Who is Celestron in Australia?

[glend]

My recent purchase of a Celestron CGX mount has introduced me to a murky world of importer distribution, and retail operations in Australia. I had to lodge a fault with Celestron Tech Support, who have been fobbing me off to some degree trying to work out how they solve the problem and get a fix to me (simple drive belt alignment problem). I actually found a fix for the problem in a couple of days, that I did myself, but wanted to go through the proper support channels in case of future issues. So far Celestron has only referred to their "Distributor" here, never by name. Exactly who are they?[/URL]

[URL="https://www.sheldonandhammond.com.au/"] (http://www.myastroshop.com.au/news/celestron-australia.asp)Your expereinces with Celstron support?

[Kunama]

Can't advise you as to the "Distributor" but personally I swore off the Celestron brand nearly two decades ago when I had issues with their Support and Parts availability....

[rrussell1962]

Hi Glen, I had 2 experiences with Celestron support in the past year.

The first one was software related and their online support desk was very helpful, quick to respond and sent me zip files of the software within a few hours. Nothing but praise from me on the way that issue was resolved.

The second experience was my search for a replacement bearing for the altitude motor unit on my Nexstar mount. Less positive here I'm afraid. Their online parts shop would not ship to Australia and advised me to contact a Premium dealer. At the time they did not list any Australian premium dealers and their overseas dealers (the ones I contacted at least) were unable to ship spares to Australia under the terms of their dealership agreements.

At that point I got somewhat disheartened and I ordered a new bearing from Boca Bearings and swapped it out myself.

I have just looked at the Celestron website and can't see from that who the distributor is. It used to be Sheldon and Hammond, but I don't know if that is still the case.

[LewisM]

I had one dealing with Celestron - a brand new NexStar handset to drive the NexSXW Sphinx mount I had. This was off the distributor in Perth. I had bought it new, and for the next 2 months got nothing but fob off after fob off. Gave up on them, bought a new one from Teleskop Express. That handset failed after 3 DAYS - T-E replaced it ASAP, and gave me a partial refund!

I can't speak highly enough of T-E's service, and - UNFORTUNATELY - I can also speak VERY lowly of Celestron's "customer service" and their VERY poor QC product.

[casstony]

Isn't the retailer responsible for handling warranty issues? Did you get the mount from Bintel?

[LewisM]

Supposed to be by Consumer Law - 1 year manufacture warranty regardless if I remember.

Glen, if you purchased the mount from Bintel, should it not go back to Bintel? Or was this an Andrews or OS purchase?

[rrussell1962]

Under Australian consumer law, yes I believe you are correct on the retailers responsibility.

[LewisM]

Snap :)

Only issue that MAY arise is if you have attempted repair or modified it yourself - which has been publicly displayed on this forum. I believe any modification is considered to nullify the warranty obligation under Consumer Law, and is then up to the discretion of the retailer.

[bojan]

Glen, if your fix works (and I am sure it is way better that manufacturer will ever do), why bother with "proper channels"....

[glend]

The idea behind publishing the fix was because i saw it as a poor execution of a good design, and was trying to help other buyers check theirs. My mount is performing great now. Despite providing links to what i published they don't seem to recognise it as an issue, but think it just needs adjustment.
Bintel is a premium retailer but the distributor is apparently not an optical or electronics specialist. Myastroshop has a damning statement on their website on the distributor, who i will not name here.
The Celestron Tech Support guy is trying to get the distributor to act in my case but frankly i am not interested in some guy with no mount experience trying to dig into my mount while some guy in California talks him through a procedure. I want Tech Support to simply share their information with me and i will make an assessment whether i do it or not.

[casstony]

http://www.myastroshop.com.au/news/celestron-australia.asp

Celestron have snubbed Australian customers for many years but good deals can be had when there are sales on at Bintel or Andrews.

If history is any guide they won't bother updating the CGX design so long as the mounts continue to sell.

I like Celestron products but I only buy second hand or new if there's a big sale.

[glend]

Out of the blue, I have had an email from the Celestron Business Development Manager for the Asia-Pacific, offering me a warranty return of my CGX so that they can resolve my issue. This is something I never asked for, or discussed.

I declined the offer, but indicated that if there was a major component failure that could not be resolved by my 'tuning' then I would, of course, resort to a warranty return.

;)

[bojan]

Seems they also read this forum ;)

[toc]

A least it sounds like the distributor is in a good position to include some free steak knifes with each scope ;)

[barx1963]

This infdo may be out of date, but when I was in the Sydney Bintel Store in August last year, they mentioned that Celestron had dropped Sheldon and Hammond and had appointed a manager for the Australian Market and that they deal directly with him. From past experience Bintel certainly provide good after sales service.

Malcolm

[glend]

I agree Malcolm, Bintel is great, but i believe they are officially a premium retailer and do not know that they can make product return decisions, or to what degree they are authorised and equipped to 'service' these new mounts, especially given that they were ex-factory with no operational hisrory. Tech Support have to get approval for a return to be organised. The return under warranty process sees Celestron take on organising collection and transport, the owner just boxes it up, provides address and contact number and some transport company picks it up. I do not think Bintel is involved in the process, based on what i was offered by Celestron and what Dylan told me about the process.
At no time has Celestron Tech Support named the 'Distributor', only referring to them by that title. :shrug:

[Stardrifter_WA]

Really? Not to everyone they don't! I would never deal with them again! They were once my primary supplier, I was always happy to support local despite the cost, and indeed I spent a lot of money with them too, even when the Aussie dollar dropped to 47c, before going elsewhere, about 4 years ago. As a result they lost a lot of sales. Must be great to be doing so well they can afford to lose customers.

As for Celestron customer service, sorry, it currently doesn't exist. They refused to fix my Nexstar SCT electronics and suggested I buy a new model instead. I will never buy Celestron again. Manfacturers appear to think that if you have a problem a couple of years down the track, the telescope or mount is disposable, so just buy a new one. Limited Lifetime Warranty, sounds good, until you try to claim. There is legislation that dictates how long the product must be supported in Australia, but it seems those rules don't apply to all manufacturers, at least from some manfucturers point of view.

In the meantime, since the optics are good, I am deforking instead, until I can find a suitable replacement telescope of similar aperture, and from a company who actually supports their products.

And from reading the above you think I am being bitter, sadly you would be wrong. I am now just more discerning and am careful what I buy and were I buy it, having learned some harsh lessons.

Peter

[barx1963]

Peter
Obviously I can only talk about my personal experience with Bintel which has been excellent. And I will point out that there is no legislation that dictates how long a product must be supported for. Australian Consumer law only requires that it be "fit for purpose" of "acceptable quality" and "match the description" or "match the sample or demonstration model" see here http://consumerlaw-staging.tspace.gov.au/files/2016/05/0553FT_ACL-guides_Guarantees_web.pdf . My comments about Bintel and Celestron were merely to indicate the current situation regarding the Celestron situation in Australia. Obviously if Glen has an issue with a product his first port of call must be to the retailer that sold it to him.

[glend]

Well actually no. This was a new mount right out of the factory, all support conversations were with Celestron Tech Support first, and the Cloudy Nights thread which was being monitored by the Celestron Product Development Mgr. We were not the only people in the world talking to Tech Support, all retailers world wide were referring buyers to Tech Support first. All Bintel could do is refer me to Tech Support. The other CGX buyers that week that had problems were simply referred by Bintel to Celestron Tech Support. We should not expect miracles from Bintel. Bintel could not replace it, the call had to be made by Celestron and the ones that were replaced under warranty had to go through the "return under warranty" process that Celestron is using - they were never returned to Bintel
I am not blaming Bintel for anything, they are fine in my book, and do provide good service, for things they can service.

This is about Celestron support in Australia, and the lack of a distributor that can take any sort of responsibility other than a profit margin for importing the goods. Even Tasco, for all its faults, is way above what Celestron has at the moment.

Finally, the CGX is actually a great mount in my opinion, the design is sound but some of the execution was flawed and parts decisions could have been thought out better (like using a flange-less pulley on the motor, perhaps they saved 1 cent on that decision), early models clearly suffered from poor factory setup and QA, and yeah early adopters are faced with debugging the product - but that is hardly unusual. Once sorted it is a great performing mount and I intend to keep it a long time. However, Celestron has alot to learn from this launch, and a long way to go in product support in Australia.

Perhaps it is time to end this thread and move on.

[barx1963]

Fair enough Glen. I only mentioned Bintel as I had a discussion with them a few months ago about Celestron and their distribution and some may be under the impression that Sheldon and Hammond were still the distributor. I was not aware that you had spoken to Bintel or any other retailer, as none of your posts indicated you had spoken to the retailer first.

Cheers

Malcolm

[Stardrifter_WA]

First, I am glad you had such a wonderful experience in Bintel. I simply state that not everyone has that experience. I certainly will never recommend them, or even deal with them, even if the were the only I could get stuff, and that is also from my experiences.

As to the second point, but what you say isn't entirely correct;

Australian Consumer Law Section 58 (b) below. A manufacturer has to keep parts for reasonable period of time. I am no lawyer, so do not know what a reasonable time period means, but nevertheless a requirement to keep parts does exist.

See section (b) below:

Guarantee as to repairs and spare parts

(1) If:

(a) a person supplies, in trade or commerce, goods to a consumer; and

(b) the supply does not occur by way of sale by auction;

there is a guarantee that the manufacturer of the goods will take reasonable action to ensure that facilities for the repair of the goods, and parts for the goods, are reasonably available for a reasonable period after the goods are supplied.

(2) This section does not apply if the manufacturer took reasonable action to ensure that the consumer would be given written notice, at or before the time when the consumer agrees to the supply of the goods, that:

(a) facilities for the repair of the goods would not be available or would not be available after a specified period; or

(b) parts for the goods would not be available or would not be available after a specified period.