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Posted by: fkalich Apr 18 2008, 07:16 PM

I will be objective and short. Not looking for sympathy, looking for a bit of revenge. And as a public service. I bought a Zoom G9.2tt over a year ago. Now it really sounds great. Anyone will tell you that. It is a nice design. But....

After I had it about 6 months a few of the 20 little effects plastic push switches started to have to be pushed several times to work. It slowly got worse over time. Then worse. After a year some quit working altogether. I figured, no problem, my credit card doubles my warranty, and sent it back.

No response for almost a month. I called. They have one guy who works on them in the US, only one guy. Now that is a really bad red flag, they must sell a lot of products, that tells me, they don't fix a lot of products, obviously. He called me yesterday. He charged me $27.50 to tell me this. And will charge me $30 to ship it back. He can only guess on the estimate, $250. He said it would take all day to replace 10 switches. Now there are 20 switches like that. What are the odds the others won't fail soon? I paid $330 for the unit new. Duh, right. For an itemized estimate it will cost me about $150 more. At this point I quit trusting them entirely. And here is the kicker. He said that he would not have fixed it under warranty, because he found animal hair in it. Now that does not surprise me, I have cats. I have seen those in my computers. But I have had them for 10 years in this house, 7 computers on the floor, zillions of keyboards with all kinds of grime that gets in them, TV has worked for 10 years, CD player. Not had problems with anything, why did the animal hair pick on my Zoom box particularly? Why do my computer keyboards keep going for 5 years with no problem, as much grime as gets into them? But the dopey Zoom switches fail?

I am doubtful that this is going to fly with the credit card company on the double warranty thing. My view is, very few Zoom units are ever repaired, obviously. Well with one technician taking a day on each one, how many could be? Looking on internet, I have yet to find anyone happy who has had service experience. They all say they are very slow, and I have read horror stories such as mine.. My view (personal view) is this is a company who does not expect to keep long term customers, and markets to the first time or possibly (long shot) 2nd time buyers. I won't be a 2nd time buyer.

I did get some decent settings on it before the switches failed, I just cannot modify anything anymore, but it would work. Hopefully the settings are still there when I get it back. If not, it goes in the dumpster and I probably get a line 6. Their canned settings are very lame.

Posted by: MickeM Apr 18 2008, 07:40 PM

That's really terrible. And if the guy takes a full day to exchange 10 switches he's screwing both customers and Zoom or he's just plain incompetent. And I find it very hard to belive car hair would cause a switch to fail in the first place. Possibly he's over charging since warranty related fixes won't give any income.

Sorry to hear, fkalich. The day it goes to the dumpster you know what whould fly insted of just throwing it away. A video on youtube of you smashing it to pieces so that everyone searching for Zoom will find this.
I ecourage pay back when they drop a file of s..t in the customers lap. Causing lost sales is good means to get back.

I can recommend POD X3 live. Now I had mine in for repair *cough* but there was a warranty issue, it happens in the best of families. 95% of the presets suck, they are just there to show what can be done with that piece, but as far as usefulness goes - Bah! It's pretty easy to make new ones, especially with the gear box PC program from where one can maintain settings.

Posted by: fkalich Apr 18 2008, 09:04 PM

I expect to get that one, based on people here. I purchased the Zoom before I subscribed here, otherwise would have gone that direction in the first place. The Youtube idea is great. One should never threaten companies to try to get them to be decent, that is of course attempted extortion legally. But to smash it on youtube, maybe encourage my dog to take a wizz on it before hand, perfectly fine.

I guess some companies operate like that, try to get new customers and don't care about existing ones. A lot of guys begin guitar, and buy stuff early on, that is probably the market they target, the unknowing, as I was when I first started.

Not everybody is like that. I had one company replace an item that was a couple months out of warranty. One reason I like Fender and Gibson is that they really do support their products well. At least Fender with the American product, not as well with the Mexican. I bought a new American Telecaster last year. The neck was straight, but I could not adjust the truss rod, it was maxed out. They authorized the fender repair guy to put on a new neck. Good support is often worth paying more for. Sometimes you buy something and just figure if it breaks, get a new one. But not always, sometimes you really want good support.

Posted by: Fran Apr 19 2008, 03:38 PM

Nasty story, I'll make sure to stay away from Zoom products in the future.

Posted by: audiopaal Apr 19 2008, 04:27 PM

That's horrible

Posted by: Danilo Capezzuto Apr 19 2008, 05:07 PM

Bleahh...for them it's important to sell...not the customer happiness...I'll stay away from zoom's products.

Posted by: Marcus Lavendell Apr 19 2008, 07:07 PM

I'm sorry to hear this fkalich
I haven't had any problems at all with any of my gear, and I have a cat as well. So his comment about cat hair just sounds pretty strange to me

Posted by: Paul Coutts Apr 20 2008, 05:43 AM

wow that sucks...I had a similar experience....well, actually not even close. I owned a Zoom product awhile ago....fantastic pedal. Gfx 4 or something like that....but it failed after a couple of months. They are good, but the reliability isn't good at all.

Posted by: fkalich Apr 20 2008, 06:54 AM

the telling thing to me was, they sell a lot of products, but only have one guy who fixes all of them. Meaning they are not often repaired. That tells me one of two things.

Either:

1) They are like Toyota trucks (I have one) , highly reliable.
2) They anticipate losing you as a customer, and maximize profits with that assumption in mind.

BTW, your lessons are great. I have reached a point where I feel practicing alternative fingerings is the thing that will develop you the fastest, more than just trying to push speed in the fingerings you are used to. I use my pinkie more than you, so play a lot in 4 fret boxes. But still you play unique note combinations which require different fingerings than I am accustomed. I find even doing that slowly, makes me faster in the fingerings I am more used to.

I also agree with you, where one should practice a lot just the guitar alone, no beat. I look on the metronome like a track coach kicking a runner in the butt to keep them going. Useful at times, but you should not need to have someone kicking you in the butt all the time.





What takes you to Dabui? I assume work. You like it there?

Posted by: Bondy Apr 20 2008, 08:28 AM

Man that sucks i havent used a zoom for years the one i had only had 2 pedals and one of them went under warranty and could not get nothing out of them toke an age to reply i see nothing has changed with Zoom.Really sorry to hear about your unit i hope you have more luck
ZOOM MAKE HULK

Posted by: Trond Vold Apr 20 2008, 10:12 AM

Thats terrible.. I used to have a Zoom board, but it felt kinda plastic so i got rid of it.
I also have a few animals running around leaving hair absolutely everywhere, including places i never thought hair would travel. But i've never ran into troubles with any sort of hardware because of it.

Posted by: Marcus Siepen Apr 20 2008, 10:31 AM

Sorry to hear this man. This cat hair story sounds so made up, seems this guy is looking for a way to work around the warranty... In moments like this you really find out about how a company works and treats the customers.

Posted by: superize Apr 20 2008, 10:33 AM

That is sad to here man.....

Posted by: fkalich Apr 25 2008, 11:13 PM

being that I trashed them, should say something nice. Always have been forgiving, a bad habit I have had since childhood.

The credit card company will pay out on the double warranty thing, will send me a check for $250. They never contacted the Zoom guy, which might have killed that deal. So that is good.

I won't have them fix it, but I asked the guy if I could try it myself, if that were possible. He said it was if I were careful, they could sell me some of the $1.75 switches, and he even sent me 4 attachments of diagrams to help me.

So I figured I should add the good with the bad. I do have to say the unit sounds great, it might have the nicest sound of all these in its price range. And I really do like having 2 pedals (the third is pretty hard to use). Although you can add another expression pedal to the line 6. I also have the bottom line Zoom G1.X effects box, which for $80 is nice, even has a pedal. And a drum machine, which I like, convenient. So the good with the bad. So at this point, I would again consider one of their items. However, I would research to see if my experience of early failure was just bad luck, or if this is more common in their units in comparison to other types.

Posted by: Muris Varajic Apr 26 2008, 03:04 AM

That's horrible experience Fkalich!

I had Zoom 4040 for a few years,and I did have some issues with switch
but the fact is,there isn't Zoom dealer/service even in this whole region.
So I took it to my friend who knows some stuff about electronics.

As you said,once you failed your customer like this,you're loosing it...

Posted by: zoom Apr 26 2008, 03:48 AM

Yeah I have an accoustic zoom pedal and I must say it lasted for a year or two but the switchs started to play up and became unreliable so it's in the cupboard. I don't think I'd buy another one. When I brought it I thought it looked like it wouldn't last.

Posted by: fkalich Apr 26 2008, 04:10 AM

Yeah, but see what you did, you named yourself Zoom after your pedal, and now you are stuck with that name.

Similar to the guy who tatoos his girlfriend's name and then has to tell people for the rest of his life that is his mother's name.

Posted by: skennington Apr 26 2008, 04:41 AM

Sorry zoom, but I knew that was coming. Line 6, please don't say anything!

Posted by: Daniel Robinson Apr 26 2008, 08:50 AM

Its really irritating to the fact that most music gear SHOULD be designed with abuse in mind. IMO any gear you purchase should be tried and tested road worthy gear before making the plunge. As far as i know POD has great road worthiness as well as BOSS products, Digitech is kinda iffy depending on the model.

Some companies that don't make stuff anymore i sure wish they did, All my ART gear from the 80's still works perfectly i have an SGX 2000 Rack mount....an ART power plant preamp, and a ART nightbass with all the pedals and everything still works just like the day i bought it. And its been thru hell and back. Never had to replace anything or have it serviced.

I have had some horror stories in the past with service from other companies that don't exsist anymore. Its made me a much more cautious buyer. I try to find out everything i can about reliability from a product.

Guitars to stomp boxes to amps and rack mounts and floor modelers you have to really dig deep to find the real truth.

Hope you have better luck in the future.


Daniel

Posted by: Bogdan Radovic Apr 26 2008, 03:50 PM

This is sad ! And I don't see how animal hair goes with switch failing...
Maybe you should take it to a local electronics guy to fix you that switch , it should not be hard and won't cost so much..

Posted by: Ivan Milenkovic Apr 26 2008, 04:56 PM

Such a bad thing man. In these cases, as Muris and Bogdan said, it is best to take it to someone who knows how to fix it. Official support is not good in these cases I'm afraid, only to get your nerves edgy.

Posted by: Pablo Vazquez Apr 26 2008, 05:07 PM

+1