Whelen Fail

[Lt.214]

Good luck with them actually making it easy to get them replaced, oh and they dont always replace items. A Deputy U.S. Marshal I know has been fighting with whelen to replace his CMHSL leds replaced for over two months. I guess there shippment of leds from china havent made it yet...

We have a 2010 Medic that had issues with the 700 and 900 series Whelen LED heads in the fall of 2011. After six of the heads that are on the box had section failures, WHelen customer service replaced ALL 17 of the 700 and 900 series heads on that unit.


So did Whelen have an issue? Yes.


Did they make it right? Yes


Was the unit off track for replacement of the heads? Yes and while the unit was down for a few hours for replacement of heads, it was simple and did not require days of being off track.


This was my experience with Whelens customer service, your experiences may differ.


Chris

 

[FireGuru]

Bulb replacements 0!!

 

[Lightbarnut]

Can't disagree there. You just need a model 12 on it instead of a 12X. Or you could line the mirrors up while the truck is still in service and then put them back original when the bar is removed eventually.

 

[ff168577]

Keep in mind, these are all off of the SAME ambulance that is less than a year old and there are about 10 more just like it. Everything circled is off multiple leds that are out, they are not off due to the pattern. What you see is all you get.

Regardless of their replacement policy, this is piss poor.

Gee here's an idea how about you contact the sales rep for your area for whelen, or who ever sold you the rig, and have them order you new lights. Once the lights come in, you swap them out, and they send them back to whelen, and get them exchaged, the rig only suffers minor down time, not extensive down time.

 

[kadetklapp]

Well of course, no product is perfect. There are always faulty bars out there, the question is how often they are faulty. Just because yours broke doesn't mean that the entire series is not necessarily better than say, STL LEDguy or Voltex.

And when you factor in Customer Service...


My point is, one bar proves absolutely nothing. In fact the only thing that one product can prove or disprove about an entire product line is a statement made about all products equally in the entire line, id est "these bars are infallible and will never ever break" which is a statement flawed in its conception.


Unless of course this is a rant post, in which case I do hope your situation.


And since it's two products that have had failures which I haven't heard many (or rather, anyone) complain about before, could it be an electrical problem with the vehicle?

What is the point of this thread? To take WHELEN down a notch?

Send the light heads back, get them fixed for free... or don't.


Then how about you do something about your problem. If a bar continually gets moisture in it, open it up! It's plastic lenses and gaskets with vent holes on the bottom of the endcaps. Something ain't sitting right. That's not even a problem, it's maintanence.

I don't see much a point of this topic. Every single manufacturer is going to have some of their products fail. Just send it in and get it fixed.

I bet I can find plenty of FedSig/Code 3/etc products that have shit the bed too.

Shit happens. Quit your bitching and either send the lights in to be replaced or don't buy Whelen.

This thread has no real point. No product in the universe is perfect and some will be defective. Nobody claimed Whelen or the other big names are flawless. Utilize their warranty and customer service and get over it.

Shit happens.

Did you send them back to Whelen for replacement?

Gee here's an idea how about you contact the sales rep for your area for whelen, or who ever sold you the rig, and have them order you new lights. Once the lights come in, you swap them out, and they send them back to whelen, and get them exchaged, the rig only suffers minor down time, not extensive down time.

Uh oh, someone dared call out whelen and their overpriced shiz. The fanboys have been angered.

 

[chono]

Uh oh, someone dared call out whelen and their overpriced shiz. The fanboys have been angered.

Actually I am a fan of FedSig.


Every company is not going to have 100 percent of their lights perfect. They must have just ordered these when a bad batch of LEDs came in. Whelen will fix these though as would any other company if it was their lights.

 

[Grotonems5]

When I pay top dollar for something I expect it to last. I use Whelen too, but If there was a laptop company that had the fail rate of Whelen lightheads they would go out of business pretty quick, despite offering "free replacement" of failed units.


In my opinion free replacement or repair is not an excuse for shotty products rolling off the assembly line. People want to buy something that is going to work and be reliable, especially safety equipment.


I cringe every time I see moisture in Whelen lights, especially mine!

 

[JohnMarcson]

I have been effected by the "bad batch" personally. My dealer sent a new light out and I simply sent mine back in that box.

 

[Sigma Safety]

When I pay top dollar for something I expect it to last. I use Whelen too, but If there was a laptop company that had the fail rate of Whelen lightheads they would go out of business pretty quick, despite offering "free replacement" of failed units....

Panasonic Toughbooks have a warranty failure rate of about 1.2%. I know that Gamber-Johnson, who makes docking stations for the CF31's, are less than that. I believe 0.8% is the percentage of docks that come back for warranty repairs.

 

[noob]

we have one liberty (approx 5 years old now) with some failing led heads. pretty sure its out of warranty by now!

 

[LED]

I see threads like this and just wonder. I've been using whelen for years as a fleet manager. I currently have 5 marked cars with Liberty's, TIR6's, 700 Super LED's, LAW's, and unmarked's with Talon's and Avengers. I've never had an issue, the biggest problem I have is 911ep traffic sticks and the dead pods. I wonder if they were improperly wired or what could cause such failure. Just my .02

 

[rwo978]

Garza... Do you happen to know the date code on those Liberty modules that crapped out? They weren't early 2009, were they? I just got 4 blue ones, all dated 4/09, that only 1/3 of the LEDs light up. I've never seen a single bad corner module go bad, except for yours.... much less 4 dated the same. Wondering if there was a bad batch or stretch of time with some QA issues.

 

[nluszcz]

Yes there was a period of time that all manufacturers had issues due to a bad shipment from a subcontractor overseas. Or so I've read here.

 

[NFD-102]

In a small department like ours putting a brand new unit out of service for something like Lights not working is just not going to happen. We will try to arrange for Whelen to send us replacement parts with out having to put our unit out of service lets see how good this customer service really is.

I live in Connecticut so Whelen is very close, but I know a lot of States they still have people that will actually fix your bar inhouse so that your truck is only out of service for the amount of time that he is there. This happened to a few of our 600 series LED lights on our new brush truck that was only about 2 years old. They came to the firehouse and did it all right there. I have never had a problem with there customer service. I don't think you can honestly compare them to STL or any of the chinese crap. I also heard that, not only whelen but all the other companies too got a bunch of bad LED's and thats why on some lights they are going out quick. I heard that from multiple people. Whelen is still a great company and still definetly in the top 3 out there. Code 3, Federal, and Whelen are pretty much the most reliable in the United States IMO.