MFR Repairs

Forums › One New Zealand (including Vodafone, WxC, Farmside) › MFR Repairs

tonyhughes

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#6574 5-Feb-2006 21:34

Topic to discuss MFR repairs and experiences...

tonyhughes

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#27874 5-Feb-2006 21:38

This thread follows on from some sideswipes in this thread.

Dont forget that in quoting for the cost of repairs, that spare parts arent subsidised by networks.

Both networks subsidise most of their phones, even prepaid/prepay - they are really after your ARPU spend as opposed to the profit on a handset.

This is one reason why a repair can seem out of sync with the cost of the phone.

If BP sold cars too, they would likely discount them (e.g. a "BP Corolla" might be $10,000 with a contract to only use BP fuel, but a "Toyota Corolla" with no fuel contract might be $20,000). Repairs to the BP car would seem proportionately twice as expensive (10% of car price to change a cambelt...)

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#27877 5-Feb-2006 22:24

My only experience with MFR was a bad one: left an i-mate SP2 for repair, and even though I made the payment on their branch in Wellington, it took 2 weeks to get the phone back - every day I called them in Auckland to be told "we don't have your payment yet".

After a while someone said "oh, I see your payment", just to be told a couple of days later that my phone wasn't coming back to Wellington "until you pay the repair".

Their customer service was appaling at the time.

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#27878 5-Feb-2006 22:44

Disenchanted:
Both networks subsidise most of their phones, even prepaid/prepay - they are really after your ARPU spend as opposed to the profit on a handset.

On Voda this may be the case with some handsets but is definately not the norm across the whole range these days.

tonyhughes

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#27879 5-Feb-2006 23:27

sbiddle: On Voda this may be the case with some handsets but is definately not the norm across the whole range these days.

I think its mainly on the cheaper ones that the subsidies are still heavy? (Nokia 1100 etc?)

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#27881 6-Feb-2006 01:34

My experience with them was awful.

I discussed my beef regarding them in an earlier thread about 'water damage'. Another problem I had with them before that was with my Z600, it had an older firmware on it and there was a known problem with the T9 where it'd slow down. Later versions of the firmware (vlive branded) would fix this but they'd just put the old one back on.

Then when the 'water damage' occured and I payed for it to be reflashed they finally put the right one on.

The experience from that time was so bad, I'd rather just hold onto the phone and buy a cheapie handset till I'm over in China. I don't know if they have improved or not but I'm not sending another handset back there unless I'm forced to.

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#27891 6-Feb-2006 11:53

Thy seem to have gotten marginally better, I sent my nokia 1100, SE t230 and my panasonic and they came back all working and they had even polished the screen platic scratches out and even done more repairs than nessesary, (replaced speaker/microphone/ ringers etc.)

last run-in with them a year ago was a shocker, brandnew OBF (out of box falure) Ericsson was sent into them and came back "liquid damage"

Previous:
my Nokia 6210 from 200 that was sent in for a new LCD was also "liquid damge" and came back unrepaired enen though my ask was to fit a new LCD only and return phone w no FW uprgade at my repair cost as i know warranty was not valid..(cost $110) instead I got a bill for $65 for "assessing" phone for warranty purposed and no new LCD was fitted..

Tha "unrepairable, liquid damaged" phone works perfectly 5 years later and has not skipped a beat.

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#27893 6-Feb-2006 12:19

They seem to love the term "liquid damage".. At the end of the day however liquid damage isn't necessarily going to cause your phone to die or result in problems. I've drowned a phone before and proceeded to pull it apart, spray the inside with CO cleaner, dry it and put it back together and that phone is still in working condition several years later.

Corrosion forming in the PCB's seems used to be very common but due to the huge problems in Asia with the high humidity manufacturers have tried many ways of reducing this and most modern phones seem to be pretty robust. MFR however seem to be completely oblivious to the fact that corrosion on a PCB is probably only casued by water in small number of cases, the real threat is microbial attacks where fungi eats away at the PCB. This same fungi is the reason why nobody has VCR's in Asia as the tapes just get eaten away. Considering that SO2 and H2S (Sulphur) is a big problem it would be interesting to know how common phone failures are in Rotorua vs the rest of NZ and whether MFR simply reject phones from Rotorua because of "liquid damage" when the phone could have never been exposed to any liquid in the first place.

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#27897 6-Feb-2006 16:47

sbiddle: I've drowned a phone before and proceeded to pull it apart, spray the inside with CO cleaner, dry it and put it back together and that phone is still in working condition several years later. Corrosion forming in the PCB's seems used to be very common but due to the huge problems in Asia with the high humidity manufacturers have tried many ways of reducing this and most modern phones seem to be pretty robust.

My Motorola V500 went for a brief swim about a month ago. I was in the changing rooms at the Regional Aquatic Centre in Kilbirnie and, as I took my shorts out of my bag, the phone fell out of the pocket and into a bit of guttering on the ground which was full of what I assume to be chlorine treated water. I immediately fished it out, removed the battery, and left the handset on my windowsill at home to dry out.

It's still working fine but, of course, the real test will be whether it's still working in six months' time!