New pianos

[Kenneth P. Eschete]

Dear Bob,
Our experience at Northwestern (we have 23 this year), is that you will
encounter quite a few service problems beyond the increased tuning load.
As good as these instruments are "out of the box", they still cause quite a
few problems for the first year.  Unfortunately, after that first year, you
start all over again!

Some advise:
1.  The dealer should provide the first tuning as part of the delivery and
setup, and the school should be able to set a deadline for this to be done
before classes start.  It takes some effort and expense for the dealer to
get this done, but this is a very important issue for you and your school.
2.  Do not allow the dealer to sell the school-owned pianos that are
displaced by the new pianos.
Place them in storage.  Usually, the contract states the school will buy
15% of the total units that were on loan.  If your school has become
dependant on those new pianos, this gives the dealer a very powerful
position in any negotiations.
3.  Get involved in the planning.  How many instruments?  Where are they
going?  Which 15% are we going to buy (best to know that right away)?  What
about next year?
4.  Plan to double the normal service requirements for the first 6 months,
and a bit more than normal for the last 3 months.  
5.  Expect bank auditors to want to see the pianos twice a year.  The
pianos are floor-planned to the dealer's inventory and Yamaha pays the
finance expense.  It's really the bank that owns them.
(I've started making them come at 7am so as not to disturb faculty.)

These school loan programs are not such a great deal in the long run, as
I'm sure you will see.

Sincerely,
Ken Eschete
Northwestern 


Kenneth P. Eschete
Northwestern University, Evanston, IL.  USA
k-eschete@nwu.edu