Posted by Tom on June 10, 1999 at 10:17:40:
In Reply to: Buying a Tuba: New vs. Used posted by Steve Marcus on June 10, 1999 at 06:30:35:
I agree with Sean - warranties are pretty much useless, marketing hype for the most part. More often than not, warranty repairs need to be made by the manufacturer (the distributor can't handle it and the dealer won't repair it unless he gets a guarantee from the distributor that it's covered under warranty) so the distrubutor ships the horn overseas to the manufacturer and you're without a horn for weeks and maybe even months. The consumer, in many cases, gets to pay for all that shipping. The distributor might offer to replace the horn if he has one in stock, but that's not very likely. Most defects will show up in the first year so if you find a good used horn from a dealer you trust I think you're better off going that way. Any manufacturing flaws should have been exposed by that time.