Can't do this one by bike [damerell]

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I've got a bit of a problem. I've got two CRT monitors which don't quite work. I've been recommended Repairtech, who will do them for about 70 quid plus parts, but they're just South of Warwick. However, while they will courier them back to me, they won't courier them away from me, because they feel that all couriers are useless bastards and will just drop them (they package them for the return journey). It seems, therefore, like it's time for my annual car journey...

Therefore I'm hoping, rather optimistically, that I have a friend who fancies a 170-mile round trip by car some morning in return for petrol and some kind of feeding. The gotcha - they're not open at the weekends.

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There are 25 comments on this entry. (Reply.)

Where are you? I work in London and live in Coventry and own a car, so it would be daft if I couldn't help.

Feltham - circa 20 miles West of London - but their opening hours might be a problem if you're on a regular 9-5 M-F job, no?

I'll be very grateful if we can sort something out...

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I don't know - you didn't tell me what their opening hours are.

If you ask Emp nicely it may be that I am able to get them to Cov and he is able to get them to repairtech. He's more flexible than me. ;-) But I'm not allowed to volunteer him for things, you'd have to ask him yourself.

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0900-1700. :-(

I'll see if Emp spots this tale of woe independently. :-)

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Just out of interest, why do you want two CRT monitors fixed? Some hippy not-throwing-things-away streak, or something else I'm missing?

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Well, I can pay about 100 quid to have a 21" CRT which is very good for everything I want to do on my computer fixed, or I can pay 200 quid for a smaller LCD that will have the usual refresh time issues for gaming, blur non-native resolutions, get dead pixels... or I can pay 300 quid for a widescreen LCD which will have the same screen area less usefully arranged for my purposes etc.

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And 21" monitors are generally not pinched in the event of a break in by any other than the most muscley thieves.

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As mentioned earlier I can do it, but I don't have any free weekends until mid-May at the earliest.

What about sending them via courier yourself?

Ah read post properly. I could do it Friday/Monday, but would need plenty of notice to request holiday from work.

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I believe their supposition that couriers are useless bastards who will drop unpackaged tubes is likely to be correct.

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So how do they get it bacck to you then?

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A big box and lots of foam packaging.

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Hmmm.... So why can't you do that to send it? I'm sure you could get it insured for a reasonable amount.

Also have you thought of asking

battlekitty/Aden whether they have any spare monitors they want to get rid of?

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Because I don't have a big box, let alone the liquid setting foam equipment. I could scrounge up boxes and chunks of solid foam from computer shops if any of them sold monitors anymore.

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liquid setting foam eqipment> *need*

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Bubblewrap.

Lots of bubblewrap.

It's possibly to mostly courier-proof packages, but I can see why they wouldn't want to expect customers to have the packaging materials or the know-how to do it.

Also, on the return trip they'll have reliable record of the unit's condition to beat the courier's insurer with.

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Also, would something like http://www.taxi-vans.com/ be worth investigating?

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As per IRC, I could potentially drive down on a Sunday, and spend the evening with fiends near you, and then pick you + tubes up on Monday post-rush-hour, and drive back to Warwickshire. I can then drop you at railway station of choice (which may prove to be Coventry).

I'll speak said fiends about my proposed date, and get back to you.

Where I used to work a male and female courier with a white van delivered a package. When they'd gone I noticed the package was not meant to be delivered to us, so I called the courier company and they said they'd be back to collect it.

They came back, picked it up, went outside, and threw the package from about 10 meters away from the white van. You could see from the arc it was travelling in that it would have hit the front of the inside wall of the van about 80% up.

Never trust couriers with anything breakable at all.

Mmm. Why there is not room in the market for _even one_ more expensive but competent courier I do not understand. I would gladly pay double what I normally do for couriers for someone who doesn't stuff cards in letterboxes and run away quickly.

[Best incident of that I had - "yes, the driver definitely dropped a card" "well, it's not there now, and I've been in all day" "he definitely remembers leaving it" "could you ask him to describe our letterbox, please?" *pause* "someone else will drop it by this afternoon".]

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Recently I had urgently needed a power supply unit delivered for a server that had gone down. So I used City Link. They guarenteed before 9 (or was it 12?) delivery. As far as I we can tell they didn't deliver it at all that day, people worked in the room next to the front door and were there all day and didn't see them. They said they'd left a card (which of course they hadn't).

The next day people weren't always in the front room but were in the building. At the end of the day and many calls they were sure they had delivered it. Then the people at the address next door came over to say that the parcel had been delivered to them!

On another occasion (again City Link) I sent a Power Mac. As I'm sure you're aware these are big strong metal things. When it arrived the bottom part had been damaged so badly that the metal had broken in two. I honestly don't see how you could damage it that badly without doing something like dropping it from the roof of a building.

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I should add that after 4 months City Link agreed to pay the value of the Mac. I'm not sure why it took 4 months because I immediately sent them all the information they wanted and AFAICT they just sat on it for 4 months then sent me a cheque.

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I think I'd have started looking up small claims court rules somewhat before 4 months had elapsed...

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Quick sanity check: these are really nice CRTs, yeah?

For anything less than giant multi-megapixel monitors you'd do better buying replacements off eBay — especially now so many people have decided they prefer TFTs.

That's an interesting suggestion. I'm extremely fond of the Viewsonic short-footprint 19" - it fits into absurdly small spaces - but the iiyama 21" is nothing special. It looks about even-stevens between repair and eBay for one of that size.

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April