Caution Before Purchasing Victron from XYZ Distributor!

[JeepHammer]

I'm calling BS on the previous post.

Obviously, personal experience and opinion only. Your experience may vary.

You are allowed your opinion.

I work for customers, no companies involved. I do this mostly locally since solar installs/trouble shooting isn't my business, I just have the speciality tools & equipment to do larger scale work from my own solar field.

I don't care what you have, where you got it from, or how you use it. It's more or less a pizza & beer club centered around solar installs & maintiance.

We have 3 big power plants in the area, so no shortage of beer, pizza, fishing buddies with electrical engineering degrees that are interested in solar as a hobby, getting things figured out is pretty easy for them, and they get pizza & beer.

I'm gears & wires. I owned a machine shop, manufacturing plant for larger production machines, so no stranger to everything that can go wrong with mechanical or electrical.

I also own the farm/fishing/hunting/gun range ground these guys hang out on, so I guess I'm the 'Host'? Never had to think about that before...

I also throw a couple solar PV fests a year for people interested. It's a good way to meet like minded people. The closest thing to a sponsorship is another business I'm involved in, hot rod parts, lends us tents for the events.

I drag out all my old gear, show how it used to be done, then we tour the newer stuff (I don't have brand new stuff for long, it's all a work in progress).

The great coyote fire, the collection of rodents & reptiles flash fried/dried crossing terminals, the chewed wiring examples, what lightening damage looks like when you don't have protections, how to wire a combiner box, how to make a solid DC high amp cable, how to minimize strom damage, how to de-ice and clean panels, stuff like that at our events. (We get to show off)

If your dealer/installer/maintiance guy can figure it out, we never hear from you.
If they have issues they can't figure out and owners find out about us, we'll have a look for pizza & beer.

There are plenty of people happy with blue boxes, and I have no issue with that.

I've just not had good results with the products, but admittedly I don't see them unless something is wrong in the first place.

I didn't get much of anything in the way of customer service or troubleshooting help from them.

And there are OPs like this one that are having, have had the same poor to non-existant customer service or there wouldn't be posts like this one...

 

[JJJJ]

pizza & beer club centered around solar

So pizza before and beer after repair?

My neighbor builds battery packs from Tesla cells. As a mechanic he is crazy smart and I can appreciate the chance to share and help others with projects. Sounds like a first hand crew in your neck of the woods.

 

[JeepHammer]

So pizza before and beer after repair?

My neighbor builds battery packs from Tesla cells. As a mechanic he is crazy smart and I can appreciate the chance to share and help others with projects. Sounds like a first hand crew in your neck of the woods.

Just mutts with too many hobbies. Hunting, fishing, guns, solar, hot rods, pizza & beer, the usual guy stuff.

I have half a truck load of 302 Ah LiFePO4 cells in my shop floor right now I'm building batteries out of.

Some golf cart customer rejected the load because 2 of the cells were fork lift damaged, they sat in the corner of a trucking company warehouse for about 8 months and they wanted the space back, I bought them cheap... (salvage)

A friend that's a dispatcher tipped me off, so I approached the owner...
Low friends in the right places.

My lake dock is made from Trex, a trailer load of salvage that turned over on snow/ice, same guy...
He got me about 45,000 pounds of salt from a salvage.
He fishes and has beer fridge rights anytime he wants!

 

[TK1979]

Not yet...

But given the rampant growth in this forum, posting this thread alerts a mass of people that may not be aware of problems with victron distributors.

I dont consider it a moaning post.

I consider it a warning is forwarned post...

Agreed

 

[Murphyslaww]

With the amount of $$$ we spend on this type of stuff, and the additional amount we might spend on Victron, I definitely want to know peoples experience. This doesn't seem like the type of forum in which fanboy comments should be made. We get enough of that in other forums. I'm already on my way out of the Victron community, as I'm not seeing reasons for spending the extra, as opposed to devices that I've used for a year plus and seem to be reliable and cheaper.

I like what victron does with monitoring, and networking integration, but for something that essentially, you want to get to a point of just forgetting about it, it has limited value to me.

 

[Bossrox]

If I get the resolution I'm looking for, I will delete this post. Currently the Victron sales rep for our region and our distributor are gaslighting us.

My Victron MPPT stopped working properly about one year ago. This reflected as a battery bank that could not charge to 100%. I didn't know what was going on, so I contacted the distributor we bought it from. Mind you we spent about $15,000 with their company. They looked at our VRM and said our system looked fine. The problem was not resolved.

We reached out again this year, and were given suggestions like, "your panels must be dirty." This is a distributor who has threatened to not honor warranties in the past for reasons that were never communicated prior to purchase. The purchase was in two installments, and there were about two months in between each installment. If they had simply forgotten to mention their conditions prior to the first installment, then they had about two months in which to start practicing transparency with us. They did not. Instead we received a message saying that our order was taking up too much space in their warehouse, and they demanded prompt payment.

Some retroactive conditions we received in the form of threats to not honor our warranties due to various, seemingly whimsical, creative reasons such as:

1) For not hiring a "qualified" installer (i.e. someone from their list).
We actually tried to hire the guy they recommended, despite not sounding very confident, but then he actually moved to another area of the country for work, and he was no longer available. Probably for the better as that guy admitted not having any experience with the kinds of batteries we bought. How's that for qualified? At that point the distributor basically said, either pay one of us to come out there (opposite side of the country) and do it or we will not honor your warranties. They wanted roundtrip travel expenses, room & board, and of course a nice cushy stipend to support their capital city lifestyle. That would involve an hour flight, a three hour drive, and a twenty minute hike to get here. Naturally we opted to look for our own installer closer to us.

2) For wanting to purchase a MK3-USB cable.
This one's my favorite. One of the only things they promised in writing was to include an installation diagram with the "plug and play" system they sold us. About four months after we received the shipment I told them, "hey where's the installation diagram like you promised?" They hastily put together a diagram that was riddled with errors. I pointed the errors out to their electrical engineer and he had the document corrected. Naturally I started doubting their competence and wanted to make sure they had setup the parameters on the Multiplus inverter correctly according to the Victron-Pylontech compatibility document prior to installation. So, I requested they sell me an MK3-USB cable. They replied that they had it in stock, but that if I were to purchase the cable then they would no longer honor my warranties.

3) For purchasing a battery diagnostic cable.
Similar to the above. When I noticed the batteries no longer charging to 100% I naturally wanted to connect a laptop diagnostic cable to see what the cells were reporting. Again the distributor said I could pay $47 plus shipping for the cable, but then they would no longer honor my warranties. Instead they wanted me to ship to the capital to their shop on the other side of the country where they were going to hook up the same cable. Guess who had to pay for roundtrip shipping for that 70lb battery? The battery was finally returned after two months from the date of shipment to them. There was no padding other than two layers of cardboard. Luckily the thing was OK. Distributor says they found cobwebs inside the unit and that was the reason. I think their heads are full of cobwebs.

Here's why:

A very smart engineer with experience in Victron (a prominent member of this forum and Victron Community) helped me out of the goodness of their heart, when I could not get any competent help from the distributor. He successfully diagnosed the problem over the phone. It was the MPPT. He figured out a workaround and actually got our batteries to charge to 100% for the first time in about one year. No thanks to the distributor whatsoever. I had another battery that I did not send to the distributor that was also producing errors. Once the helpful engineer taught me the workaround for the charge controller, the battery with errors stopped producing any errors. It didn't require removal of cobwebs.

The distributor's electrical engineer admitted in whatsapp chat that they had successfully charged my battery in their shop to 100% multiple times without any errors or alarms prior to cleaning out the cobwebs, but they still listed cobwebs in their service report as the reason the battery was not charging to 100%.

I responded to the CEO of Victron on the thread started by the helpful engineer over at the Victron Community forum raising my concerns about pursuing warranty service with my distributor.

Apparently he had his sales rep reach out to me. The guy seems to be buddy-buddy with the distributor, and they seem to be insinuating that I somehow caused this glitch with the charge controller. His latest email insisted I pay out-of-pocket to the original distributor for a new unit and they will bring the new controller to me, install it, with the condition that "he can review [my] system, configuration and take pictures if required to make sure all is properly done. If any improvements are suggested, can decided how to proceed."

Righhtt. So give these excuse makers the chance to come up with more excuses not to honor the warranty. I can just imagine, "oh this battery is too close to the window. Oh we saw a spider in the bathroom and the installation is close to the bathroom, there should be loose wire instead of ferrules, let's get the ladder and check the panels on the roof, let's open the string box and make sure the fuses are still working, let's pull on some wires with all our strength to see if we can argue that they're not secured properly, oh these wires are not properly concealed and look unsightly, ahah! there's some cobwebs touching the charge controller. Sorry charlie, here's how much our roundtrip airfare cost and here's your new charge controller, we'll take the old one to our shop and decide not to follow the Pre-RMA bench test instructions, but will definitely tell our buddy buddy victron sales rep that we followed them and that the unit is OK, but you just need to clean your house better. Then we'll make you pay return shipping for your faulty unit and also charge you a service fee for not following the Pre-RMA bench test instructions. If you don't like it, then we can also sue you for defamation. Hasta la vista, Gringo!"

---

Just some food for thought if you're considering purchasing Victron components. I'm sure a lot has to do with the poor quality of distributors here, and the unfortunate sales rep of this region, but one year is too long to have to fight to receive warranty replacement.

What am I proposing that's so difficult to fulfill, you ask? I just wanted to purchase a new unit out of pocket, send the old unit to a competent distributor and then receive reimbursement when they actually follow page 24 of the Pre-RMA bench test instructions. No games, no BS. But apparently it's asking too much. The original idea Victron had was that I would just disconnect my MPPT and ship it to a distributor and they would determine the error that we've already determined here thanks to our helpful resident engineer. Then they would figure out how to get a new unit and ship it here. Hopefully that would take less than two months. Honestly though, I'm thinking I might rather be without electricity for two months than continue dealing with Victron staff and Peruvian distributors to come up with a slightly better solution. Did I mention we live outside a village of less than 100 people and it's a twenty minute walk along a steep muddy trail to get to our place? Pretty off-grid. Maybe we can go stay with our friends in the village and share some dirt floor space with their seven kids while we wait until the next decade for a replacement unit.

4 150/100's lasted me about a year each. They replaced the 1st 2 but not the 2nd 2, like your experience, the dealer came up with a lame excuse my system wasn't wired right. Well I got another brand of chargers & have no issues. Victron will never see another dollar from me. They might make some good gear on other things but their chargers are junk!

 

[nc73]

Their small chargers do run hot, with no fan as far as I can tell but their 450/100 has a fan...not sure how long mine will last but I'll surely report it here. So far its many times better than Chinese AIO.

 

[AgroVenturesPeru]

4 150/100's lasted me about a year each. They replaced the 1st 2 but not the 2nd 2, like your experience, the dealer came up with a lame excuse my system wasn't wired right. Well I got another brand of chargers & have no issues. Victron will never see another dollar from me. They might make some good gear on other things but their chargers are junk!

What brand do you recommend?

Here's our most recent update:

Can An MPPT Fix Itself?

TLDR: troubleshooted MPPT remotely with an engineer from this website last year. Conclusion: unit bad/miscalibrated, send to distributor for warranty replacement. Instead of doing this, I just bought a new unit and stuck the old one in a box for ten months. Recently, I sent the old unit to a...

diysolarforum.com

 

[dmeter]

By locally. warranty 5 year, make all paper when return broken eipment,wait your local law time for answer, demant new equipment or return money by write letter, don't talk with distributor,only write. if you don't receive money or new pieces,go on government inspection later on court. only government inspection cost company couple thousand € in different fine,becouse inspection check color of toilet water in shop. usually inspection stay in office couple days to couple weeks. or demand somebody come in inspection building with documentation.on court is different company must make proof you void waranty,not easy task and very pricy for company.

 

[e trouble]

I can understand the frustration of dealing with Victron so called distributors.

This is all just opinion but it is observed after a few years of dealing with Victron & having a background that, I think, allows me to understand their structure & its shortcomings.

Firstly, based on how wide & far Victron gear is available, there does not seem to be much control by Victron of the sales channels that 'distributors' use. This results in a number of box pushers rather than distributors. That may increase volumes but it comes at the price of a quality customer experience. In the Victron ecosystem, distributors are supposed to provide installation & warranty support. In the Victron Community Forum, Victron staff will regularly respond to questions by telling the user to contact their distributor.

This then raises the question of what qualification/experience is required to become a Victron distributor. There are some good distributors around but 'box pushers' are not behaving as distributors.

So it is possible that the Victron sales channel has two classes - distributors and resellers. Resellers being the 'box pushers' that do not provide any after sales support.

This would not be a problem if the products were straight forward to install. There are a number of gotchas when designing a Victron solution which are quite difficult to find - which is perhaps why Victron recommend using experienced Victron installers. But this becomes a Catch 22 - can't have experience until one does some installations and can't do installations until one has experience.

This YouTube interview with Guy Stewart who is the Victron Community & Online Training Manager, is worth a look if you are trying to understand why Victron is the way it is. It is a bit long but the surprising take ways for me are:

• Victron has only about 100 employees.
• There is no internal organization structure - everybody seems to work directly for the CEO.
• It is viewed internally as predominantly an R&D organization.
• The new EV charger came about because the Romanian Sales Manager built one himself.

Less surprising is that all manufacturing is outsourced to multiple locations in China, India & Asia.

To me the missing pieces in Victron are the lack of a good Marketing & Sales Support structure that can ensure:

• quality experience in all the sales channels or at least recognize that resellers are not providing after sales support.
• improvements in their manuals & how to guides - perhaps country focused.
  For example, one manual will refer to you another manual for details which do not exist or have been deleted, data sheets not being consistent with specifications.

There are probably other pieces that would transform Victron into as great an experience as their products are.

Very glad to hear this. I followed YouTube advice to buy a package from a somewhat local distributor and it's been nothing but a shit show. I was thinking on switching to Victron and paying their high premium but it sounds like their service is run the same as SRNE with people dumb as stumps.

 

[Michelle Konzack]

I can understand the frustration of dealing with Victron so called distributors.

It seems you misunderstand one thing:

I Distributor is the one, who import the Victron items into his/her country and DISTRIBUTE it to the reseller where YOU buy it.

Now there are two kind of reseller:

1) the bad ones, which sell 99% online and have no clue about what they are selling
2) the good ones, which have made all the Victron trainings and support their customers.

Firstly, based on how wide & far Victron gear is available, there does not seem to be much control by Victron of the sales channels that 'distributors' use.

Again, see above!

This results in a number of box pushers rather than distributors. That may increase volumes but it comes at the price of a quality customer experience.

Victron can not control the WHO is selling their items.
Customer should whatch out for "autorised reseller" or "certified installer" which are also probably happy, selling you the Victron items you need and give you propriate advises.

In the Victron ecosystem, distributors are supposed to provide installation & warranty support.

Nope, it is the reseller, where you bought your Victron items.

To me the missing pieces in Victron are the lack of a good Marketing & Sales Support structure that can ensure:

• quality experience in all the sales channels or at least recognize that resellers are not providing after sales support.

How should e.G. Amazon provide you wit support?

Think about it.

 

[Michelle Konzack]

Very glad to hear this. I followed YouTube advice to buy a package from a somewhat local distributor and it's been nothing but a shit show. I was thinking on switching to Victron and paying their high premium but it sounds like their service is run the same as SRNE with people dumb as stumps.

Did you buy from an "authorized reseller" or a dumb "online shop"?

 

[Pierre]

Victron is big in South Africa. They have regular training tours through the country and they get their official distributors to host the training sessions ( mostly for free ) which can be up to a week in duration. At times Victron would arrange seminars / new product launches / training sessions directly at conference centres and they really go out of their way with the food / refreshments. Then you get those who enrolled not attending and messing up their catering plan at huge expense to Victron. I run Victron in my home , RV and tow vehicle after starting with their products about 8 years ago and never looked back. None of my Victron products have ever failed , even the ones that have been abused by me i.e. reverse polarity connected , input / output reversed etc. My blood is blue and we have a bond with the Dutch since 1652