[KSagal]

Lily,

I believe you are a better example than you think, but it depends on what you want to be an example of...

My point was that while it is clearly very inconvenient for some people to get their segways repairs, according to the stories here, it is not as common as some would make it seem.

I fully believe Jeff and all that he has said, but I suspect that his 12.5% example is not reflective of the entire segway population.

I have been to the factory, and have personally seen the repair area and facility. Now, I will not represent myself as currently knowledgeable of Segway Inc, nor even current of the repair facility or procedures. I was last there several years ago.

But I did go the factory several times over several years, ending a few years ago. (I have not been there for at least 3 or 4 years).

Every time I went to the factory, there were just a few people in the service department, and just a few work stations. I will not say there were 2 or 4 people, but I did meet a technician one time who told me the other tech is 'so and so', making me think there were two at that point. Another visit I spent some time there, and saw only 3 or 4 work benches, but do not know how many people used them, or if there were benches for specific faults, or specific technicians, or what...

All this goes to say that I concur with other posts that indicate the service department is very small at segway corporate.

This is a two fold observation. Clearly some who post here feel there should be more people in service, on the presumption that more people will result in less time for service of any particular machine. That may be so.

The other side of that coin however, is that if there are just 2, or 4, or 6 technicians working on the repair of segways, that indicates that not too many come in for repair as a percentage of the total segway population.

This does not make it more pleasant if your machine fails and needs to be repaired under the system that some here have explained, but it does also mean that the likelihood of this happening to you is also lessened.

Previous examples of other service items, copiers, cars, etc are bad examples, because every car that is on the road requires service to continue running. Every copier requires regular maintenance to continue running. These maintenance requirements are built in. On top of all that, there are also failures of these units. But the service systems are in existence because of the the former, not the latter.

Many segways that have been sold have never been in for service. I do not know how many have been sold, nor how many have been serviced. I do not pretend to know. But it just does not seem to me that 12% all those sold could have come back for service and been serviced by just 2, or 4, or even 6 people. Maybe those numbers are accurate, but I do not think anyone here really knows, and out of context suggestions may not be as accurate as some may feel.

Don't get me wrong. There is a problem in service. I agree. I just do not think it is as big a problem for the segway society as some whom have been thru this ringer may feel it is. On the individual basis, if your segway breaks, you may be in for an unhappy time. But just owning a segway does not automatically put you in this unhappy group.

At least this is how I see it.