- This topic has 5 replies, 2 voices, and was last updated 10 months ago by
.
Facebook’s (public) Acorn Stairlift Users Group helpful? Acorn engineers: NO
-
-
Is Facebook’s (public) Acorn Stairlift Users Group helpful, or just a “pity party”? Acorn engineers say, “bad advice” mostly. Yet, this group added 200 members in a month.
It is a consumer group. I once led a consumer law litigation dept that sued big companies. So, naturally, I sympathize with victims. One notable case was vs a government-run housing with many disabled helpless tenants that got repeatedly injured. Our law firm put a stop to that and I remember the Thank You cards from our clients.
The victims in this Fb group are getting mostly bad information because their question lack determinative details.
I have not seen any reply that mentions the Master Key to the Acorn 180 stairlift. Acorn engineers posted that they would get fired instantly for helping these user group folks.
Other victims who are too far from Acorn service centers are unaware that I, and others perhaps, diagnose and fix stair lift problems (and re-prommaming six variants of the Acorn Curve 180) remotely by Zoom or JitsiMeet video conferencing apps. Anywhere there is WiFi.
Clients also send me broken ungluable plastic parts to weld for $35. One such broken 180 Curve part is hard to see. Oddly, it is made with clear plastic that breaks when hit by a vacuum cleaner.
-
Acorns business model is very much their own.
This is mainly a UK orientated forum and right to repair laws in the UK are very different to Canada and the US.In the UK Acorn supply and fit all 180 lift in house – Brooks or Acorn badged, they no longer allow the trade to install and have technical information, van stock is a thing of the past and they will only supply parts 1 for 1 when given a lift specific serial number. Not an issue for most as there are many better lift options available to the trade.
They are not alone in some of these behaviours; many manufacturers in the UK will only supply technical support to engineers who have been trained on the specific lift they phone them about, quite fairly I feel, having seen some absolute hacks done by “here today gone tomorrow” merchants.
What I find frustrating is the uneven playing field that some of the bigger companies have created, taking deliveries back “in-house” claiming couriers are too expensive – truth is the couriers are too efficient and allowed us to compete with their response times from enquiry to install, otherwise why not give the option for premium courier delivery? Or another who take up to 48 hours just to respond to a spares purchase.
The end user is the looser as they are hooked to one repairer and tapped up for some type of insurance contract for fear that they may be left stranded.
None of this is an issue for me as after 40+ years as a service engineer my knees are shot and I’m nearing retirement so I’m passing responsibility on to the younger family members to continue.-
I see. This is good to know, thank you. Btw, I experienced a sudden catastrophic knee failure 3 years ago. Cured myself using mainly by TDP lamps made by Leawell (bought 4 brands, Leawell was the most effective) and diy Nikkei magnet therapy, and eating lots of collagen powder. I also eat ground up egg shells — a big UN study says two egg shells daily needed.<div>
I did not go to a “duck tour”, even though I was unable to walk. Eventually, healed meeself, eventually able to run, and now can run without knee braces, thanks to the Universe.
The FB users group has a lot of people looking for independent repairs guys all over UK. Are they going to break the law? What is the penalty? These disabled people include Londoners.
In Canada, one Acorn engineer posted [alleged] on Indeed that Acorn Canada ‘absolutely has no training’ for their “engineers”. Have also noticed that US Acorn engineer Youtubers keep on replacing relays over short time periods — this is not what I do.
One other reason I do not publicize how I program the Acorn 180 curve stairlift Datum is the possibility of a newbee (someone who does not have old-school experience with motors, amp, capacity, voltages, suge currents) destroying the stairlit’s relay.
Just earlier today, I succesfully diagnosed a diy’d Acorn 180 stairlift in another province, via text messages. For $225. I would like to invite retired tinkerers, retired inventors, retired makers in 79 countries (not including UK) to do what I do. I can be their technical adviser. A retired Boing mechanic could make $8K to $15K working 2 to 4 days a week, per month, reselling decommissioned Acorn 180 stairlifts. In US and Canada, circa 71% of Acorn customers are upset with the the Acorn company. So, 800,000 stairlifts installed .. that is a huge potential customer base.
Any comments or suggestions? Have the best day ever, Kevin.
</div>
-
One, or more, of the Here Today Gone Tomorrow sellers is a frequent flyer in the FB group.
FYI.. there is a UK stairlift dealer recruiting there, as well as battery ebay sellers.
-
Not breaking the law, many can even claim to be accredited if they undertook Acorns training when the Brooks policy was that supply only was acceptable, for how long that accreditation would last who knows.
Personally I don’t get involved in 180’s at all, I’ve never been an early adopter as I like to offer reliability which never comes with new releases, lets face it until a device hits the real world full time you can never be completely sure what an idiot will do to a lift. I worked on Bison Classics, Contours and Compacts and was interested when they released the 80 – anything had to be better than the contour, but no it wasn’t! Add on the constant failure of batteries (no matter what composition) in the 45 and you have the reason Bison is no more. I had a competitor locally who had gone into Bison equipment in a big way, ultimately he closed down due to the lack of reliability (he’d sold his customers a long term full repairing warranty and rapidly started to lose money) he told his customers to contact me as a final act of revenge. This gave me a crash course in the 80 and left me with such a low opinion of it that I would not sell them.
Acorn had used The Stratus and Thyssen Flows as their curved option for a few years and so buying Bison was a way of having their own curved offering and they have, to a great degree, improved the lift, so whilst they can’t get rid of the likes of Thyssen, Stannah or Savaria they can try and make life harder for the small guys by restricting info and parts and flogging them extended warranties.
-
-
-
Interesting. Thank you for this deep dive on the Acorn company. Have the best day ever.
-
You must be logged in to reply to this topic.
