Big problems in Rio land

wasmewasntit said:

Since this is a direct replacement that allegedly had to be specially manufactured, the lack of full bracing just reinforces that the design is flawed. Even if this replacement is under another warranty, that warranty is not worth the paper that it is written on since Juwel made it quite clear that they had moved the goalposts to evade honouring it on the original aquarium. It wasn't til the retailer (who's reputation would cost more to lose than Juwel) got heavily involved that Juwel relented and replaced the aquarium.

At this stage I would bin the warranty along with the plastic bracing cos months down the line from now, the doubt will be there as to the strength of the bracing...and the mere fact that AquaBarb has to add their own silicone to it anyway to replicate how it should look, is tantamount to Juwel not giving a stuff about the safety of the aquarium design.

An aquarium this size needs appropriate glass bracing...for peace of mind if nothing else. The plastic has failed...not just on this aquarium but on others too....every time the stand is bumped by the vaccum cleaner, every time it gets bumped when doing aquarium maintenance...that seed of doubt will grow....will those plastic braces give way again...

Bin the plastic braces, replace with glass ones and then enjoy and relax with the aquarium knowing it will not give out on you.

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I can totally see where you are coming from but it just feels for such a big company to be doing it to be odd. Just think of all the braceless aquariums out there now on the freshwater side theres stuff like ADA, Evolution Aqua, Oase and the Aqua One ranges but then on the marine side there are loads of rimless/braceless tanks that go upto and beyond this size of tank. Maybe its something we don't know about? Thicker or stronger glass, or stronger silicone etc?

Wills said:

I can totally see where you are coming from but it just feels for such a big company to be doing it to be odd. Just think of all the braceless aquariums out there now on the freshwater side theres stuff like ADA, Evolution Aqua, Oase and the Aqua One ranges but then on the marine side there are loads of rimless/braceless tanks that go upto and beyond this size of tank. Maybe its something we don't know about? Thicker or stronger glass, or stronger silicone etc?

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I believe this aquarium is 10mm glass....mine is significantly smaller and is 12mm glass and glass braced (and mine cost a fraction of a Juwel too)

Tbh I believe that it is a manufacturing cost thing....build them cheaply, sell them for a decent profit and any that go wrong along the way is not a loss on the profit margin, they have manufacturered them so cheaply with cheaper materials that they have a large "write-off" margin. And like most big firms they never believe any threat of legal action is anything more than bluff (as I discovered when I threatened GoodYear Tyres with legal action over one of their HiQ tyre outlets...they fluffed me right til the day the county court order landed on their doormat...then paid me £5k plus costs and comp)

This specific bracing using plastic would probably be fine for 120 litre and under but even then I personally would not be 100% happy with that, especially when you consider the price these aquariums are being sold for...you pay to get the best, it should therefore be the best and not fall apart or threaten to within the warranty period like this one (and others) have done.

Juwel pushed the responsibility to the retailer who has far more to lose than Juwel has....too many aquariums failing will hit the profit margin of the retailer much harder than Juwel themselves who have, as I said above, engineered a fail rate into their profit margins anyway.

Firms like Juwel look after their own profit margins first and foremost....the retailer profit margin and reputation and customer do not matter to them one iota.

wasmewasntit said:

I believe this aquarium is 10mm glass....mine is significantly smaller and is 12mm glass and glass braced (and mine cost a fraction of a Juwel too)

Tbh I believe that it is a manufacturing cost thing....build them cheaply, sell them for a decent profit and any that go wrong along the way is not a loss on the profit margin, they have manufacturered them so cheaply with cheaper materials that they have a large "write-off" margin. And like most big firms they never believe any threat of legal action is anything more than bluff (as I discovered when I threatened GoodYear Tyres with legal action over one of their HiQ tyre outlets...they fluffed me right til the day the county court order landed on their doormat...then paid me £5k plus costs and comp)

This specific bracing using plastic would probably be fine for 120 litre and under but even then I personally would not be 100% happy with that, especially when you consider the price these aquariums are being sold for...you pay to get the best, it should therefore be the best and not fall apart or threaten to within the warranty period like this one (and others) have done.

Juwel pushed the responsibility to the retailer who has far more to lose than Juwel has....too many aquariums failing will hit the profit margin of the retailer much harder than Juwel themselves who have, as I said above, engineered a fail rate into their profit margins anyway.

Firms like Juwel look after their own profit margins first and foremost....the retailer profit margin and reputation and customer do not matter to them one iota.

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Ah ok I didn't realise that it was only 10mm glass... blimey! Most of the rimless tanks I mentioned are done out of 15mm.

Wills

Wills said:

Ah ok I didn't realise that it was only 10mm glass... blimey! Most of the rimless tanks I mentioned are done out of 15mm.

Wills

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In NZ, a 6x2x2 tank would be made from 10 mm glass with a 12mm base. Mine then has two 150mm wide cross braces holding it in place.

Wills said:

Ah ok I didn't realise that it was only 10mm glass... blimey! Most of the rimless tanks I mentioned are done out of 15mm.

Wills

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Juwel are more or less mass produced and it would not be economically viable to build the larger variants with more expensive glass or bracing since that would eat into their product profit margin and their product failure "write-off" margin.

Essentially Juwel can afford to have anything upto and possibly over 25% of their aquariums fail within the first 5 years. A fail rate of 25% is not going to hit them in the profit margins at all, whereas a 25% fail rate will severely damage a retailer - even the larger chain retailers will be wounded by that level of fail rating.

Warranties...on all items, not just aquariums...are rarely if ever worth the paper that they are written on. Foreign companies in the UK like Juwel must comply with UK warranty regulations (just as country has warranty regulations that every company must comply with). The wording on warranties is so loose, it is literally at the legal minimum and as a result that warranty can be shifted and still remain intact.......as an example British Telecom say they will pay £20 for extended downtime on their broadband, but in the tiny print, only if the problem exists over 30 consecutive days from day of reporting. Now we all know that it is unlikely that a fault will take over 30 days to sort out and that is what BT is banking on. A few years ago there was a huge furore over extended warranties issued by Currys for their big expensive appliances and TV's...again, they were worded to the minimum the UK law required but were very ambiguous and could be interpreted in many ways thus allowing Currys to dishonour claims at will.

You can use the credit card company, the bank or the loan company to fight on your behalf when things like this happen, but even then its rarely quick or easy going for the consumer. Generally a company will sit up and take notice if you threaten Small Claims Court....but not all will, there are some who are the bigger companies basically call your bluff, as GoodYear did to me and it cost them.

Sadly companies have a real problem with stepping up and admitting they got something wrong. At one time companies would always admit fault and correct things without a fight but not anymore...an example of that is Boeing...they used to be open and admit issues without needing to be pushed.....but as we saw with the B737MAX...it took several months and a congressional hearing for them to finally admit they got it wrong

Customer care and customer satisfaction are sadly things of the past where companies that have always enjoyed a heavy market share, they feel they do not need to prove themselves. Smaller companies, they do care and they do listen to their retailers and customers and they do take criticism on board and change things where neccessary.

Juwel will always be in profit, they do not need to worry about a few failed aquariums...its within that 25% fail rate "write-off" margin. They don't lose any sleep over it at all.

@AquaBarb sorry to be bearer or bad news I’m in a tank showroom now and checked a Juwel Rio 450 and it is siliconed in.

This is in wharf aquatics btw

Wills

wasmewasntit said:

Essentially Juwel can afford to have anything up to and possibly over 25% of their aquariums fail within the first 5 years. A fail rate of 25% is not going to hit them in the profit margins at all, whereas a 25% fail rate will severely damage a retailer - even the larger chain retailers will be wounded by that level of fail rating.

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I would be very upset if 25% of tanks failed within less than 10 years. So would Selleys, the company that makes the silicon we used. We had tanks last over 20 years and I can't think of any that ever got returned because they came apart. I would be upset if any of our tanks came apart before they were 20 years old, let alone 25% of them in 5 years. That's just nuts and bad business as far as I'm concerned.

Glass aquariums should be built properly because they hold water and life forms. And if the silicon fails or the glass breaks, it is extremely dangerous for anyone near the aquarium at that time. A piece of 10mm glass with 600 litres of water behind it can cut your leg off and you bleed to death in minutes. In fact any thickness of glass with water behind it can do serious damage that leads to loss of life or serious injury requiring a lengthy stay in hospital.

Colin_T said:

I would be very upset if 25% of tanks failed within less than 10 years. So would Selleys, the company that makes the silicon we used. We had tanks last over 20 years and I can't think of any that ever got returned because they came apart. I would be upset if any of our tanks came apart before they were 20 years old, let alone 25% of them in 5 years. That's just nuts and bad business as far as I'm concerned.

Glass aquariums should be built properly because they hold water and life forms. And if the silicon fails or the glass breaks, it is extremely dangerous for anyone near the aquarium at that time. A piece of 10mm glass with 600 litres of water behind it can cut your leg off and you bleed to death in minutes. In fact any thickness of glass with water behind it can do serious damage that leads to loss of life or serious injury requiring a lengthy stay in hospital.

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I agree entirely

Unfortunately the write off margin is far higher nowadays than its been in decades. There is a well known and documented "throwaway" ideal to manufactured items now and aquariums are falling into that ideal....along with equipment for those aquariums. Nothing lasts as long as it used to...whether it be an aquarium or a washing machine...everything manufactured has an "acceptable" fail rate and everything manufactured has a fail rate margin that is effectively written off by the manufacturer.

Only this year in the UK the government have started to force manufacturers to produce goods that will last longer than their warranty but not without a fight from those manufacturers who see their fail rated profit margin shrink if they have to manufacture better quality over quantity.

It is a very sad sign of the times that we have companies who are happy to use cheaper materials to build effectively poorly designed items to sell for the same amount of money as they were previously using better quality materials. They get a bigger profit margin using cheap materials and failures do not dent that margin like they would if made with more expensive materials.

It isn't until you really dig deeply into companies that you find out just exactly what they are actually doing and its really quite scary to see what they are prepared to do in order to preserve their place in the market, their profit margin and the percentage of failure they will turn a blind eye to til that failure rate starts to affect their profit margin.

The customer always ends up at the wrong end of that.....regardless of what the manufactured item is...whether it be a pair of socks, an aquarium or a passenger jet....there is always a high percentage of failure permitted that will not affect the profit margin....the "write-off" margin.

Wills said:

@AquaBarb sorry to be bearer or bad news I’m in a tank showroom now and checked a Juwel Rio 450 and it is siliconed in.

This is in wharf aquatics btw

Wills

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Thanks for taking the time to look Wills.

They are indeed normal siliconed because my 180 is and other members have checked their juwel tanks to find that correct also.

Just baffles me that the silicone can be missed of my first tank on the front braces then missed of both sides of the new tank they built me because of that issue

AquaBarb said:

Thanks for taking the time to look Wills.

They are indeed normal siliconed because my 180 is and other members have checked their juwel tanks to find that correct also.

Just baffles me that the silicone can be missed of my first tank on the front braces then missed of both sides of the new tank they built me because of that issue

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Just shows the level of care and lack of quality control

If they did actually care and their quality control was up to par, they would have made extra emphasis on ensuring that silicone was not just present but maybe increase it for extra security

Quality often drops in mass production....whilst the profit margin is not being affected, they do not feel the need to bother.

wasmewasntit said:

Just shows the level of care and lack of quality control

If they did actually care and their quality control was up to par, they would have made extra emphasis on ensuring that silicone was not just present but maybe increase it for extra security

Quality often drops in mass production....whilst the profit margin is not being affected, they do not feel the need to bother.

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Quality control is the big problem they have and need to sort quickly.

The tanks will last the lenght of time you should expect if this process is completed before the tanks are dispatched.

AquaBarb said:

Quality control is the big problem they have and need to sort quickly.

The tanks will last the lenght of time you should expect if this process is completed before the tanks are dispatched.

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The problem is that Juwel have a long standing good reputation, they don't feel the need to increase their quality control cos they know people will always buy their products thanks to their name and...yes...past reputation

They have dropped into the manufacturing catch 22

Forty five years or so of manufacturing aquariums, fantastic reputation gained over that time...so they can price their aquariums to reflect that 45 year old good reputation....but if you were to compare the build design and quality and materials from now to that of just 20 years ago let alone 45 years ago, there would be huge differences.

It's not just the cheaper materials used now but they are too complacent in their 45 year reputation on quality without actually living up to that 45 year reputation.

They don't charge the huge sums for their aquariums on the basis of the materials used to build them....they charge them on the back of their 45 years of manufacture and the reputation they enjoyed 20 to 45 years ago when they did use high end glass and did use high end ancilliaries like bracing made of glass.

They are cheating the consumer into thinking that they are one of the best...they have to be the best don't they...afterall they charge 3 or 4 times the amount than other manufacturers do

It matters not that they have over the years reduced the quality or materials used or the quality control process at the end of the assembly line......they have this massive reputation to fall back on don't they, they don't need to back it up with quality items do they?

wasmewasntit said:

Just shows the level of care and lack of quality control

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We would never send out a replacement item without checking it first. If a customer ever came in with a faulty product, we tested it then and there while they were watching. If it was faulty we got a new one off the shelf and tried it then and there, and if it worked, we gave it to the customer.

If we had a tank in a box, we would take it out of the box and check it completely before sending it out. Especially if it was a warranty replacement. Seriously, you want the customer to be happy with the product and sending them a new tank that isn't glued up, that's wrong. Even more so because the first tank wasn't glued properly.

That's just really shoddy workmanship and poor quality control as stated by @wasmewasntit

Colin_T said:

We would never send out a replacement item without checking it first. If a customer ever came in with a faulty product, we tested it then and there while they were watching. If it was faulty we got a new one off the shelf and tried it then and there, and if it worked, we gave it to the customer.

If we had a tank in a box, we would take it out of the box and check it completely before sending it out. Especially if it was a warranty replacement. Seriously, you want the customer to be happy with the product and sending them a new tank that isn't glued up, that's wrong. Even more so because the first tank wasn't glued properly.

That's just really shoddy workmanship and poor quality control as stated by @wasmewasntit

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Companies trade on the back of their name and their past reputation thesedays.....NOT the quality of the goods.

Times have changed since companies took pride in manufacturing a good quality product that could be depended upon for years and years.

There are very few companies who take pride in their products and how they are manufactured. The assembly line is now king, the more items produced on that assembly line the better, the faster they are boxed and out the door to retailers then more profit they make....and if a few hundred are below quality, thats OK, they have it written off anyway and it won't affect their profit margin.

@AquaBarb

Did the replacement come direct from Juwel or via the retailer?

If via the retailer, it would be interesting to know if they actually opened the box and checked for issues before they delivered it. Knowing the issue of the silicon and bracing existed, they SHOULD have checked to make sure that all was as it should be before loading it onto the van and delivering it to you....and they should have rejected the replacement themselves had they seen that the silicone is completely missing altogether this time around.

If the retailer just assumed the replacement was fine without opening the box....that is as bad as the manufacturing process cutting corners on quality control.