It seems that Midnite Solar, does not honor Warranty for third party owners. (See snippet at end).
In my opinion this was a bad decision, as there are hundreds if not thousands of these Classic charge controllers on the market. Aggravating end users is a sure way to send them buying cheap Chinese Controllers, so sad.
If this turns out to be true, then I will inform all of our customers we no longer carry any Midnite solar or Outback products. This will include the entire line of Midnite solar and Outback products. We are a small company, but do manage to sell around 50 classics per year. I try my best to not buy Chinese products.
Bottom line:
I am the purchasing manager, and I simply do not tolerate companies that do not honor 3rd party owners warranty issues. This is simply a bad business practice that should not be practiced by any USA based companies. (whats left of them. So Sad.).
-Russ
<Snippit>
"DC SOLAR AUCTION!!
Because these controllers were purchased as an OEM product and have now been transferred to a third party not associated with the OEM or MidNite Solar, they do not come with any warranty from Midnite Solar.
Full text reads
"DC SOLAR AUCTION!!
It has come to our attention that there will be an auction featuring a large number of MidNite Classic 250 Charge Controllers. These, As the auction notes, are not standard Classic 250s. They were custom built for an OEM with specific design requirements. In order to reduce cost of these units, many parts and features that were non-essential to their application were removed from these controllers. Because these controllers were purchased as an OEM product and have now been transferred to a third party not associated with the OEM or MidNite Solar, they do not come with any warranty from Midnite Solar.
These were custom units, not the standard classic that is resold by a third party, don't see a problem with that frankly.
Quote from: TymerTopCat on February 22, 2021, 04:33:28 PM
It seems that Midnite Solar, does not honor Warranty for third party owners. (See snippet at end).
In my opinion this was a bad decision, as there are hundreds if not thousands of these Classic charge controllers on the market. Aggravating end users is a sure way to send them buying cheap Chinese Controllers, so sad.
If this turns out to be true, then I will inform all of our customers we no longer carry any Midnite solar or Outback products. This will include the entire line of Midnite solar and Outback products. We are a small company, but do manage to sell around 50 classics per year. I try my best to not buy Chinese products.
Bottom line:
I am the purchasing manager, and I simply do not tolerate companies that do not honor 3rd party owners warranty issues. This is simply a bad business practice that should not be practiced by any USA based companies. (whats left of them. So Sad.).
-Russ
<Snippit>
"DC SOLAR AUCTION!!
Because these controllers were purchased as an OEM product and have now been transferred to a third party not associated with the OEM or MidNite Solar, they do not come with any warranty from Midnite Solar.
Read the forums here for all the support over the years Midnite has provided above and beyond what you would find from most other manufacturers.
It seems like you have just joined the forums here so probably don't know much about the product.
Larry
TymerTopCat
We still support and repair those products as needed.
Most of the Classics that are on the DC trailers are already over 5 years old and would be out of our warranty time frame.
We have been very lenient with the application of the no warranty policy.
If you have a new in the box Classic CP that has never been installed in any other application, that is defective.... feel free to contact me directly, and I will provide you a warranty repair.
If you have any questions or further concerns please feel free to contact our Support team.
-Kyle
Thanks Kyle for that clarification. Yes, we have been very lenient on the "no warranty" policy of these auctioned off units. The entire DC Solar situation is very sad. We did build many thousands of units for DC Solar. They are NOT regular Classics. We knew thee exact application they were to go into. It was not stressful so we were able to reduce costs of the DC Solar units. We did not make much profit on them as it was a bloodbath in order to satisfy the customers demands. We never expected that 3000 of these units would be auctioned off for peanuts and then put out there being represented as regular Classic 250's. The application these are now in will undoubtedly be more stressful than what they were designed for. We made the "no warranty " policy in order to dissuade people from buying these units and treating them like the regular Classics. They are NOT the same.
That said, I am aware of a few units that have required warranty service. We have covered them at no charge. If the Classics continue operating as they have been, there will be no problem. The issues have been very few.
Like Kyle said, if you have an issue with a brand new 5 year old Classic, let our tech support department know the circumstances and they will work with you. I can't say that these units will get a ten year warranty, but we have always been very lenient with customers that have issues and plan on continuing that policy.
That said, I don't think we will be building units down to a price point where it could end up like this ever again.
We do build many OEM units and all the present ones are built just like the regular units. We have not cut corners. Have any of you seen the security cameras in Walmart parking lots? Each of those trailers have a KID powering them.
Thanks,
Robin
Robin,
Thanks for reading my post and I am very pleased to hear that your company has been taking care of these naughty ill-gotten DC Solar Classics. I really did expect that your company would honor warranty on these naughty classics, but I had to post my ire just the same. The astute reader of my original post will notice that I did say: "If this turns out to be true" meaning *if* Midite Solar would not honor warranty I would stop buying products. This will not be the case *now* because of the replies I have received.
Today, I called into tech support and spoke to Todd (And by the way Todd was awesome). The BTS Battery Temperature Sensor was not working and so he was going to send a replacement, but once he found out that my device was a DC Solar classic he denied warranty. Hence my post today.
Robin said:
"We did not make much profit on them as it was a bloodbath in order to satisfy the customers demands. We never expected that 3000 of these units would be auctioned off for peanuts and then put out there being represented as regular Classic 250's."
I would say this:
You can look at the glass as half full, or half empty. You now have 3000 more people using your products (which by the way appears to be rock solid). Robin, how much are 3000 *new* customers worth to you and your company? Wow! I see this as a big win for your company. Firstly you were responsible for the warranty to DC Solar anyway, Second, your units almost never fail and finally even if you had to replace ten or twenty circuit boards in those 3000 DC Solar classics it would be your cheapest advertisement expense in history to gain 3000 new customers.
In closing.
I would like to suggest to you to remove the "DC Solar Warranty warning post" and inform your tech support to not deny warranty on DC Solar equipment.
-Russ
Quote from: TymerTopCat on February 22, 2021, 10:12:12 PM
Robin,
Thanks for reading my post and I am very pleased to hear that your company has been taking care of these naughty ill-gotten DC Solar Classics. I really did expect that your company would honor warranty on these naughty classics, but I had to post my ire just the same. The astute reader of my original post will notice that I did say: "If this turns out to be true" meaning *if* Midite Solar would not honor warranty I would stop buying products. This will not be the case *now* because of the replies I have received.
Today, I called into tech support and spoke to Todd (And by the way Todd was awesome). The BTS Battery Temperature Sensor was not working and so he was going to send a replacement, but once he found out that my device was a DC Solar classic he denied warranty. Hence my post today.
Robin said:
"We did not make much profit on them as it was a bloodbath in order to satisfy the customers demands. We never expected that 3000 of these units would be auctioned off for peanuts and then put out there being represented as regular Classic 250's."
I would say this:
You can look at the glass as half full, or half empty. You now have 3000 more people using your products (which by the way appears to be rock solid). Robin, how much are 3000 *new* customers worth to you and your company? Wow! I see this as a big win for your company. Firstly you were responsible for the warranty to DC Solar anyway, Second, your units almost never fail and finally even if you had to replace ten or twenty circuit boards in those 3000 DC Solar classics it would be your cheapest advertisement expense in history to gain 3000 new customers.
In closing.
I would like to suggest to you to remove the "DC Solar Warranty warning post" and inform your tech support to not deny warranty on DC Solar equipment.
-Russ
I think you are missing the point Russ . Those are not regular Classics. If people get them expecting them to work like regular Classics then they will be disappointed. And the volume of service calls to Midnite could really overwhelm their technical support staff. Since they are more than 5 years old they are out of warranty now. That is the same deal I get for having regular full fledged Classics - after 5 years I can't count on warranty. Though Midnite is very generous in helping their customers out.
The biggest issue is that a lot of vendors were advertising those as new Classics and didn't disclose the limitations of selling the stripped down product. Many did though. So if you saw the disclaimer before you bought the Classic then you knew what you were getting. For 2 or 3 hundred dollars more someone could have gotten a brand new full fledged Classic complete with 5 year warranty . That would have been the best choice in my opinion. Sometimes you get what you pay for.
Larry
Larry said it very well. Many people are selling these as a brand new Classic with full warranty. We just had a lady in Hawaii last week that was sold one of these as a brand new MidNite Classic with full warranty. She lives off grid with her young son. The Classic developed a problem. We sent her a brand new Classic on our nickel. What are you going to do? We couldn't let that poor lady go without electricity all because of a misrepresented dealer. That said, we will normally warrant these units as we have been doing. That is not a blanket statement though. Todd should have sent you a BTS dongle. Heck I would do that no matter what the age of any Classic was. Those things shouldn't ever break! Todd will be sending you one today.
In the future all tech support personnel will be instructed that in the case of DC Solar units less than 5 years old, we will honor warranty, but the customer has to pay shipping both ways. In the event that the customer needs an advance ship, we will do that only if we have a DC Solar V stock available. I think we do usually have one or two. Again, the customer pays shipping, but we will fix any issues as long as they weren't customer caused like over voltage. One other thing the tech support people will need to check is the lifetime amp hours produced. There is a difference between brand new unit out of the box that doesn't work and a unit off one of the DC Solar trailers that has been in service for 4 years. That might end up being a judgement call, but like I said previously we are pretty lenient on this stuff. The "No Warranty" statement on our website still stands though to let people be aware that they may be buying something that is not a production Classic.
I hope this helps.
Thanks,
Robin Gudgel
One more thing about these CP Classics...
They were originally priced to make less profit than regular Classics because of the way they were to be installed and used.
We worked with them to make sure they were used on one particular way which was going to be fairly easy on them so warranties were very few. This is why we can't just give a regular warranty on them like a normal Classic.
Yes, it DOES get these out into the world and more customers. If the customers buy more than one, then it is not quite as many as 3000 new customers but certainly a good amount !
The customer paying shipping both ways does help the cost though, too.
Robin: Thanks your feedback, glad to hear that you will ask Tech Support to honor 5 year warranty.
To Everyone else: Thanks and I can see that Midnite Solar has good intentions. As I said before, I try to avoid buying crappy Chinesium products that have next to zero support.
This thread has reached it's conclusion.
I will post another question about my naughty Classic problem.
-Russ