Dragon Pump Testing Results

[junglegeorge12]

Steve, that is exactly what I suspected you would find, if you look at my post on the other thread it was what I suspected from the start. I appreciate your detailed and accurate report of the facts and events.



I really feel a little upset at the folks maligning steve or lim or svc in this. They are not at fault. I have had to deal with such issues many times due to my involvement in business. Now I am going to say something that may shock most folks. THIS PROBLEM WAS CAUSED BY AN INEXPERIENCED INSTALLATION TECHNICIAN. I know the fur will fly now, but let me explain my comment before exploding.

Each industry has a chain involved, and each part of that chain has to deliver it's end of the bargain and it's products and services. The diagnosing service is supposed to be done by the qualified personnel of the DEALER or INSTALLER. That is how the pump industry works. It is NOT the manufacturerer's job to field test the equipment and give the nescessary data. That is why dealers get the pumps at about half of what they sell them for. It aint Lim's job to test it.
First. Lim buys these things in bulk, he cannot get out a micrometer or vaccum gauge to check every one. Two, he relies almost completely on the data given to him by the installing company to decide how to respond. Given the lack of helpful information, he did what most industry experts would have and should not be maligned for it. Lim just seems to me to be like most mechanical and industry oriented guys. He is not going to get on the board and say the installer is not a true professional, which is wise even though it would be true. He is not a retailer, so his 'customer service' should not be an issue on this board. He did warranty the pump when he got the right info from a qualified techinician, so his character should not be maligned.

SVC did nothing wrong by complaining and expressing frustration at the situation, especially given the long wait. He did the only thing he could to get a working pump like he paid for. I hope he understands this was not Lim's fault, but understand how someone who does not understand how such industries work, and who has what responsibilities, can be misled so as to shift his anger to another place.

Steve also did nothing wrong by letting folks know about the wet end manufacturing problem. He was just disclosing all the facts, attacking him is ridiculous. In fact, most such manufacturing companies sell a quality and test gaurantee to the manufacturer (Lim in this case). They should be the ones to absorb the costs of this problem, not Lim. Now Lim has a perfectly good motor he cannot resell. They failed to properly test their own product and keep their promises to Lim and it hurt Lim's reputation, so for folks to know their name and involvement is NOT unjust. Especially when this will affect Lim's sales volume and his employee's lives, just because a wet end manufacturing company's execs decided to 'find a way to cut costs and make more money' by not doing the tests they probably promised. So they made extra money, and Lim suffered for it. So did the customer. So far the only one who has not suffered is the dealer, whose responsiblity it is to professionally diagnose the problem and disclose it to the manufacturer with all relevant data.

In the industrial HVAC or energy management field, the dealer would be the one footing the bill for this, for not having provided professional diagnostic data as is his responsiblity. If he did not give it to the manufacturer within 30 days of warranty request, he would not get a warranty. Lim gave a 100% warrranty with no professional diagnostic data. I do not know of any other manufacturer who lasts in an industry who could do that, personally. They normally go bankrupt honoring such messed up dealer warranty requests, and would get ripped off all day long by sly dealers.
However, in the light of all this, anyone qualified to install pumops should also be qualified to diagnose the real problem right in the field. I wonder if he even owns an amprobe or micrometer. Something as visually obvious as this is a no brainer and I have seen first day apprentices for such trades diagnose it less than 30 seconds AND be able to accurately decribe the problem in a way that ensured the right action would be taken for warranty data. Hell, I diagnosed it over the internet and I have not looked at a pump to diagnose a problem in over a decade. The main reason I used to do it was to double check techinician's claims so we did not have warranty problems with our suppliers. In this case, the installing techinician could not accurately describe the problem even after YEARS of looking at it. Personally, if he was calling himself a techinician and collecting technician pay and worked for me, he would be fired or take a healthy paycut, his choice (if he had attitude to boot he'd be gone).

All that being said, can we let this issue rest now so Lim can resume business and take care of it with his supplier like he needs to so the public can buy with confidence? I hope all the parties involved learned how to successfully diagnose, describe, and resolve such problems for the future.

[Mike T]

JG:

I love ya, but have to partially disagree with you on this one... I agree that the installer should have tested the unit at installation and resolved the problem with Lim if necessary...many of us average income guys who do our own installations also do the testing... However, Lim is also partly to blame because he didn't address the customer relation issue in the beginning... Having said that, William is probably the only one here to get hurt because of his actions so as you say... time to give this thing a rest... All's well that ends well...

Aloha! Mike

[Tom C]

Wait, wait wait, your reading between this lines. This pump has been taken into Lim two or three times. Lim only knew how to test the pump one way. This way didn't show him a thing. This tells me, the test he's doing isn't the way the pumps should be tested. The reason for the pumps being tested this way was, because Lim didn't know how to test his pumps any other way. IF he would have tested it like Steve was going to, the issue would have never came up and the pump would have been replaced 3 years ago.

Go back and read the first thread.
Dragon Pump

Go down to post 15 and you will read this.

Quote: W. limm is good at blaming the customer or the installer for any problems with his pumps etc.. Bad man to do business

This was one of his dealers that got the same treatment as this customer. Lim kept telling SCV it was his set-up. As you can see this is what he tells a lot of people with issues. If you want some numbers of other dealer that will tell you this same thing PM me and I will give you the numbers to call.

Customer service has to come from a lot of people. First the people making a product. In this case Waterway, baldor, Then it has to come from the person putting his name on the product (Lim), then from the dealer, then the installer. If you were to buy a pump say from Mr. Pump maker. Who's going to back that pump? In most cases Mr. Pump maker is going to back his product. If he has a issue with his product he will know how to take care of the customer or dealer and address the issue with the people he buys from. But not all pump makers are like this, some will tell you it's baldors pump and you have to deal with them. This is what some pump makers have told people in the pass. Some pump makers are getting better with customer service, in time, they will know what they need to know because of issue like this one. I can tell you Lim will start testing his pumps better now (I hope). I can't see how you are trying to pull this issue away from Lim. It's his pump and it was a bad pump. This pump has been tested by him and his staff. No one at W Lim Corp know how to test the pump right. A good guy that doesn't work for him offered to test the pump. The pump is no good and it should have been tested better 3 years ago after a lot of phone calls about this pump and with it being taken in and looked at a few times.

I also suggest reading other post, you will see other people have this same issue with their Dragon pumps. I just emailed Steve about two other people having the same problem with their Dragon pumps. It's a issue Lim has to address if he doesn't want this stuff on the boards. Like I said before, not all of his pumps are bad. I think he puts out a good pump. But he does have to address issues better.

[junglegeorge12]

The customer service end of it rests 110% on the dealer, no manufacturers deal directly with customers, and real pros know that. Also, Lim did not blame SVC, he pointed to the installing tech's responsibility to ensure proper install and diagnose problems professionally. You keep saying it is Lim's job to do what Steve did, and it ISNT, it is the DEALER'S job. Period. That is the pump industry, and has been for 50 years or more. Manufacturer's only supply and honor proper warranty requests. Everything else rests on the dealer/installer.

I stand by my comments. It is the dealer/installer's technician's responsiblity to provide the testing and the professionally presented technical data that proves the warranty claim is valid. It is the tech's job to prove it is a warranty issue.

In fact, if we want to get to bare knuckles, the dealer makes more money per pump sale than the manufacturer. The retail is usually exactly double the wholesale price and the manufacturer has to pay for the parts, assembly, packaging, advertising, and do the technician's job too??? Just in the structure of this deal, the dealer made money, the customer got a pump, and Lim lost money, both in future sales and in equipment losses.

As for you statement about what other manufacturer do, not in my decades of experience with them. They DO NOT get on the phone or in any way communicate with residential customers. Only on occassion do they even come to job sites for huge industrial projects of epic proportion and cash volume. Thinking Lim is supposed to drive to a residence is nuts. Anyone who expects that is NOT a professional with experience in the industry. I do not care if it is 10 feet away, it aint his job!!! This is the first in my life I have ever even heard of such a ludicrous request by a dealer from a pump manufacturer for residential products. In hvac, we have to wait weeks and even months to get a factory rep to a jobsite with over a million dollars of equipment on it. If my sequence fails, I am not expecting them to send the factory owner to PR to check the pump.

Also, I should have included in all fairness to Waterway, cutting corners is one of many possible ways this could have slipped through, could have been an employee just taking a bathroom break or a check/test equipment failure or calibration problem.

Part of eing professional is having the experience to know your industry and do your own diagnosing and dealing with the customer. It was the dealer who was not properly staffed with trained and qualified testing personell and equipment. THAT is the industry standard, and has been for a LOOONG time.


Also, Lim never blamed the customer, he placed the blame where it belonged, on the installing technician. Its the techs job to diagnose problem accurately and it should have been done before he left the jobsite the first day the pump was turned on. A problem like that was visibly apparent to any tech who professionally checked over his work, and if he was properly trained, he would know exactly how to describe it in writing to secure the warranty. Steve did it for you, not Lim, he should bill you. THAT is the industry norm.

In building controls we charge $110 to do that, per hour. If it takes two hours to hook a pump up while we drink coffee, that is just too bad for you. A man has to drink his coffe to be able to work hard now doesn't he? And here is the kicker, we would not even tell you the pump was bad, we would tell you our controls data indicates it may be bad, you will have to call a product oriented service company to verify it and do the replacement. Then we can come back to verify it has been replaced and the controls data now indicates it runs properly. I bet that would wrinkle your shorts real fast. But hey, that is the truly professional way to do it. Otherwise errors could be made, and in critical applications, errors are intolerable and possibly fatal. I mean, you don't want to wind up doing the 220v jig do you?

Also, we do not tolerate cheapo coffee, or we WILL leave the jobsite to get some for all the employees, both ours and yours. Like they say in the IBM research facilities, "Hard work is hardly work. Who brought the donuts?"

[woodyaht]

JG,


I have to tell you that in most instances you are right, but from where I sit, what you are saying applies to industrial, commercial, and a union type job site, where protocol comes first.

Lim produces a product that for the most part is geared towards a homeowner installing the product, furthermore installing a pump on a homeowners pond is not rocket science, and does not need a tech to diagnose, the pump pumps water or it doesn't. All of your protocol that you list is great in industrial applications, but if you look through the warranty info provided with Lim's pump, nowhere does it say anything about the dealer or service tech being involved with a problem with the pump. Furthermore, why can you purchase replacement parts directly from Lim, and you don't have to go through a dealer like you would for a industrial pump? If I have a problem with the pump while it is under warranty, it is my responsibility to get the pump to Lim, as stated on his warranty, it doesn't not state that the dealer for the product is in anyway involved. No where on the warranty page what so ever does it say anything about the dealer, other than you need to provide a receipt from the dealer the pump was purchased from. When the pump is out of warranty, it is my understanding that I can send my pump directly to Lim for repairs, bypassing the dealer, which is not the case in industrial applications like you listed.

Lim is a relatively small time operation compared to the instances you provided. He personally goes to Koi shows all over the USA promoting his product, and making friends in the hobby, which intern is double edged sword as people come to know him personally, and expect personal attention when a problem arises. Lim also posts on koi forums, which is something you won't see a indstrial pump company CEO doing.

In my eyes, a residential end user should receive service just like Surfhead described earlier, from Lim. Just poor service in my eyes............

I'm out.............

[Mike T]

JG:

I was going to answer you last post but Chiris did it for me... There's a big difference between Industrial applications and DIY pond installations... i.e. I was part of the worlds largest manufacturer of wiring devices, never saw our Chairman at any trade show... Lim is at almost every koi show rubbing shoulders with the end users drumming up business... It's a whole different situation, with a whole different set of expectations...

And like I said, if someone got hurt here, it was only Lim...so let's just agree to disagree on this one...

Aloha! Mike

[junglegeorge12]

Mike, I understand your position, but let's look at it fairly from Lim's position as a product and business developer. Of course he goes to shows. I have seen the president of Trane, Honeywell's CEO's, and many others at trade shows promoting their products. He has to do it himself due to being a starting operation. All the more reason for the so-called professional installer to test the pump properly himself as Steve did.

I really think the folks who slung mud at Steve and SVC need to apologize. It was totally out of order. Lim, with limited time, tried to test the pump, and also willingly exchanged it. Yet he still stands maligned. Nowhere do I see the installer acting like the true professional he is demanding for Lim to be. If he were a true pro, he would understand Lim's position and help out like Steve did. In terms of the industry, are you expecting the same thing from sequence who advertises their products at shows? If you are I would advise not holding your breath while you wait.

I am not tying to be nasty, but we need to put ourselves in Lims and the customer's shoes. To be honest, the installer let both of them down. He presented himself as a pro, which would make Lim's and the customer's life easy, collected the money for being one, but did nothing a real pro would have. I am quite sure Lim would deal differently with a person like yourself Mike, than he would with a dealer in the middle. He expected the dealer to do his job, and he didn't. My point is simply that the customer was the victim to a deformed pump housing, a truly qualified and professional dealer would have detected and diagnosed it immediately and gr a working one on site regardless of manufacturer warranty squabbles. Then the same dealer has the gall to start a negative ad smear on chat forums??? What kind of pro does that??? Answer, professionals don't, hacks and amatuers trying to get more money than they are worth do.

Everyone keeps pointing to Lim's actions, but noone is noticing the total lack of professional work and dealings of the installer. SVC paid for a pro, and got a hack, and it caused complications when trying to warranty a deformed pump housing. Simple. I do not think Lim maliciously tried to 'blame the customer', he simply pointed to the truth, the installer was not truly professional as he claimed and demanded the money for. He got his money. Lim is the one who lost, and the customer suffered, in large part due to the installer's lack of professional knowledge.

The size of the company or his promotions are not the issue at all. I have not read anywhere where Lim promises home visits and diagnostic assistance. If the customer wants a less expensive job, that is a risk he has to be willing to assume. I am simply trying to say we need to see both sides, and see who is in the middle really making the whole thing a mess. Not only did he not provide the service Steve did as he should have on day one for his paying customer no matter WHAT the supplier did, his customer should have gotten a properly working pump immediately and not a big game to blame Lim. I guess he thought if whined loudly enough about Lim noone would realize he was not doing his professional end for his customer.

The warranty issue should have then been worked out between him and Lim privately and professionally, which Lim more than demonstarted willingness and ability to do, even shipping out a larger pump than was originally bought for warranty. He then took it to a public chat forum. Totally unprofessional. I have yet to see him thank Lim for the upgrade to a larger pump.

[saratogatan]

folks, wake up, grow up and be a man. I don't see you guys going anywhere. I suggest you guys pick a time and location, do a sword duel or the old-time cowboy style shoot out. the proceed can go to KHV prevention, that will really make you guys useful members of this society, and we happily eliminate the loser's bad gene from human gene pool.

stan

[aquitori]

Now what is stated in the previous threads was his poor customer service. That is what started the whole debate of his pumps. Has the service changed? I think so, not until boards like this have had a say has he changed his ways. Lim is a cool cat, got to admit that, but when you start burning bridges with your customers you have no way to start fresh. The fact is and my question to Lim is how is he goin to correct his poor customer service?

[schildkoi]

Correct information yields correct testing. To get the correct information there must be 2 way communication so that all parties understand all of the factors that could contribute to the problem. I've said it multiple times, there was a lack of "communication"....understanding on the installation configuration. Before I recieved the pump, I inquired to back ground from William and from SCV. The descriptions of the installation differed. After hearing a description and getting it clarified, I had a suspcision that the pump was in fact bad....but not before that. As I mentioned, both SCV and Tom C were present during Williams test. If the tests performed by William were inappropriate, they both had the option at the time to clarify such to William and offer suggestions of perhaps other types of tests. Some period of time afterwards, through the internet, an Mpeg was presented. This was not proof in and of itself of a defect in the pump but sure was a better indicator. Was this offered 3 years earlier? I would venture to say "no". Instead, the finger pointing still is being pointed to William for the long delay. I do not know who the pump was purchased from or installed by. But, consumer warrentee issue are directly through who they purchase from. If other than the manufacturer direct, then it is the dealer's issue with the manufacturer, not the consumer. If the manufacturer has issues with a supplier, then its between them and the supplier. Those are standard business operating/agency relationships.

As for a DIY business? Well, that is "opinion". People like to think its a DIY project/industry and it can be when those involved have the knowledge base to tackle the project correctly...many do, and many don't and I make no inference concerning this particular case other than to say the manufacturer of any product has the expectation that the product is used within its designed purpose and installed/service accordingly, regardless of whether it was installed/service by a DIY or professional. Likewise, installer, whether DIY and/or professional should have the knowledge base to trouble shoot any issues which can come about since they have assumed this responsibility.

Again, I am NOT pointing fingers at anyone. I think all parties have a certain level of culpability. I do take exception to ANY party attempting to shift their own short comings onto others though.

In short, for the 2-3 year period that this issue has been going on, did anyone actually find the "defect" before my involvement? Although I proposed a specific test to perform to verify the issue, this vacuum test was not needed and any of the parties over the last 2-3 years could have found it. Now before anyone starts point their fingers again at anyone, the only person who attempted ANY testing prior to my involvement was William Lim...based on the information provided and niether of the other parties offered alternatives or explainations at the time to the contrary and simply continued to "complain" without any clarifications.

Keep in mind, on my visual inspection, I missed the problem the first time as well, but the defect, after careful examination was visible to the eye. The owner, the dealer, and yes, even William all had the same oportunity to see the defect...albeit the dealer and owner had more oportunity to see it.

Keep in mine, that this whole issue should have been dropped with the explainations originally given and explained. But the failure on the part of some parties to accept the results, and inappropriately use those results without consideration for the explaination of those results and to twist such so far out of context is beyond my comprehension. so as such SCV, and Tom C (who is still my friend but perhaps too emotionally involved in this issue), please explain to me how the 2 of you missed these factual details and failed to bring them to William's attention some 3 years ago? Your ongoing actions in my opinion is just unfathonable. You should have simply taken the results, said your "thanks yous" and been satisfied where no futher "bashing could take place...but you both have left me with no choice, so please take a look at these pictures....scenes that both of you could have and should have seen. The same was told to William as well...but at least he attempted, through his original testing and tried to find a problem to address. Again, good communication (which means understanding by all) makes all of the difference.

The first picture is of the uncompressed "O" Ring. The second of the ever so slight "dip" in the housing flange. Before the "Lim" bashers line up once again, The pump was tested for leaks. It was said to be sucking air, and the most common problem when a pump sucks air is piping and connections on the suction side of the pump. No leak was found on the pump during testing. I would have been lefdto believe also the the leak (air) was on the supply side piping. Not the installation was clarified and the Mpeg shown that I would have suspected a different problem...but the owner and dealer had every opportunity for those years to visually see the problem as well and point them out to William to help clarify the issue.

As I said, all have culpability and NO ONE should have started pointing fingers after the initial report was posted. None of this information is new to any of them since I talked with the owner and William before the finger pointed started again......bad form in my mind.

Tom C said the following:

Wait, wait wait, your reading between this lines. This pump has been taken into Lim two or three times. Lim only knew how to test the pump one way. This way didn't show him a thing. This tells me, the test he's doing isn't the way the pumps should be tested. The reason for the pumps being tested this way was, because Lim didn't know how to test his pumps any other way. IF he would have tested it like Steve was going to, the issue would have never came up and the pump would have been replaced 3 years ago.

My response....William didn't have the same info I had when I thought of the test...the test that was never performed and Tom had the same oportunity to see what is evident in the pictures. Tom, you're still my friend, but you are way off base with this continued "bashing". I told everyone on the front side that I would call them like I saw them....based on FACTS. Hard to argue with the pictures. Pictures that were meant for William to take to Waterway not to embarrass anyone, but I feel that I have been left no choice based on some of the verbaige being posted.

Steve