Fix an amp just enough to sell it

[Enzo]

I always ask them to take their power cord home with them, as I write and say "No power cord" on the ticket.

[Randall]

I also always do this.

[bsco]

The problem is that once you've touched it, they'll flip it and say - "It's in great working condition, Mr. Tech just fully went through it last week - everything is solid!"

I like the idea of adding the refused repairs to the invoice....

Usually the seller won't show the buyer the invoice...but will verbally state that so and so fixed it up and it is working great.....

[bsco]

Guy comes in today. Represents as one of the biggest dealers in the area of vintage guitars and amps. Mostly interested in flipping gear. Brings me a Bassman AB165 that looks like a problem child. Doesn't want to spend much because he wants to flip it. It has obviously shot filter caps, a blown fuse, and mildew on the board. I tell him I must do the filter caps, and AC cord ( the death cap is shorted and there is 125vac on the chassis). He agrees, but no more than that.

I get the filter caps and Ac cord and death cap addressed, and find there are some other issues. I take care of those because I cannot stand to send an amp out with issues that I know of after I have serviced an amp. These extra fixes are on my own time because I quoted him the price of $150 to do the filter caps and AC cord and cleaning (it was bad) . I ended up fixing a bad ground in the first channel causing a hum, fixing the weird bias resistors in this circuit ( one tube was drawing 80mA). Balancing the biasing it so the one tube didn't cause the China Syndrome. And some other things

I wonder how others deal with customers who only want to do minimal repairs to flip gear, and how you feel this exposes you to liability as well as reputation. This is the first time I have dealt with this, and I don't like it.

I had a guy who bought an old Fender Twin Reverb...the one with the tapped output transformer...and he said the same thing to me...only fix it up good enough to sell it.......I took the amp and started to go through it...he had supplied a bunch of used tubes as well......there turned out to be a ton of problems and I wouldn't release the amp until he let me do what needed to be done......I told him it was not safe...anyway He foot the bill for ALL the work involved.... I sent it back to him...He kept it and sold some other amp instead....and I also had a couple of guys bring me home stereos and said the same thing...They wanted to flip them....they got the stereos for free somewhere......anyway, there was too much wrong with them and they didn't want to spend any money so I charged them for my time and sent them on their way......now, if anybody says that to me I just tell them I am too busy and cannot attach my name to a sub-standard repair...you either fix everything or nothing......that is a sure fire way to get rid of these people.....and I make a note of their names so that if they call me in the future, I tell them I am too busy.......

[Drewline]

This reminds me of back in my camera repair days I had a photographer from The Denver Post ask me to check out her gear she was selling. She actually had gotten the idea in her head that if she paid me to check her gear, that meant she now had a 6 month warranty on each piece of equipment she could use as a selling point.
Go figure how she arrived at that!

[bsco]

Personally, I would not have taken the job.

People like that will 'milk you' again & again.

I have already had experience dealing with this type of people....they remind me of tire kickers.....

[bsco]

This reminds me of back in my camera repair days I had a photographer from The Denver Post ask me to check out her gear she was selling. She actually had gotten the idea in her head that if she paid me to check her gear, that meant she now had a 6 month warranty on each piece of equipment she could use as a selling point.
Go figure how she arrived at that!

So I take it she gave the buyer your name and said you had serviced the equipment??

[Drewline]

No she was told that the warranty applied only to items we actually serviced. Got mad & left in a huff.

[Enzo]

When people head down that road, I tell them a warranty is not insurance. I warrant my work, I don't insure the amp. How the hell would I know if some tube is going to fail in a month?