Rikon Tool customer service experience

[Woodrambler]

I keep hearing how Rikon Tool customer service is so great. But I got just the opposite with a special order grinder that smoked. Rikon will only replace if I pay to ship the burned up grinder back, about $70 freight. Sadly it was defective from the beginning, overheating with no wheels installed. The dealer, woodcraft, claimed to get nowhere with Rikon. I suspect I was getting the run around. The one thing I got out of this is to avoid new woodworking machines since the warranties are only good as the customer service which is usually useless. I guess I need to get over it and take it to the county recycle center and move on. The thing has been sitting in my shop collecting dust and raises my blood pressure when I see it and think about Rikon and Woodcraft.

 

[Ricksmi]

I agree in part that Rikons customer support is questionable I called with a band saw issue and spent a month (16 phone calls) getting the runaround with them before they finally made good on the warranty. Sadly Rikon keep putting the blame on my local store.

 

[danmart77]

This seems like a subject for the power tool section?

 

[kreisdorph]

My experience with them has been great. I bought a 10-326 bandsaw from Woodcraft. Within a month the motor seized up. Rikon had me a new one in 2 days with no requirement to send the old motor back. More recently, when I inquired about the ship date of the 80-1824 lathe, I received a reply from the president of Rikon.

 

[Woodrambler]

I ordered the 1HP grinder and waited 5+ months to receive it. I sent an email after waiting 3 months and got a response from the president also. I have had several lengthy email conversations with customer support, one when I received it and latter when it started tripping circuit breakers. They sent me a new start capacitor and latter suggested the LED light was drawing too much current, lol. You know you have a fire hazard when you clamp an amp meter on the circuit and see the junk grinder is drawing 25 amps. I thought about recording a YouTube video of the grinder smoking but then did not want to risk burning my shop to prove a point.

 

[kreisdorph]

Strange that the responses are so varied. Perhaps they don't give the same level of CS to a $200 grinder vs. a $1,500 bandsaw. Shame.