Four trips to the shop so far, and still not repaired.
I brought my school clock in for an overhaul in April or May of 2024. After receiving a phone call indicating that the clock was ready for pickup, I picked it um on Tuesday, June 11, 2024 and paid the $488 charge. I brought the clock home, re-mounted it, started it and set the time. During this procedure, I noticed that the half-hour chime rang several minutes ahead of the half hour. The clock ran for a few hours and then stopped. I re-started it and it ran for about an hour.
I brought the clock back to Suburban on Friday, June 14 and explained both problems (the movement not running and the chime synchronization problem). A month later, after receiving a call that the clock was ready again, I picked it. The clock's behavior was identical to the first time. It ran for 3 or 4 hours and stopped. It still struck the half-hour a few minutes early and the hour on time. I called and left a message (they never answer the phone). After they returned my call, I took the clock back to them and included with it a printed page describing both problems.
The third time they told me the clock was ready, I picked it up and discovered that while it now runs reliably, the half-hour is still striking several minutes early. I called, left a message, and not having received a call back after 8 days, I went back to the shop to talk to someone. The person I spoke to didn't say so in so may words, but his entire demeanor said "I don't know what to tell you." He said that he was not aware of a way to fix the problem of a clock striking the hour at the right time and the half hour at the wrong time--that any "fix" would affect both the top and bottom of the hour. When I wasn't satisfied with that, he went in the back to speak to the technicians, and came back with the same information. I asked him to verify that he was saying that they did not know a way to make my clock behave the way it had faithfully behaved for 44 years until I brought it in for an overhaul. He finally said that there was one last technician, very senior, who might have an idea, but he didn't work on that day. He took my number and promised, very unconvincingly, to have this senior tech call me the following day. That was two days ago.
Note that every time I returned the clock, a different person took it from me and gave me a claim ticket. Each time, the person said that since it was a "come back," they'd get to it more quickly than usual. I'm horrified that a "come back" is apparently such a normal event that they have a term and apparently a policy for it. read more