In 40 years of farming and construction this was by far the worst service I have ever had. My machine actually came back in worse condition than when I brought it to them.
I had a Hobart Champion 10,000 with 100 hours usage that was not producing ac power or power to weld with. The engine required one small shot of starting fluid if it had not been started in a long time.
Everything was fine when I dropped it off. I told them I did not want engine work done, just the power failure repaired. I was told that they would call me by the end of the week with their evaluation. On Friday I called them because they had not contacted me. The office person that I talked to, contacted a shop person, they told me they would call me back. They never did. I called them on Monday and the shop person told the office person that they had called me. This was not true. They never called or left any messages. This time they put me through and the shop person said they could not get the engine started. I told him that it was not like that when I dropped it off.
He said it would cost more than $700 to repair the engine and electrical which they would have to do in order to warrantee their work. I told them again to just fix the electrical failure. They said OK and the cost would be a little over $300. They said it would be done Tuesday or Wednesday. I did not hear from them so I called them on Friday. I was told it could be picked up on Monday. I had my wife pick it up on Monday and she said she had to wait for them to finish the work.
When I inspected it at home I found that the exhaust pipe and spark arrestor were missing and the metal covering of the machine was just sloppily and incorrectly put back on. I attempted to start it the same way as I always had done prior to Weld-rite's repairs. It would not start. I pulled off the air cleaner and found that the air filter was soaking wet with water. I poured a small amount of fuel into the carburetor and when it fired, a large amount of water came out of the exhaust. I did this about a dozen times and water continued coming out of the exhaust. (Bear in mind that this is an air cooled engine).
I called Weld-rite and they said they would not charge me for their labor and they would give me a new air filter but they could not find the exhaust pipe. They said it may have been lost when my wife took it back home. It was in a closed bed pickup truck and could not have been lost.
I now have an even larger expense removing water from the engine before it destroys it. read more