Disklavier

I know that several on the list have purchased DKVs out of state and have 
had very good luck with this.  Yamaha offers an excellent warranty so the 
basics are covered.

However, as a piano technician, I find this  a most distressing practice.  I 
honestly think you don't always get such a good deal.
Let's get real about a few things. It's all about money; and in a 
transaction where a buyer gets "a real deal", somebody in that chain is 
expected to pay more than their fair share.  I'm still shuddering over the 
poor piano technician who spent 10 hours PLUS installing the Quiet Time on a 
DKV.  Somehow, I doubt the technician made the same amount of money he or 
she would have made had they spent the same amount of time tuning pianos!

I have seen pianos "dumped" on out of state customers.  They often have 
cosmetic blemishes or problems that a local customer would continue to 
complain about until the problem was fixed.  THink about it.  If you were a 
piano dealer, you would always have some stock that for whatever reason is 
going to be hard to sell.  The dealer can either pay his tech to fix the 
problem, or save money and ship it out of state.  Or perhaps the dealer's 
forklift man accidently "dropped" the piano still in the packing crate - 
another good candidate to ship far, far away!

There are very few piano technicians who can properly service ANY of these 
hybrid pianos whether they are PianoDisc, Pianomation or Disklavier.  If you 
live in a large metropolitan area, these are probably the best paid 
technicians as well. These techs usually work out monetary arrangements with 
the local dealers that benefit both parties.  An out of state purchase is 
not part of this arrangement for either priority servicing or attractive 
service rates.

The biggest problem I see is that no local person has an investment in your 
satisfaction with your big ticket purchase.  Your local public school system 
sure didn't see a dime either because you avoided sales tax.  How satisfied 
would you be if some small little blemish bothered you (not covered under 
warranty) or some small, little irritating, intermittent noise (not covered 
under warranty)really bothered you?  Be prepared to pay a hefty hourly rate 
for such service up front and prepare yourself to negotiate a payment for 
such service from your out of state dealer.

I still find the Golden Rule applies to business - deal fairly and fairly 
you will be dealt with. If you bleed every last dollar out of a deal, you 
will have also bled every ounce of goodwill out it too!

Carol Beigel



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