentiometer.... Hey CH!!! ... is it worth it? <soapbox temporarily stowed> Mike

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>I'd like to send a message to CH and other companies like them: >Some of us have been "doing hardware" longer than they have....and >certainly longer than some of their newbie techs. Don't be so quick >to blame everything on someone else's parts. >And teach these children some LOGIC skills!! If you can't teach 'em, >hire someone with skills. Really. It's only your company on the line. >Sheesh! Even after he didn't "get it" on the third e-mail message, >I explained what the tests meant. >(see? I'm a nice guy) > -= In the end, I win. =- >Instead of a happy customer, they get this: >a) I took the product back to the store. >b) I will buy someone else's product. >c) I will "dog" the company for bad tech support on public forums for >months! >....and all for a $3.00 potentiometer.... >Hey CH!!! ... is it worth it? ><soapbox temporarily stowed> >Mike

I agree with you, Mike. But I had quite the opposite experience with CH. We bought a couple of Flightstick Pro's here, and the springs broke on them after a couple of months of use. I sent email to CH tech support asking what could be done, and without any prompting whatsoever, they dropped two sets of springs in the mail. After that, I bought the Pro Pedals and the Virtual Pilot Pro and I haven't had any problems with them at all, even after nearly a year of NASCAR abuse. I guess it all depends on who's on the other end of the line. Dave "davids" Sparks Sequoia Motorsports

***Snip****> Right... I may have had a much better experience if I got to talk to more than one... Mike

Thats the best "flame" I've seen!!! Dave