Nigel,
Good comment: I wondered whether I was just a bad case, but clearly I'm not. I
ordered my XS Mono accellerated kit over 2 years ago and and paid for it more
than 18 months ago. I collected what I thought was the complete kit bar the
cockpit module and shipped it to Australia along with my personal goods as I
emigrated.
On arrival, a detailed invemntory check showed I was short of cockpit
module, complete tailplane kit, flaps, ailerons and rudder. Europa immediately
acknowledged the shortfall and promised to sort quickly. After much e-mailing,
phoning and increasingly bitter hassle, the missing components finally
arrived last week: the necessary support paperwork - invoicing, parts listings
etc. - needed to help sort out the customs duty and tax shambles the original
incomplete import left me has never arrived. I continue to press Europa, but
they are unresponsive.
Your experience - and that of others who've already replied to your note - is
the
same as mine: the problem lies fundamentally with Ray Bedford - who simply
does not provide support to both individual builders and, I suspect, the local
agents or dealers - and Keith Wilson who never answers calls or e-mails and
seems
dangerously uncaring about the increasingly bad reputation this customer
treatment is having on their future sales prospects.
Like you, my real fear was that they would go bust before they'd delivered my
missing
parts, in which case I'd be left with a very expensive pile of useless
assorted fibreglass bits. They exhibit all the symptoms of a small company
juggling
unsuccessfully with cash flow, robbing Peter to pay Paul.
I still have mixed feelings about responding to this thread: on the one hand the
aircraft is excellent and I'm a fervent supporter of successful innovation in
aviation and really don't feel comfortablke about hazarding the fragile nature
of business reputations. On the other hand, I know there is deep discontent
within the Aussie Europa builders over company customer support, and your thread
has already shown similar concerns elsewhere, and I'd feel very bad if nothing
had been said and then a new builder came in, paid his cash, didn't get
his parts, and the company went broke. I guess my hope is that raising the
visibility
of the problem through this forum may trigger, at last, some response
---From Keith Wilson to resolve these problems (note cautious use of the word
"may")
and my advice to prospective buyers is to ask very hard questions about
deliveries,
guarantees and whatever other safety precautions you can take before
parting with your money.
Keith Hartley
Australian owner of a nearly complete pile of bits
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