Dealing with Meade/Coronado Customer Service

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trwinship

Dealing with Meade/Coronado Customer Service

Post by trwinship »

As I mentioned in a previous thread, I sent my Coronado 60mm SMII back to Meade for warranty repair of the "slipped metal tape disc" problem, which occurred on the internal etalon. That was about 6 weeks ago. They acknowledge having received the scope, but beyond that seem to have no information about the status of the repairs or an anticipated return date. I was told to anticipate about a 4-week turnaround time and am starting to get concerned given some of the dark stories coming out of Meade customer service. While I'm not looking for more tales of woe, I am curious if anyone has found effective means of applying some pressure to these guys to get things moving, for example, email addresses of Meade executives with some influence (and maybe some sensitivity) over these things. Is it possible that contacting OPT (from whom the scope was purchased) might help? Understand I have no problem with OPT, just thought they might have some influence as a major dealer of Coronado stuff.

Thanks for any advice


astrodanco

Re: Dealing with Meade/Coronado Customer Service

Post by astrodanco »

I'm not aware of any way to effectively influence Meade. :(

Be patient. Take your lumps. Learn your lesson. Purchase from Lunt next time?


etatsolarchat

Re: Dealing with Meade/Coronado Customer Service

Post by etatsolarchat »

Patience is needed, I also sent my unit in for the same reason... they may hope and plan and tell you 4 weeks but I expected could be longer... mine took 9 weeks, also you got to realize the holidays could add 3 weeks easy.

I'm very happy now, so I'd personally give them a A on service, but would be nice if they had some sort of feedback system.

Rather annoyed about the metal tape bs.


trwinship

Re: Dealing with Meade/Coronado Customer Service

Post by trwinship »

Thanks, guys. You may well be right about buying from Lunt, but at the time (2 yrs ago) Lunt availability was quite poor and I had a very good experience with my MaxScope 40. And, until the tape disc problem I was happy with the SMII 60--enough so that I double stacked it. I only got to use it a couple of times before the disc really let go (sob!). So, I'll be patient for awhile longer.


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Re: Dealing with Meade/Coronado Customer Service

Post by MapleRidge »

I had a terrible time with Meade back in the mid 90's, and it souodns like they continue to operate a 'black hole' when it comes to getting information back to people.

As mentioned, the holidays will likely slow the progress a bit too, but I would expect you should get it back in top shape...just no way to pin the return time down.

Best of luck,
Brian


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trwinship

Re: Dealing with Meade/Coronado Customer Service

Post by trwinship »

You know, I'm wondering some if the tape disc problem isn't brought on, or maybe exacerbated, by changing the position of the etalon Richview tuning lever beyond the factory setting, i.e. rotating the tuner further than it's really supposed to go. The disc in my scope wasn't really seriously out of place until after I tried that. The experts here can probably disabuse me of that notion, but I do wonder...


etatsolarchat

Re: Dealing with Meade/Coronado Customer Service

Post by etatsolarchat »

No, mine went way off center and I never moved from the factory position. They changed the design and remove the disc entirely, and put it on the back, that's what you'll see when you get it back.


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Re: Dealing with Meade/Coronado Customer Service

Post by swisswalter »

Hi Eric

thank you very much, that is a very interesting information


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trwinship

Re: Dealing with Meade/Coronado Customer Service

Post by trwinship »

Now I'm really worried. Have you sern Meade's January 2013 financial report? Ooog. Hope there's an angel out there....


trwinship

Re: Dealing with Meade/Coronado Customer Service

Post by trwinship »

Whew--greatly relieved my scope was returned eight weeks almost to the day it was received. Judging by viewing through the clouds it's in better-than-new condition as well, for which I'm grateful. But I wish it had come out of the box like that. I like the product and sincerely hope that in the upcoming Meade bankruptcy (hope it doesn't happen but latest financials make it seem inevitable) that Coronado doesn't get liquidated. Wouldn't it be interesting if Celestron (aka Synta) acquired them?


etatsolarchat

Re: Dealing with Meade/Coronado Customer Service

Post by etatsolarchat »

As stated you just needed some patience..

As for Meade I think the word would be sad not interesting, the Chinese slowly but surely taking over everything...

The economic outlook has really cut back discretionary spending.


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Re: Dealing with Meade/Coronado Customer Service

Post by Merlin66 »

If I could raise the venture capital I'd buy the Coronado side of the business - and fix up the current product range.....


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Re: Dealing with Meade/Coronado Customer Service

Post by solarchat »

I don't think the product is the problem. It seems to me that the market is too small and let's just say a little overly frugal.


Stephen W. Ramsden
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etatsolarchat

Re: Dealing with Meade/Coronado Customer Service

Post by etatsolarchat »

Yeah Merlin do it :rockon: Hopefully the venture capital will come back soon...

Stephen you got it all wrong, frugality is relative.

relative frugality factor = (price of the toy x (dependents including self)) / salary

So if you make 4x more than the average Joe and have no kids you're obviously going to have a radically different perspective on discretionary spending. When the economy is down toys/hobbies are the first thing to get tightened you know....demonizing frugality seems equal to bragging B)

Or maybe you're one of those like my wife that thinks the more you spend the more you get :lol:


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Re: Dealing with Meade/Coronado Customer Service

Post by solarchat »

I don't agree. But that's ok. This is a solar forum, do ill stick with that.


Stephen W. Ramsden
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Re: Dealing with Meade/Coronado Customer Service

Post by pmlevine »

I have to report that I had a good experience with Coronado/Meade customer service and tech support.
I sent my Coronado SolarMaxII h-alpha filter in for warranty service, for a slipped silver disk, and received it back about 3 weeks later. As others have noted, Coronado relocated the silver disk to the rear optic.
The optics came back squeaky clean. Will get a chance to try it out this weekend.
Phil


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