How Many Have Canceled There Keystokers ?

 
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efo141
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Post by efo141 » Fri. Jan. 02, 2009 12:06 am

How many have canceled there Keystoker and reordered direct from the Co.


 
warmwinter09
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Post by warmwinter09 » Fri. Jan. 02, 2009 1:09 am

I just received my KA-6 ordered it from a dealer in Central PA. I ordered a duel fuel model on the 1st of May. It was promised Sept 1. It came and went. Spent a lot of time talking to the dealer. He was doing everything in his power to fulfill my (and others) order(s). The Keystone factory, in Schuylkill Haven PA is about 45 minutes from my home. The problem was not the dealers, it's the factory. They took on too many orders and came up short on parts. It took (3) return visits begging for my order to be completed. It finally paid off. It’s up and running as of 11/11/08. As for the dealer, they have since cancelled all remaining orders and stopped carrying Keystoker. It’s too bad because I do love the KA-6 and foresee it saving me mucho dinero for years to come. If your still waiting for your Keystoker, and in the position to make the trip, it may be worth your while to go down and grovel.

 
Paulie
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Post by Paulie » Fri. Jan. 02, 2009 2:34 am

I canceled my order and have not called the factory. I am afraid of them....for now. I plan to let things settle down
before I try again. At which time I will call factory direct as I have no dealer close to me.

 
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tvb
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Post by tvb » Fri. Jan. 02, 2009 5:44 am

I canceled back in late November. Sadly, Keystoker seems to have wasted a lot of good reputation due to their inability to communicate properly with their customers and dealers. We ended up going with a stoker stove.

 
kootch88
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Post by kootch88 » Fri. Jan. 02, 2009 7:46 am

I canceled back in Late September because I couldn't get the dealer to return my calls. Finally called the factory and they said I wouldn't get mine for 3 - 4 months.

 
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WNY
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Post by WNY » Fri. Jan. 02, 2009 8:05 am

I think a lot of the mfr's got overwhelmed with orders back in the may/june/july time frame and just couldn't keep up, people saw the oil rising and home heating costs rising, and went crazy buying whatever the dealers had and then orders just kept piling up. I they had some supplier parts issues too for certain lines from reading another thread....

 
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Razzler
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Post by Razzler » Fri. Jan. 02, 2009 9:33 am

WNY wrote:I think a lot of the mfr's got overwhelmed
What people don't realize is that ALL the manufacturers are relatively small companys that where use to building 200, 300 or 400 stoves/boilers a year. Then like WNY said early summer they got orders for three or four times that amount. Who wouldn't be overwhelmed? Then as they try to figure out how to fill all these orders then they call there suppliers and TRY to order the supples they need to biuld them and can't get what they need becuse most of the stove manufacturers use a lot of the same components. It's just a big snow ball affect! All you can do is just be patient and hang in there you'll get them. ;)


 
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tvb
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Post by tvb » Fri. Jan. 02, 2009 10:00 am

I don't think anyone is faulting them for getting busy. The problems, at least for me, is that they (Keystoker) needs to figure out how to communicate in the 21st century. They were giving the dealer the run-around, and it sounds like there has been some favoritism taking place amongst different dealers or those that went to the factory direct. That's bad business no matter the reason.

Had Keystoker figured out to communicate to their dealers properly and on a timely basis, there would have been much less disappointment among customers, dealers, and now, former customers.

 
billlindley
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Post by billlindley » Fri. Jan. 02, 2009 10:17 am

I was told by a family member that I made a mistake by buying the Reading Stove I have now. Initial problems aside it sounds like I made the right call since you can't even get the Keystoker. When I was looking to get a DV Keystoker in August they told me they were backordered until December-January so obivously that was a mistatement if ones ordered in May are still not delivered.

Sad part is the dealers are the ones that get hurt by this.

 
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Richard S.
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Post by Richard S. » Fri. Jan. 02, 2009 10:28 am

I believe Keystoker is/was having issues getting a few specific parts they do not make. I know when we were there they had a large inventory stocked up sitting on the plant floor completed waiting for parts. This may be a slightly different problem with them not being able to deliver because of things out of their control as opposed to the Harman situation where they were taking orders they could never fill.

 
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WNY
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Post by WNY » Fri. Jan. 02, 2009 10:29 am

Like you said, many are smaller companies and may not communicate or even know the situations, if they are waiting on sub-vendors for parts, they may not even know when they can even deliver.

I never had any luck communicating with Keystoker before I bought my 90K DV, I sent numerous emails asking questions, but no response. Once ordered, My dealer had it within 2-4 weeks (4 years ago before all of this flood of orders or people were even considering alternative fuels) .

 
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Razzler
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Post by Razzler » Fri. Jan. 02, 2009 11:20 am

tvb wrote:The problems, at least for me, is that they (Keystoker) needs to figure out how to communicate in the 21st century.

Tvb You're right! And I'll bet that once they get all this sorted out and all the back order's filled they will work on all the overwhelming problems they had in 2008/09. They never had this happen before this year, in the past If they got back odered for a month that probably was a lot. I'm sure they will be ready for the next big rush in a year or two down the road when oil prices shoot through the roof again.

 
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efo141
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Post by efo141 » Fri. Jan. 02, 2009 11:31 am

Weekly updates on there website and letting there dealers know real wait times would help Keystokers reputation right now. They have been in business long enough to know keeping your customers happy is key to staying in business. There are other companys that make a good coal stokers. Honesty is important to people. They know how many units they can pump out a day,month. The Harman dealer told me up front they were not even taking orders back in June.

 
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beatle78
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Post by beatle78 » Fri. Jan. 02, 2009 12:54 pm

I would be pretty mad if I was the customer. But I think Keystoker ran into another problem where they couldn't get parts and that was out of their control.

I do agree that communication is the key. If there is a long lead item to build the boilers, just let us know. This is partly the dealer's fault. They need to get the answers from Keystoker and relay them to the customer. They can't call and ask if the boiler's are ready and accept a "no" as an answer.

 
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Lumberjack
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Post by Lumberjack » Sat. Jan. 03, 2009 11:37 am

For now I have cancelled mine. I live in a rental and the furnace needed to pay for itself.
WHY?

The price of oil tanked(for now)
I lost a full heating season waiting, cutting payback time to only 3 years.
I also discovered that I was only burning half the oil I thought I was.

I simply am not going to get my moneys worth out of the stove in the time I have remaining here.
Perhaps in the future I may still go coal but for now this is my final post. Thanks for all the info.


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