Shipping abuse, should we send the equipment back?

[Jwood]

We live in Mexcio. Ordered a Sol Ark 15K and 12 Pytes batteries. The items would normally be delivered via a nice paved highway, however some moron decided to take a short cut over 80 miles of the worst washboard, cobblestone, horrible road ever. This is the road the the Baja 1000 off road race runs through. The pallet containing the items fell on it's side onto other items in the truck. As you can see from the boxes, the abuse the equipment took is pretty heavy. Fortunately due to the unbelievable packaging none of the items have any visible damage to the outside.

My big question is, after all this vibration and bouncing, what may have come loose on the inside? I'm hoping for opinions from anyone that has disassembled the Sol Ark and/or the Pytes batteries as to how well the connections or parts inside might hold up to vibrations. Are these units time bombs with possible loose parts inside that will cause problems sometime in the future? Or are they well built and would easily survive the beating they took.

The owner wants to keep the equipment if there's a good chance that there won't be issues (Shipper offered to replace everything). However, his current old off brand system is failing rapidly and holding on by a thread. We're about to get hit by a big hurricane that will cause huge delays in getting new equipment. If we decide to send the items back it will be a month, most likely longer before we can receive replacement equipment.

Sol Ark and Pytes said as long as there is no visible physical damage to the items (which there isn't) they would honor the original warranty.

What to you think about the possibility of future failures due to the shipping abuse? Thanks!

 

[Browse]

Depends on how bad the wait will affect the owner. It is always safer to return abused product than to hope nothing happens. Comes down to the inconvenience & urgency factor. Loose chips, wires, broken solder joints...how long before something pops up?

 

[Q-Dog]

What does the vendor say?

 

[Tulex]

Personally, if they look good and are covered, I'd use them. But that's just me. After years of Fedex deliveries, I've had to adopt that policy. It's actually become a game my wife and I play. "What do you think it looks like inside?"

 

[Rednecktek]

Wow! That's bad! I'd ping the seller and make a claim ASAP before they try to weasel out of the replacements.

 

[KauaiMolokai]

in your shoes I would politely ask the shipper - who offered to replace everything which is really stand up - what they would sell the returned items for once they got them back.

Then ask them to ship you replacement items and pay them this “open box, warranty return” price.

If they agree, and they may require an NDA so scammers don’t start doing this, then install the items you have and once the replacements arrive install those. Then just post that you reached an amicable arrangement with the shipper.

 

[DIYrich]

I would have refused to sign for the damaged boxes.

 

[Jwood]

Thank you for all the opinions. We talked to the engineers and they said there should be no problems from the vibrations. As long as the product is not visibly damaged, the warranties would be honored. The client really needs to get his system up and running, so we are going to do the install. The shipper will cover any warranty shipping should problems arise and is giving him other compensation. The shipper was unaware of the route the drivers took and has been amazingly supportive of whatever decision the client makes. Even with the problems we had with this shipment, I'll definitely use the guy again because he stands by his work.