"Best of all, Ryobi backs this blower with a 3 year warranty so rest easy this blower is guaranteed to perform."
Well here we are less than 6 months after the purchase and the blower no longer works at all (after being used a mere 5-6 times in total). I contact Ryobi customer support first, which they make extremely difficult to begin with. Their online customer support is useless, and after waiting on the phone for an hour got a customer service representative that walked me through "trouble shooting" steps. After it still didn't work her answer was "Talk to Home Depot."
Home Depot said they only take items back for 30 days, and after that is up to the manufacturer to honor their warranty. Well after contacting Ryobi again they told me I would have to take it to the WALLINGFORD Home Depot (which is an hour away from my home) despite having purchased it in EAST HAVEN, to see if they could "fix it" I spoke to Home Depot who told me I would have to "pay for the repairs."
I have pretty much accepted that I lost $199.99 to Home Depot and Ryobi, two massive companies who are taking advantage of consumers. I even proposed returning it for a store credit to buy a better brand/model and Home Depot said no... and that I need to speak with Ryobi and they "might give me something."
About a year ago, I received a Ryobi Tough Tunes jobsite radio & battery charger as a gift. I was glad that I had received it, as I have several Ryobi power tools and several 18V lithium ion rechargeable batteries that fit into it either to power it or to charge in it. For the past year I had used it almost exclusively in my backyard to listen to Pandora Radio through the aux plug.
A few weeks ago, I turned it on and found that the sound coming out of it was all muffled. I started to troubleshoot it, and since the FM radio on it sounded fine, had determined that the problem was isolated to the aux port. I examined the aux jack and found that due to underengineering of the right angle plug, the wire had become slightly separated from the plug after a year of normal once a week use. Not being the kind of guy to try and rush to warranty an item before making an honest attempt at a simple repair, I found a set of stereo headphones that use the same 3.
5mm plug, and cut off what I thought was a defective plug from the radio, then spliced the plug from the headphones in its place. My repair did not remedy the symptom, so I knew then that I would have to warranty the item.
I called Ryobi and a nice gentleman assisted me. I explained the entire situation to him and he told me not to worry, because Ryobi backs all of their items with a 3 year warranty, and that all I had to do was bring the defective item to the tool rental counter of my closest Home Depot, and they would run a check on the serial # (since I did not have a receipt), and so long as the serial # confirmed that the item was manufactured within the last 3 years, they would repair or replace the item.
I put the radio in my truck and a few days later after work, I took a ride over to HD and stood at the tool rental counter for at least 20 minutes while the guy behind the counter figured out what to do (he had never done that procedure before and needed help from another associate to show him what to do). He assured me that I would hear from the HD or the repair shop within 10 days or so with the result of the serial # check and item inspection. Only a few days later, I received a call from a woman at the same HD store. She said that contrary to what the Ryobi rep had told me, Ryobi had informed her that they would not honor the warranty unless I could provide a written sales receipt. Needless to say, I was aggravated, but figured that it was a just some sort of misunderstanding and that I'd call Ryobi and they would straighten it all out.
I called Ryobi and this time got a woman that I believe was truly trying to help me. She sounded surprised that the HD was claiming that Ryobi would not honor the warranty and offered to speak to the store. While trying to conference the store, our call got dropped, so i had to call into Ryobi again, hoping to get the same person so that i wouldn't have to explain the entire situation over. Of couse, I got a different woman this time who bluntly informed me that she would not help me and that I was S.O.L. without a sales receipt. Naturally, I was plain pissed off at this point after being told one thing by two separate reps, then wasting my time bringing the unit to the store, and then being coldly denied by another rep. After some stern words between the two of us, I had her transfer my call to a supposed supervisor who did not answer. I left her a voicemail message. When she returned my call, naturally, she said that she couldn't help me without the sales receipt. I told her that the truth was more like she WOULDN'T help me because all Ryobi had to do was what the other 2 reps told me they would do and verify that the unit was manufactured within the past 3 years in order to confirm that it was still under warranty. She refused, claiming that Ryobi "stands by their products", but not without a written sales receipt (as if anyone saves receipts for 3 years). I furiously told her that she was a liar, because using something as trivial as that to weasel a way out of backing a warranty is the furthest thing from standing by your product. My logic fell on deaf ears, I was given the and I will never purchase another Ryobi product again, nor will I spend so much as a nickel in a Home Depot store another day in my life. Lowes, Sears, Ace, True Value, here I come.
DON'T BUY RYOBI AND DON'T SHOP AT THE HOME DEPOT!!!
Ryobi Reviews
In August of last year I purchased a leaf blower from Home Depot in East Haven Connecticut. The blower is listed right here
http://www.homedepot.com/p/Ryobi-185-mph-510-CFM-Gas-Backpack-Blower-RY08420A/203312654
"Best of all, Ryobi backs this blower with a 3 year warranty so rest easy this blower is guaranteed to perform."
Well here we are less than 6 months after the purchase and the blower no longer works at all (after being used a mere 5-6 times in total). I contact Ryobi customer support first, which they make extremely difficult to begin with. Their online customer support is useless, and after waiting on the phone for an hour got a customer service representative that walked me through "trouble shooting" steps. After it still didn't work her answer was "Talk to Home Depot."
Home Depot said they only take items back for 30 days, and after that is up to the manufacturer to honor their warranty. Well after contacting Ryobi again they told me I would have to take it to the WALLINGFORD Home Depot (which is an hour away from my home) despite having purchased it in EAST HAVEN, to see if they could "fix it" I spoke to Home Depot who told me I would have to "pay for the repairs."
I have pretty much accepted that I lost $199.99 to Home Depot and Ryobi, two massive companies who are taking advantage of consumers. I even proposed returning it for a store credit to buy a better brand/model and Home Depot said no... and that I need to speak with Ryobi and they "might give me something."
About a year ago, I received a Ryobi Tough Tunes jobsite radio & battery charger as a gift. I was glad that I had received it, as I have several Ryobi power tools and several 18V lithium ion rechargeable batteries that fit into it either to power it or to charge in it. For the past year I had used it almost exclusively in my backyard to listen to Pandora Radio through the aux plug.
A few weeks ago, I turned it on and found that the sound coming out of it was all muffled. I started to troubleshoot it, and since the FM radio on it sounded fine, had determined that the problem was isolated to the aux port. I examined the aux jack and found that due to underengineering of the right angle plug, the wire had become slightly separated from the plug after a year of normal once a week use. Not being the kind of guy to try and rush to warranty an item before making an honest attempt at a simple repair, I found a set of stereo headphones that use the same 3.
5mm plug, and cut off what I thought was a defective plug from the radio, then spliced the plug from the headphones in its place. My repair did not remedy the symptom, so I knew then that I would have to warranty the item.
I called Ryobi and a nice gentleman assisted me. I explained the entire situation to him and he told me not to worry, because Ryobi backs all of their items with a 3 year warranty, and that all I had to do was bring the defective item to the tool rental counter of my closest Home Depot, and they would run a check on the serial # (since I did not have a receipt), and so long as the serial # confirmed that the item was manufactured within the last 3 years, they would repair or replace the item.
I put the radio in my truck and a few days later after work, I took a ride over to HD and stood at the tool rental counter for at least 20 minutes while the guy behind the counter figured out what to do (he had never done that procedure before and needed help from another associate to show him what to do). He assured me that I would hear from the HD or the repair shop within 10 days or so with the result of the serial # check and item inspection. Only a few days later, I received a call from a woman at the same HD store. She said that contrary to what the Ryobi rep had told me, Ryobi had informed her that they would not honor the warranty unless I could provide a written sales receipt. Needless to say, I was aggravated, but figured that it was a just some sort of misunderstanding and that I'd call Ryobi and they would straighten it all out.
I called Ryobi and this time got a woman that I believe was truly trying to help me. She sounded surprised that the HD was claiming that Ryobi would not honor the warranty and offered to speak to the store. While trying to conference the store, our call got dropped, so i had to call into Ryobi again, hoping to get the same person so that i wouldn't have to explain the entire situation over. Of couse, I got a different woman this time who bluntly informed me that she would not help me and that I was S.O.L. without a sales receipt. Naturally, I was plain pissed off at this point after being told one thing by two separate reps, then wasting my time bringing the unit to the store, and then being coldly denied by another rep. After some stern words between the two of us, I had her transfer my call to a supposed supervisor who did not answer. I left her a voicemail message. When she returned my call, naturally, she said that she couldn't help me without the sales receipt. I told her that the truth was more like she WOULDN'T help me because all Ryobi had to do was what the other 2 reps told me they would do and verify that the unit was manufactured within the past 3 years in order to confirm that it was still under warranty. She refused, claiming that Ryobi "stands by their products", but not without a written sales receipt (as if anyone saves receipts for 3 years). I furiously told her that she was a liar, because using something as trivial as that to weasel a way out of backing a warranty is the furthest thing from standing by your product. My logic fell on deaf ears, I was given the and I will never purchase another Ryobi product again, nor will I spend so much as a nickel in a Home Depot store another day in my life. Lowes, Sears, Ace, True Value, here I come.
DON'T BUY RYOBI AND DON'T SHOP AT THE HOME DEPOT!!!