Hi List. I serviced a two-year-old Wurlitzer G153 yesterday. The woman bought it in Kansas, and recently moved to the Tampa Bay area in Florida. Her warranty card says to contact Baldwin Customer Service in one moves from the area of purchase regarding any warranty claims. The warranty is 10 years for parts and the labor required to install the part (or at least that is what we decided it said). My question is what constitutes a warranty claim. 1) Certainly her two rattling bass strings should be replaced - parts and labor covered - right? 2) What about two bass notes where the partials are not even close. One is unable to tune the bicord unisons beatless. Would that be covered by a warranty? 3) When you depress key A1, the dampers for A1 AND G#1 raise. I have not yet taken the action out. I can see the cause of this ranging from minor (too wide a key end felt) to majorish (key needs to be replaced because of warp or bad alignment problem with damper flanges, etc.). Again, whether it be minor or major, I generally charge for my services, and it seems to me this should be a warranty item. Would this likely be covered by warranty (unless of course, a small christmas ornament is found stuck in there!)? 4) FALSE BEATS in tenor, treble, and hi treble GALORE! I'm talking starting at A3 - wa, wa, wa, wa, wa. I tried to tune A4 to a fork - HA! No idea where I set pitch. I'm not talking a slight lack of clarity. I'm taliking about while tuning, forgetting that the piano has mega problems, and constantly checking to make sure you have your mutes in because it sounds exactly like you have two strings open and they are tuned several cents apart! - But no! This amazing sound comes from one string alone! I worked on a few - just pressing down on string with brass rod on bridge you could watch the string go down a few tenths of a mm - but it generally did not help much - I don't know if it has loose bridge pins or what - just that it sounds terrible. Would pathetic conditions like these be covered in some way under a warranty. 5) Hammers falling off. Warranty? I don't work on many new pianos, so I don't know what is normally covered under warranties. Is Roger out there??????? He has likely seen one of these! Terry Farrell Piano Tuning & Service Tampa, Florida mfarrel2@tampabay.rr.com
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