Just had the repairpeople from the local electronics store over to look at my broken washing machine, and it's such a breath of fresh air to deal with *competent* repairpeople...
I can see why this is one of the few electronics stores in the country that's doing well financially
(The problem in that case was that modern dishwashers apparently tend to have optical sensors that get confused by swollen bits of rice getting stuck in front of the sensor, and so rice is the one thing you really need to make sure you remove from plates before putting them in)
Repairpeople just returned to install the replacement part, and to my surprise they remembered that I asked them to mask last time, and they brought their own masks and were already masked up before they came in!
Absolutely A++ experience honestly.
I'm not sure if they operate outside the local area (seems they might do repairs in all of NL, despite only having store branches here? Their website isn't very clear about it), but in case anyone else in NL is looking, the company is Lunenburg.
Update: repeat visit from another tech today because even with the fixed shock dampeners, it still made more noise than it should (albeit less now); after a lengthy investigation of a really-not-maintenance-friendly machine (welded front panel...) it turned out that one of the front concrete counterweights had shaken loose.
This was very annoying to figure out, because, well, the front panel was welded - they ended up asking in the repair tech group chat whether anyone had any ideas, and someone came up with the idea of concrete block tightening, and shared that on these machines you can remove the rubber seal and tilt back the machine, and then stick a hand inbetween panel and drum to get at the front blocks.
Took them a bit over an hour to diagnose, repair, and run a test cycle to confirm. Total cost was... 0 EUR, because it apparently fell under the warranty for their previous repair, being the same issue within the limit of 2 months. Awesome.
One really cool thing that they told me, was that apparently "repair over replacement" is their standard policy; they do sell new machines, but only if they can't repair the old one within a reasonable cost.
I assume that's also why they have the trade-in policy where if you try a repair, and it ends up unfixable, they will apply the repair costs as a discount if you buy a new machine from them. As that makes repairs low-risk for the customer, and presumably helps them with customer retention at the same time.
Hi can every electronics company be like this please, thank you
@joepie91 It might also apply to other high-starch food particles. Especially grains, but possibly also some types of pasta.
@riley So apparently the reason it's a problem specifically with rice, is that there's a protective thing around the sensor to prevent stuff sticking to it, an indent - but rice grains are small enough that they can still get in there (and other food particles are not, or dissolve much more easily)
@joepie91 If that's the case, other types of grain can probably do it. The critical parts would be having the starchy body, having a hard shell, and having the right size. Pasta pieces don't have the shell, but non-rice grains, if they happen to be the right size, would have both the shell and the starchy body.
@joepie91
Can you name them? It'd be handy to have a company like this in the back pocket!
@eythian Yeah, it's Lunenburg, the one in Nuland/Rosmalen (I named them elsewhere in the thread but it's easy to overlook probably 🙂) - do keep in mind I don't know their exact service area, they're a local chain and they do at least seem to ship webshop orders for appliances NL-wide, but I don't know what their service setup is like for that.
So they might provide service outside the local area or they might not!
@joepie91
Thanks! I did miss it.
https://www.lunenburg.nu/over-lunenburg/de-lunenburg-service/ons-servicegebied looks like I'm not in the servicegebied but they are also willing to travel outside it under some conditions I guess. Either way, if i need something, I'll keep them in mind. Some of my appliances are aging so it could be an option.
Thanks again, these sorts of recommendations are great.
And this is not an exception, this time I paid them out of pocket to fix a machine I bought elsewhere, but previously I've called up their repairfolks for a warranty call on something purchased there, and it was just as good.
Show up, look at machine, test a few things, establish problem without even opening up the machine based on a deep knowledge of how it works internally, fix it and provide recommendations on how to reduce the chance of failure in the future. Done.