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Uber expensive repair at United Radio

Anybody’s experience with United Radio (East Syracuse) as a service center? I will never do business again with these guys. They charged me $1,971 to repair my Classé Audio C-M600 monoblock amp...Forteen hours @$120/hour to replace two 16 pins chipsets...They provided me a discount on their regular hourly rate, which is normally set at $140/hour...
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syndication
9 posts
 
Rich people can afford to pay more than poor people. If you buy a BMW or Mercedes, expect to get ripped off on the service. That’ll be $800 for an oil change, hand over your credit card.

Classé is the same. Upper tier brand, premium price. Expect to get fleeced for the cost of repair because they know you can afford it because after all, you bought it right?

While I agree $2000 is a gut punch, someone who had to get their Denon 8500 AVR probably is paying 25-30% less because of price sensitivity. If they wanted to pay more for the same performance or worse, they woud’ve bought Arcam or Anthem.

Service shops depend on products breaking, no different than your car dealership wanting a piece of the action. This is why electronics these days are built to fail, not in all cases, but in many.
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daveyf's avatar
daveyf
2,858 posts
 
@syndication  Your post seems to imply that you are in favor of ripping people off...so long as they can afford it. Interesting perspective.
syndication
9 posts
 
@daveyf

Not in favor of it at all. It’s just the reality of buying an expensive brand. I’m well off compared to a lot of people my age but if you’re going to buy boutique things, well then the service is going to be that much more expensive. It’s like buying a Lexus and Toyota. Same cars aside from the interior or, but the service is twice the price at a Lexus dealership. The people who have a Lexus can afford to pay more and the dealership and every other luxury brand knows this.

if you want to remain rich, .spend like a poor person for most things, but if you’re an audiophile well that’s your spending vice


snratio
40 posts
 
cleeds, ya obviously don't have much electronics experience or business experience. Audio equipment is not that complex and we are talking repair here, not design. Repair takes a lot less equipment. The equipment is not that expensive, ya don't need much space either, and the education level is not that high.  My mechanic has far more business overhead for equipment and space, and about equal level training, probably more, and the hourly rate is much better. There was a reason they dropped down to $120, probably would have gone less.  I don't even have much issue with the hourly rate, but for that rate, I expect top notch service. Top notch does not take that long for the repair.
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