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svlochmarin avatar image
svlochmarin asked

Issues with warranty and service when boat has travelled far from installer

I purchased an integrated Victron energy system in October 2022, including lithium batteries, a Quattro 24/8000 inverter cerbo GX, MPPT, and all the associated equipment to connect the system to power our boats 24V system.

I also paid for the official Victron dealer to complete the installation and commissioning of the system so that I would have peace of mind if there was a problem later on, as the system is installed on a boat and we travel internationally .

Fast forward to today, our boat is now in Malaysia, the original installation was done in the UAE, and now the inverter has a problem.

And this is where our problems start, the supplying dealer are ignoring my requests for support, the only response I got from Victron was to talk to my supplying dealer and taking to the local installer in Malaysia I’m told that i need to pay for the removal and refit labour which I accept, but I also need to pay for any associated costs and the labour and parts for the repair

Leading to the conclusion that Victron don’t provide a warrant, or it’s voided if you travel from where you purchased the system.

if anyone has any advice or information on how to resolve this please let me know, as the only option rather than paying an open ended bill for parts and labour appears to be buying a new replacement unit despite our current Quattrro being less than 2 years old.

warranty
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4 Answers
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svlochmarin answered ·

Hi Guy

Part of the issue here appears to be a lack of definition as to what the warranty actually covers and who is responsible for what… I spent 25 years in the after sales field for a global brand and this is the first time I’ve ever seen where a customer has to pay to have a warranty repair completed.

As for other brands, credit where it’s due, Raymarine provided absolutely first class warranty service when our autopilot failed in February this year whilst sailing from Dubai to the Maldives. No arguing or trying to pass costs on to the customer, within 24 hours they shipped a complete replacement unit free of charge and arranged with their local dealer to deliver the parts to us, and send back the old part, the only thing I did was the labour to change out the equipment, amazing service.

Clion Marina a Dutch AC company has also provided excellent warranty support wherever we have been covering parts and labour, and we’ve just had to replace the floor on our dinghy, again no arguing from the supplier Takacat, they’re shipping a replacement at their expense under warranty . These are examples from this year, and we’re have great service from other suppliers in previous years, consequently I don’t see Victron warranty and service support as competitive.

As for the supplying dealer doing everything they could…., I think we will have to disagree , they’ve got one technical guy who’s great and always responds, however despite sending several emails to their management and completing the support requests, they’ve never had the courtesy to respond, and chosen to ignore the customer.

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Guy Stewart (Victron Community Manager) avatar image Guy Stewart (Victron Community Manager) ♦♦ commented ·

Just to confirm you have read the Victron Warranty Policy and still think there is ambiguity?

https://www.victronenergy.com/upload/documents/Victron-Energy-Limited-Warranty-Policy-2023.pdf

Victron does not charge a customer for a repair on the device itself once it is determined it is warrantied fault, but will not pay for the diagnosis, de-installation, getting the product to a service centre, and then re-installation.

This can seem overly strict on some occasions but on others such as when the product is very heavy, or the Victron part is determined to not be at fault, or when a site is only accessible via a helicopter it makes sense why Victron needs to draw a line somewhere, and that is at a service centre front door.

The process I outlined in the other reply should provide enough info to the regional Victron sales manager to see if the dealer is maintaining their end of the arrangement. I can't help you adjudicate any further here.

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svlochmarin avatar image svlochmarin Guy Stewart (Victron Community Manager) ♦♦ commented ·
You are correct, I missed the point in the warranty terms where it states that the product must be returned to the place of purchase for warranty service.


As confirmed by the local dealer and the Victron regional manager, I need to pay the local dealer the labour portion of the warranty repairs, as they weren’t the selling dealer.
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Guy Stewart (Victron Community Manager) answered ·

Hi @svlochmarin,

Sorry to hear about it, it can get a bit complicated when equipment is moving around the world, but we always find a solution.

The first thing I would do is start an issue ticket here with as much detail and specifics about what you're experiencing, what you have tried, and who you have spoken to already - https://www.victronenergy.com/support

That will give some official paper trail between yourself, your dealer and Victron. That might come in handy later.

More immediately you probably need to get help from the closest dealer to yourself right now geographically.

https://www.victronenergy.com.au/where-to-buy

These dealers are not Victron, they are independent operators who sell and service our equipment. They will all have familiarity with the warranty and service procedures, but exactly what they are able to do to help will vary.


Part of the reason that this can lead to some delays and confusion back and forth like you're experiencing is because issues with an inverter might actually be issues with some other part of the system. It can appear the inverter is the fault, but it might actually be a battery connection or some other thing.

The remote dealer doesn't have all the same design and configuration detail as the original installer, so wants you to go to them first to get advice in the troubleshooting stage.

There is significant cost and effort to remove the inverter, and then place it on a technicians test bench, and then find out the inverter is working perfectly (~50% of cases) and it's some other part issue. So it's best to get as much info and diagnosis first so everyone is 100% sure it is an inverter fault. This is also the same path as if you replace the inverter and then find out there are still issues with the system.

We have a really comprehensive "pre-RMA" procedure here that should make this process quite definitive - https://www.victronenergy.com/media/pg/Pre-RMA_Bench_Test_Instructions/en/pre-rma-test-form---inverter-charger.html

Some of that can be done by a well prepared electrician on location while the inverter is still installed in the boat, greatly reducing troubleshooting costs.


If you are still unhappy with how it is all proceeding, then it's possible to escalate further to the Victron regional sales manager. These people are directly in touch with their regional dealers and can help mediate if things aren't proceeding normally.

At the end of the day your Victron equipment will be covered by the 5 year warranty anywhere in the world, but getting the faulty equipment into the RMA system, and then getting the working equipment back out will vary depending on what has gone wrong, and where you are.


I'd say lastly if you are just waiting for response, then you can also post more details in a new post on this site with as much details as possible as well, and perhaps the community can also help.

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svlochmarin answered ·

Thanks for the response Guy.

First thing I did when the problem started was to go back to the supplying dealer as they also designed the system and did the installation so have all the information required.

They did some remote firmware and system tests using the VRM however the problem persisted and that’s when they stopped responding.

I then raised the support request and followed up with several emails all of which have been ignored.

In parallel I paid for an approved installer who is local to where we are to check the system and diagnose the concern, from this he believes that the PCB has an intermittent fault.

My real concern is the absence of support, and the definition of warranty as it’s not a warranty as you would find with other prodcuts. I need to pay to have the problem diagnosed pay for the unit to be removed pay for the shipping to a repair facility pay for the labour to complete the repairs and then pay again for the unit to be returned and re installed.. so not really a warranty

Anyway the local dealer here in Malaysia has agreed to do the repair, based on me paying all of the above cost.

My primary reason for buying an integrated Victron system was peace of mind that they warranted their products, from our experience this is not the case as warranty implies a level of support not customer pays everything and gets majorly inconvenienced.

Maybe the warranty works if you diont travel any where but from this experience it feels that Victron has allowed the selling dealer to wash their hands of the problem and any responsibility to support.

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Justin Cook avatar image Justin Cook ♦♦ commented ·

Just as a note, both from the perspective of a consumer as well as someone who ran an authorized Victron Service Center in North America for several years: generally speaking, once the authorized Victron Service Centre has the unit, so long as there is a verifiable and warrantable failure of the unit, then the cost of the part(s) needed for the repair, the labor cost of the repair itself, and the cost of return shipping of the repaired unit from the Service Centre to you (within reason) is covered by warranty.

If the local dealer is not an authorized Victron Service Centre proper, then it is a reasonable assumption that they would charge you for labor at the least, as without being an official Service Centre they cannot submit for compensation under warranty for their labor and costs in servicing the components, so that can certainly get a little tricky on that end - but if there's a Service Centre in the mix, and the fault is reproducible and warrantable, you should only be paying for uninstallation/reinstallation, outbound shipping, and whatever diagnosis/troubleshooting has been performed by third parties.

If the fault is not reproducible, or reproducible but not warrantable, then of course other costs may apply. Indeed, the fact that the vast majority of components returned to me for repair under warranty were either perfectly functional when tested or whose failure was non-warrantable, and the resultant headache of then trying to collect payment from the consumer for the costs incurred establishing that, was the primary reason for my decision to cease operating as a Service Centre some years ago.

The cost of your onboard diagnosis/consultation with installers, cost to uninstall/reinstall, and initial shipping to the Repair Centre is of course outside the warranty - the published Victron limited warranty policy is fairly clear with regard to that, and is also on par with if not even superior to not only industry-standard warranty policies but very nearly universal warranty policies - whether it's a laptop, TV, battery, blender, or an inverter/charger I know of no company that includes shipping back to them for diagnosis, nor costs of pre-shipment diagnosis and/or uninstallation and reinstallation by third parties, under their warranty policy.

Bottom line, the components themselves have an excellent warranty, absolutely, but the warranty is necessarily limited to the component rather than being inclusive of the circumstances surrounding the component. Understood that this is certainly frustrating to deal with when you're experiencing an active failure, but hopefully that will not -for long at least- sour your perception of the brand as a whole.

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svlochmarin answered ·

Hi Justin thanks for the reply and balanced perspective.

It appears from our experience that the warranty process fails when you move away from the original location where you purchased / installed the product.
In our case we spent around $35,000 for our system,Victron parts and professional installation by the Victron dealer to avoid future issues or accusations that product failure was due to incorrect installation etc…

In hindsight this may not be the best approach as we now have to pay for all the labour elements of the repairs, including removal and refit of the PCB in the inverter and subsequent load testing at the local repair centre, apparently this is standard policy for customer to pay labour, so not sure I would agree that the warranty is excellent, being that I have to pay for everything except the parts. Certainly when I compare the warranty service we get from other systems on the boat Victron is at the bottom of the list.

For now we are stuck, concern was raised on 2nd August, feedback from the local dealer here is they will try to fix by end of August so a month to resolve a problem that we have to pay to resolve.

To be fair the system and product works well , and i was pleased with the performance until we had a problem... but clearly no Aftersales or customer service culture or focus.

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Guy Stewart (Victron Community Manager) avatar image Guy Stewart (Victron Community Manager) ♦♦ commented ·

I do think you made the right decision buying from a single supplier, and it’s a shame you feel they have let you down, even if they had reached the limit of what they could do.

Just for my curiosity, what has been your warranty/service experience with other major components on your boat in foreign ports?
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