<html> <body> Kawai has been slow in reimbursement for me and I'm currently waiting for close to 2 months now for a payment from Weber. Greg Newell At 04:57 AM 4/16/2003, you wrote: <blockquote type=cite class=cite cite>In a message dated 4/15/03 9:05:14 PM Pacific Daylight Time, tune4u@earthlink.net writes: <blockquote type=cite class=cite cite>My point: I don't get much dealer work and almost no warranty repairs out here, but what little I've seen and stories I've heard suggest that neither is really worth much to my business. How does that notion fit in with the experience of others? How about you city-slickers? Is it better in a bigger new-piano market? </blockquote> Alan, Dealer "prep" is sorely lacking in the greater SF Bay Area, too.  I do a fair amount of dealer work, and warranty work once in a while.  Having only been self-employed for a little over a year, it will take awhile until I don't have to do dealer work anymore.  When that time arrives, I will celebrate.   The thing that gets me is when certain dealers have a floor piano that is 20-30% flat/sharp.  "Just tune it," they might say, not understanding the concept of a pitch raise no matter how many times I explain it or how many copies of the PTG Technical Bulletin I give them.  Most of them seem to be only concerned with getting the pianos out the door, and not with how the pianos function once they are in the home.  And despite efforts by the better techs to educate them, they  choose to remain ignorant.   On the other side of the coin, the customers around here price shop to the point where the dealers often make a very small profit on many new instruments, which leaves few $ for floor prep.  The guy who does the free follow-up in-home-tuning struggles with getting a very flat or sharp piano to pitch and in tune.  And customers are told by the dealer that the piano needs to be tuned "maybe once a year," so they don't understand why their new 5,000 dollar upright goes out of tune 3 months after the tuner was there.  The conflict lies in the tech trying to explain to the customer that new pianos need frequent service without stepping on sales-peoples' toes.   Like I said, when the time comes that I don't need to work for dealers, I will celebrate... I've done warranty work for Kawai, and they have been quite timely in their reimbursements.  The customers that I've done the work for have been impressed with how promptly the work has been done.  I've gotten many recommendations from these customer to their friends, and gotten far more work than the original warranty job out of them.   Dave Stahl --- Checked by AVG anti-virus system (<a href="http://www.grisoft.com/" eudora="autourl">http://www.grisoft.com</a>). Version: 6.0.471 / Virus Database: 269 - Release Date: 4/10/2003</blockquote> <x-sigsep></x-sigsep> Greg Newell <a href="mailto:gnewell@ameritech.net" eudora="autourl">mailto:gnewell@ameritech.net</a></body> </html>