Dapol customer services - a thankyou

[Adrian]

Early last month I took advantage of the monthly online specials at Dapol and bought a Class 58.

It came promptly in the post and after the prescribed oiling I placed it on my test circuit.  Put the power on (modest speed setting only) ............ it "ran" fitfully in one direction and very reluctantly the other way.
I read everything I could find on this Forum and others about colleagues' experiences with Dapol locos - both positive and negative.  Result was, rather than return the model immediately, I persevered and after two or three hours (!) of gentle running-in the loco was performing rather better - not quieter, but better!
The problem was that I could not resolve an intermittent fault on the motor, so every so often it was possible to hear the note of the motor drop slightly then recover.

I had to move on to other things and it was a week before I got the chance to run the 58 again.  Unfortunately, on the test track, I had a similar, though not as severe, experience ............. running grudgingly to say the least.  However, this time, after maybe ten minutes, it was running quite well though the intermittent fault remained.

I repeated this exercise a couple of times over the next week or two with similar outcome - which set me thinking, what situation might I be in when the manufacturer's warranty expired in six months - by now I'd used about one month of this.

Reading on NGF of others experience, I decided that an email wasn't perhaps the best tactic but wondered if a letter would fare any better.  I decided to be more "proactive" (!) so parcelled the 58 up, included a polite letter explaining my reason for returning the model and requesting a refund, sent it back to Dapol using the RM Signed For service.

Yesterday, a week after sending, I received a phone call from the manufacturers.  The person I spoke to was very pleasant and helpful - checked I would prefer a refund rather than a replacement - said my PayPal account would be credited in full shortly after our call.  Later I received an email from PayPal confirming this action.

So, okay the specimen I received wasn't too healthy (though others have been much more fortunate in this respect) and at the end I haven't been able to add a Class 58 to my roster.  However, Dapol  to their credit accepted my return after several weeks without question, followed up with a good phone call to me and made the refund promptly.

So, have to say I was very satisfied with the outcome (though disappointed of course by lack of 58 on the layout) and grateful to Dapol for sorting things for me

Adrian

[guest311]

hopefully a change in attitude at Dapol.

nice to hear a positive story amongst all the usual Dapol bashing.

alan

[Sprintex]

I agree, thanks for posting


Paul

[Tank]

Great to hear, thanks for posting.

I've only had to contact Dapol once about a Class 86.  I messaged them through Facebook and Joel explained that I should post it to them and they'd swap it for another.  The replacement arrived very quickly afterwards.  I tested the new one and it works well so far.

[Cutter]

Well, I just took advantage of a Dapol special and they sent me the wrong item! So it is going back for replacement and we'll see how they do. I am expecting them to refund my shipping costs (I live in Massachusetts). I am not out to bash anyone, but every transaction I have had with Dapol directly has gone wrong because of simple mistakes and dropped balls.

[Cutter]

But I bet you don't miss the winters--this last one was a brute!