TL;DR: We really wanted to support a local business but ultimately ended up having to fix their repair job ourselves. Until they get a serious handle on their communication and quality control, itâs not worth the headache or the money.
Long story:
The initial communication was amazing. We were told we would get a diagnostic report in 24 hours. We arrange a drop-off, get a ticket number. 36 hours later, no diagnostic update. We text the same number asking for an update. No response for hours, then late at night an entirely different person responds that theyâre working on it.
48 hours go by with no updates. We message again. In a rambling text, they promise that theyâre working on the Xbox that night and we can come pick it up the same night. Itâs about 8pm. We offer to come pick it up at 10pm since we work a night shift and thatâs doable for us. No response.
24 hours later, still havenât heard anything. We message again asking for clarification since it sounded like they had worked on it the previous night. They message back that itâll actually be 3-5 business days before they can get to the Xbox, but they will keep us in the loop. At this point weâre starting to get frustrated because they have promised multiple times that they will contact us with information, and all they do is push the deadlines back further. At this point, weâre not entirely convinced that we havenât been scammed out of our Xbox.
3 business days later, we followed up. They tell us they need to order a new fan for the Xbox. Itâll be overnighted in, theyâre sorry for the delay, and offer a $5 discount. We say thanks, please keep us updated about the parts and the repair timeline. They say no problem, will do.
Radio silence again. 3 business days later, we message AGAIN asking for an update. Theyâve replaced the fan and it might need new thermal paste. They say that theyâre going to run it for a while to make sure it doesnât overheat and everything is working properly.
When we plug it in at home, we immediately get an overheating shutdown warning saying that the last time it had run, it had overheated and had an emergency shut down. It does this 4 times.
We messaged the company about the issue. They say theyâll do some research. 24 hours goes by with no update. We reach out again. They claim it might need more thermal paste and we can bring it back in. No apology, and a very strong insinuation that we have put the Xbox somewhere that would cause overheating issues.
Funnily enough, our own five minutes of research shows that the fan might not have been plugged back in.
Fed up with the lack of communication, the $80 we paid them for essentially a fan blade, and the two weeks of time down the drain, we disassembled the case ourselves following a YouTube tutorial. Along the way, we found an abhorrent lack of respect for the very expensive gaming console weâd left in their care, including:
Plastic panels hanging off the side.
Multiple stripped screws with metal shavings still in the sockets.
2 casing screws missing completely.
Disc drive is seated improperly.
Interior not cleaned of dust.
Finally, we get to the fan and my partner just starts laughing. The fan had never been plugged in. We plugged it in, reassembled the case, and ran it overnight with zero shutdown warnings.
The thing that is the most unacceptable to us is the fact that if they had replaced the fan and let it run for 10 minutes, they would have gotten the exact same shutdown warning we got and realized something was wrong. So either they knowingly gave us a faulty repair job, or they forgot to check the Xbox after the test period. Either way, weâre out $80 on something we ultimately had to fix ourselves.
I donât know what the issue was. But I do know that we wonât be using...
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