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Well, I bought my EQ6PRO from Andrews, and touch wood, it's been OK. I see Bintel is offering them for nearly the same price now, back when I bought the mount, Andrews was nearly $450 cheaper.
A few things - Andrews is *not* an official Australian SkyWatcher retailer. Tasco has made that clear to me. They will NOT support any SkyWatcher products bought from Andrews. I didn't realise this until after I'd bought the gear. Lee told me that the mount had a 5 year warranty too. If the warranty (and any repairs) are dodgy like what I'm reading in this thread, I'm *really* worried. Edit: knowin what I know now, I'd have happily paid the extra few hundred dollars and bought it from Bintel, etc...
BTW - retailers *must* provide repairs in a reasonable time frame. Whether or not they're an official retailer for the product is irrelevant - they must ensure that the purchaser has any repairs done in a timely manner on all faulty goods. I have nothing in writing about the warranty at all - I was verbally told that the mount had a 5 year warranty by Lee.
What has Andrews told you about the warranty period? 1 year? 2 years? 5 years?
For those having continued problems with warranty repairs, my advice is:
1) communicate in writing - letter + registered post (signature required). Request all communications to be in writing.
2) Be polite but give a firm time frame that you expect the problem to be resolved in.
3) Keep copies of everything. And I mean everything.
4) document everything - clear, conside time frames on everything that transpires. Make copious notes.
5) Once said time frame has expired, 2nd letter, be firmer and advise that you'll lodge a formal complaint with the relevant fair trading body. Give them 14 days to respond - this is known as a letter of demand.
6) If that expires and you've had no satisfactory resolution, formally complain to fair trading. This will take 4-6 weeks as a rule, and they'll usually come up with a suggestion by then and advise you and the retailer in writing. This is *not* legally binding. If you're not happy with the ruling, or the retailer does not comply, you have no choice but to either take it up with the Fair trading tribunal (the process is the same in most states, except for QLD which is as usual, about 100 years behind the times imho). This will cost you money. At this stage, you probably should be considering legal action. I don't have much faith in the tribunal process, and from my experience, it exists more to keep retailers happy than provide true justice. A negative result in the tribunal will make legal action later on much harder imho/experience.
Dave
PS fair trading generally does bugger all about the retailer in terms of actual punishment for their infringements. So, retailers can keep doing the same thing, in the hope that only 1 in 10 or so take the complaint to fair trading etc. They know that they won't get punished by fair trading, even if they lose the case. All they'll have to do is probably replace the unit with a new one, or in some instances, offer a full refund. The first option isn't always too good, since you might get another dud and be back at square one...
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