Hi,
Back in the beginning of December I wrote to the Groove Tubes support email (at KMCcustomer.Support@kmcmusic.com) about a set of defective 6V6-CD-M tubes that I have.
They started making a hissing or crackling type sound after about 6 weeks of use.

KMCcustomer Support replied to my first email, the first week of December, and I provided my mailing address so that a call tag could be sent out to return these tubes for warranty.
I was also told that those tubes were on back order, for possibly up to 8 weeks.

At 7-8 weeks I started emailing to check on the status of these back ordered tubes.
I haven't gotten a response to my last 3 emails (January 26th, February 8th and February 11th) to KMCcustomer.Support@kmcmusic.com .
I didn't know if there was an issue with the email system, or some other reason why I've gotten no response.
I also emailed Fender customer relations (consumerrelations@fender.com) a couple of days ago (February 22) with this same message and have not had any response except the automated "we should respond in 48 hrs. message".
It’s been over 10 weeks now, I have not seen a call tag, and nobody is answering any of my emails.

Any advice on how to proceed would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks.

- Jay


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On Dec 6, 2010, at 12:39 PM, KMCcustomer Support wrote:

Hello Jay,
Sorry to hear about the problems you are having with your tubes.
Please respond with your address, so that we might send a call tag to
pick your tubes up, and replace them. Please be aware that replacements
for this product are currently on backorder, and it could be up to 8
weeks before they are back in stock.

Thanks,

-GT


-----Original Message-----
From: Jay [mailto:xxxx]
Sent: Saturday, December 04, 2010 1:35 PM
To: KMCcustomer Support
Subject: GT-6V6-CD-M tube hiss/crackle question

Hi,
I purchased a set of Groove Tubes 6V6-CD-M tubes through Amazon.com on
October 19th of this year.
I installed them and checked the bias at the time which was just under
20mA per tube, that was well within the rated specs, so I left it there
without adjusting.
Just today (about 6 weeks later) I started to hear hissing and slight
crackling type noises form my amp.
I rechecked the bias, and it was still where I had left it at under 20mA
per tube, however the hissing noises continued with these tubes.
I've tried another of 6V6's in the amp and have no noise from that set.
I reinstalled the Groove Tubes set to confirm the noise, and the
hissing/ crackling returned.

I see that Amazon only has a 30 day return policy, and that your
warranty for noise problems is 180 days.
The tubes are are still working, so they have not burned out, but I am
hesitant to use them.

Is there a procedure for returning this set of 6V6's to have them
checked out for a possible warranty return.

Any advice on how to proceed with this would be greatly appreciated,
thanks.

- Jay

A gentle bump to ask if anyone here ever been able to get their Groove Tubes replaced under warranty ?

If so did you get a return label in the mail ?
How do they work it ?

I've never dealt with a warranty return from these people.

Hopefully a moderator, or someone from Fender will chime in on how I can proceed here.

There is no other support contact information on the Groove Tubes website other than an email address.

There is a 180 day warranty against noise, I reported my problem a little over a month after purchase, they said they would replace the tubes and now it's been 3 months with no word from anyone.

It's just about 130 days since I purchased the tubes and I'm getting the sinking feeling that I'll hear back from somebody on the 181st day telling me that I'm outside of warranty.

- Jay

Well in case anybody is interested, I thought I might as well follow up on this.

Last week I got an email from Groove Tubes telling me that my tubes (which I'm assuming are Chinese made Shuguang 6V6's ) still weren't in stock, but because of the long delay they were going to pick up the postage of my return tubes and send me a set of Russian tubes instead.

Today I got the replacements, which are actually the Electro Harmonix 6V6's in lieu of the defective Chinese tubes. They sound much better, and despite the delay, I'm a happy camper.

They said the reason for the delay was "We were just in a process of re-arranging how we facilitated returns, -it was entirely our issue, with the delay."

So I reckon the Groove Tubes warranty does in fact exist.


- Jay

Glad to hear they stood behind their product and are taking care of you. Alot of times it seems we as consumers get lost in the shuffle and manufacturers wonder why people get feed up and stop using their products.

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