I went to pick up a few parts for a project I am working on today. I went to one of the 2 sewing repair shops in my area and they are the biggest of the two. The fellow was having a hard time finding what I needed so he asked if I wanted to come back there and see if I could help him find what I was looking for........ :roll:

While I was back there I saw at least 130 or so machines lined up on shelves that needed to be worked on (industrials, vintage, and newer ones) then behind that was where the 2 employees were working repairing the machines. In the very back was the "Boneyard" as such and I was watching this one girl in particular. She took a part off of a machine and blew it off put it on the machine and asked if she should charge full price or not. The guy waiting on me I guess was her supervisor said "sure we always charge the new price".

After that I was asking him questions and he told me that they do not have a lot of new parts, they just take the parts off of the parts machines and use them. "We are not into restorations"

I am sorry here folks but if I sent a machine in to have a new part put on I want a NEW part and not a new to the machine part. :evil:

Then he was asking if I would be interested in working there repairing machines. I told him number one you could not afford me and number two I do not half @*& anything I do!!

I told him that under no circumstances would I steal money from the customer like that and it will be a cold day in Hell before I would ever step foot in that shop again! And I walked out.

What chaps me is the fact that there is probably some lady on a fixed income (SSI) and she is paying a ton of money to these guys for a band aid job and is clueless about it.

So if you take a machine in to be service ask to go back in the repair area and look around at how they do things. If they wont let you go back there to see the work in progress then they are hiding something and go somewhere else!


Billy

Good Post!

Thank you for this information. Now we know to ask if the parts will be new, or "new" to the machine :D:D:D

Wow. That's quite an eye opener.

Wow, that is horrible. What a shady organization.

Awesome advice Billy. I'm sad and glad that happened to you. Sad because it's awful to do business like that, but glad because now you know how they do business.

I absolutely trust John who has serviced my machines for the last 15 years. But if I ever had to go somewhere else, I know to check them out thoroughly first.

THANKS!

Their idea of cleaning a machine is blowing it out with compressed air and after a few drops of oil.....ta-da it is miraculously clean!! :x

They so called cleaned a couple of machines while I was there in a 15 minute period. The guy told me that they would finish over half of the machine today just in for "tune ups".

And they charge $75 a pop for that and if they find something wrong and if you want to have the repair done they will stick it to you again for parts, and labor.

Billy

I agree with you! It's fine to use perfectly good machine parts but be honest and give the customer a choice! And the employee to think it's okay to cheat customers like that? What a bunch of losers. I feel sorry for their families to have someone like them in it.

I completely agree with you about new parts or new to this machine.

But, on some machines that have parts that are no longer available, it is wonderful if they can get a part off of a graveyard machine. BUT charge a USED part price.....It is a real shame that some dealers take advantage of the customers that way.

the place where I take my machine is heaven. He repairs the machines right out in the middle of the store and you can sit right beside him as he works and he tells you how each part works and what it is.