Quote:
Originally Posted by Rockter
$10,000 and no spare parts????
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Perhaps for brand new systems. Certainly not for mine. The problem is - Vetus has no service department in US. They only have a sales office (which I actually visited) and that's it. They appear to be Dutch (though some parts used to be made in UK, don't know what that means). So, even if there was service, it would have to be done by sending anything overseas. However, it also appears that they now target an extremely upper-end market, presumably the kind of people that would just replace the whole steering system or engine if they need a new gasket
In any case, they are certainly uninterested in supporting their older equipment - I spoke at length with their office about that and the bottom
line is, they are all sales guys.
Talking to Vetus in Europe directly does not help much, they are also uninterested in US consumers and essentially only refer you to US office or tell you that "if you send items here it will take very very long time, lots of money and we may not be able to fix it".
This is unfortunate - most maritime companies would at least make an effort (for appropriate compensation, nobody expects them to work for free). Personally, I wouldn't choose any new Vetus parts if I ever needed to. This was one more reason I decided to maintain the current system instead of installing a new one. I would be not much better off after tens of thousands of dollars sunk into it - if anything breaks. Well, one thing would be better - mounting holes would match during install