Samsung Vivace Any good?

[blastchiller7]

Hi guys first post so please be gentle with me!

We have a customer who has had an LG art cool unit fitted less than 6 months ago by company who have since gone bust! We were called in to help as they had a problem and found the comp to have failed and taken pcb out with it too. After a long chat about the options the customer would now like to scrap the LG (good choice!) and install a samsung vivace a/c system. (7KW) My company has never installed any samsung as its mainly daikin and mitsi elec so would welcome any form of help and guidence in terms of samsung especially any reliability problems.

Thanks in advance guys

[nike123]

In general, pretty much same as LG.

[The Viking]

I never liked Samsung stuff, but that's purely down to how hard it is to get technical backup for them......

(There is another thread going where someone is looking for a service manual for a Samsung unit. Yesterday I must have spent 1/2 an hour trying to find one on-line for him, without success)

[Thermatech]

The old 'installing company went bust' ploy.
This is often another way of saying that the installing a/c contractor was never paid for the job so they will not come back.
Proceed with caution if you require payment for the new installation.

[Pol]

Blastchiller,

Units are quite ok, I can't judge the technical support in the uk.

A lot of posts indeed ion this forum from people looking for service manuals; the vivace series tend to lose their option codes when power breaker is switched off. You can't restart them without inserting the option code again. About two minutes work using the remote controller, but shouldn't be.

I would ask to deliver the unit including the service manual, so you do not lose time on it.

Pol

[paul_h]

Yeah, the main fault with samsung is their stupid way of programming option codes. No other brand needs that, and I don't know why samsung think using generic chips is a good idea.
As far as quality, I don't rate samsung better than LG.
If samsung made better control logic that didn't need option codes almost every time the unit lost power, (including when some poor tech turns it off for a service), then they may rate higher.
Samsung a/cs have pretty much disapeared in australia, must of been losing too much money when they have to support their own products for a five year warranty. (here they have to hire their own contractors to support warranty, not make the installer do it. So it would have cost them heaps)

[nike123]

Who is first to have that stupid idea (who then follows rest of trade) to provide warranty of 5 years when manufacturer gives 1 or 2 year warranty for their product and 5 years parts support, and which is constructed to last 6-7 years without significant number of expected errors?

[paul_h]

Huh? I though I explained this before.

Email started the five year warranty here, and they contract service agents of their own, so manufacturer supplies parts and labour.
No installer has to worry about supplying free labour, the manufacturer supplies it all.
Fujitsu was two years warranty until 1997, then they made their units in the same factory as Email and increased their warranty to five years. And again, they opened their own offices, and contracted their own labour to honour that warranty.
Since then every "major" brand does the same thing here to complete, except daikin.
Daikin make the installers supply the five year warranty and don't bother getting their own agents (like european style).
And the cheap units have little to no contractors to support warranty, and only offer 1-2 years warranty.

But most of the major manufacturers offer five years full parts and labour that comes out of their pocket, they get stuck with finding a contractor willing to take on this work who they pay. And most new manufacturers (as samsung was when they statrted selling a/cs here 7-8 years ago) have to do the same thing in order to compete with the major brands. And my point was, it must of lost them too much money as the a/cs weren't that good.

[nike123]

Here, in Croatia, warranty is held by importers and not manufacturer and most of warranties that lasts more then 1 year is conditional. So in order to prolong your warranty, after that 1-st year, you need to have unit checked and serviced every year and pay some amount of many for that service.
That is how we create some jobs here.

[paul_h]

Here, in Croatia, warranty is held by importers and not manufacturer and most of warranties that lasts more then 1 year is conditional. So in order to prolong your warranty, after that 1-st year, you need to have unit checked and serviced every year and pay some amount of many for that service.
That is how we create some jobs here.

Well now you know why I got burnt out on domestic warranty support and used to have the odd rant, and why ozairman gets so annoyed sometimes.
The system here rewards the semi qualified who can install the most units cheap and quick, and punishes manufacturers and their service agents
That's also my draw card when I decided to work for myself. No one here is interested in fixing them, no one has bothered to learn. Every man and his dog just wants to install for big dollars, and they don't even have to care about the warranty, that's the manufacturers problem.

edit:
I worked hard to learn my stuff, and I fill a big niche that not many others can fill.
I remember in 1996, when I first started dealing with electronics and splits. Us three fridgies ran an entire air force base, fixing any coolrooms, freezer rooms, chiller units, massive AHUs, heaps of small plant. But when a split broke down, you just looked up the number of a service agent, we just didn't deal with those things.
Well it's pretty much the same today, the manufacturer supplies a 5 year warranty, after that they chuck it out, so most fridgies don't even bother learning how to repair them.
The only people who can repair domestic/commercial splits out here, are warranty service agents, and as they are few and far between and fully booked out, people have to wait 2 or more weeks even for COD out of waranty repairs. I'm hoping people start hearing about me, who can attend the next day

edit2: not just hoping au$440 yesterday for 4 hrs work, au$440 today for 4 hrs work. All up this week 11.5 hrs work (nice relaxing schedule, feels like a holiday ), au$1160 earnings after fuel, parts and advertising costs. Three jobs tommorow and 3 jobs on tuesday already (mon is a public holiday here)

[techie]

samsung are really good you nhardly have any comebacks

[nike123]

edit2: not just hoping au$440 yesterday for 4 hrs work, au$440 today for 4 hrs work. All up this week 11.5 hrs work (nice relaxing schedule, feels like a holiday ), au$1160 earnings after fuel, parts and advertising costs. Three jobs tommorow and 3 jobs on tuesday already (mon is a public holiday here)

That is nice quality of life! I am jealous now.

Tel me what is your advertising practice. Mine is none, and these few weeks that's affecting me a little (here, first two month in year are with least activity). But normally, my working day is around 10-12 hours

[The Viking]

Units are quite ok,

Interesting to know what you are basing that judgement on.........

the vivace series tend to lose their option codes when power breaker is switched off. You can't restart them without inserting the option code again.
Pol

In my books, any unit that needs that level of resetting after a power failure would be classed as "No Good"/"Not OK"......

[Pol]

Viking,
I used to work for the importer here, so have seen quite a few thousand units passing by. With a performant after sales service for the installer, installers were quite happy with the product.

I totally agree on the other hand that the option code problems in different wall mounted series put the product quality at a totally different level.

Pol