Warco vs Chester

Todays rant:

I have been considering buying a new Mill and looking at the Warco VMC and Chester 626 which seem to be the same.

So I emailed Warco and Chester as for a quote as I want DROs and Power feeds.. This was sent between the Xmas and New Year holidays so I did not expect an immediate reply.

Warco replied to my email on the 3rd Jan saying they had my message and were putting together a quote for me.

Chester no reply so I waited a week and still nothing so made a comment on their Facebook page. Someone called Andy replied with his email addy.

At the beginning of this week I got the quote from Warco plus immediate responses to subsequent questions.

I emailed Andy at Chester who them forwarded my email to a guy called Mark. His reply to my email was "Look at our website"

So, from my point of view Chester have painted a not particularly helpful start to what would be about a £3K spend.

You can guess where my money will go if I decide to go ahead.

A+ Warco

c- Chester

Edited By petro1head on 19/01/2017 15:39:47

Warco vs Chester...Showdown!

Seems like chester were K.O'ed before they even gave themselves a chance to impress you.

Another reason why I have yet to buy a single thing from them(chester), too much negative feedback, especially in the relations department.

The actual machines themselves seem to get decent enough reviews, it's just the process in between that which seems to be particularly messy and patchy.

You might as well import from abroad and get it much cheaper if you don't mind a bad buyer/seller relationship. I don't see what the point is in being a U.K supplier if the service is just as mediocre.

Michael W

Edited By Michael-w on 19/01/2017 16:13:36

When we moved back to the UK in 2015, I treated myself to a new mill. The Warco VMC fitted the bill and I went to the showroom to make my final decision. I also ordered a 3-axis DRO kit (which I had to fit) and an X-axis power feed. All that came to a gnat's under £2380, delivered. I haven't had a moment's problem with it - I'm delighted with the machine ( metric/R8 ), the delivery and back-up service. (I dare say the prices have gone up a bit, but not much.)

John

(Happy customer only)

Yes John just a bit £3500 with two power feeds and 3 axis dro

Coo! You must be getting the scales and dro factory fitted. Totting up the prices on their web site and using the "new" versions of the scales plus fitting yourself, would save you £500. You could buy a lifetime supply of end mills for that!

Have a look at my album on the installation of the scales to see how easy it is, if time consuming.

John

Sounds like a no-brainer to me.

Have always dealt with Warco not the other one and have always been very pleased with their service and the product they have supplied - no complaints other than the manual for the mill I bought from them which they had stocked and sold for 30 years or so apparently had a manual written in some form of Chinese-English which was just about incomprehensible and I wondered why, if they had been flogging them for so long, no-one there had bothered to write up a simple manual in proper English (Grizzly to the rescue).

Having said that, the queries I had on the mill they explained the answers very clearly and promptly over the phone and were most helpful, couldn't fault that at all.

Chris

I was a loyal Chester customer until I bought my last mill from them at Doncaster last year. I have a Chester 3 in 1 multiformer, a Chester DB11 lathe and a Chester Champion 20vs mill with DRO, stand, clamps, etc. As I mentioned last year I decided to buy a Super Lux milling machine with a 3 axis DRO fitted. That's when things started to go wrong. The day before the scheduled delivery I got a call saying they had to reschedule the delivery. OK, but when it was due to be delivered, I moved a load of equipment out of the workshop into the garden in anticipation of the delivery, only to wait in all day and no delivery, not even a call from Chester. I rang the next day and got a feeble excuse and an apology but we agreed another delivery date. The machine arrived but some items missing. Called again and they sent some of the missing items. The last items missing were the Z axis DRO cover and the Z axis gib locking screw, that had to be removed to fit the DRO scale. Rang again and was told they would be posted to me!!! After a week I called again to say they had not arrived and received another apology and another feeble excuse. Now months later nothing. For the sake of a simple locking screw and bracket they have lost a loyal customer. There customer service is not good but I have to admit the machines are good value for money.

Alan.

I reckon with both these suppliers that your location could well have a bearing on which machine.

If you are in a relative easy travelling distance to go badger them or procure items quickly then that would be advantageous. Theres little twixt the two machines themselves, maybe the Warco's being finished a tad better, but thats speculative.

I have the Chester 626 which I bought 2nd hand privately and Chester are only about 40 or so miles away which I found useful at first. If it had been badged the Warco I would still have bought it.

If I was buying new one it would be the Chester because of two things, their location and secondly colour. I have said it before, quite contraversionally in that I could not live with their green colour scheme.

But one thing is certain, I would definately buy another VMC as they are so versatile.

What i cannot understand between these two suppliers is why one of them has not taken the lead over the other in offering an " Off The Shelf " 100mm Riser for the column for those that need it, as making you own is time consuming.

Edited By MalcB on 19/01/2017 21:57:34

Edited By MalcB on 19/01/2017 21:58:04

By the same ruling Malc I couldn't live with white or cream in a workshop. It is a workshop after all and not a kitchen.

I recently bought a lathe from China from the Sieg Blue and white industrial range and had them paint it all blue to do away with the white. Same for a commercial router that the firm supplied in cream. Told them I only wanted it if it WASN'T in cream, they offered blue so i took it but would have taken any colour.

As regards the risers I can answer this quite easily. I have made 5 or 6 now [ trying to work my way down a eight foot bar of 6" steel ]

Not of them have had the same register and PCD. as it all depends on which factory they are sourced from. 3 of these have been Warco machines, 2 of them from Chester but all of differing ages.

In response to Petro1head and your initial post

My colleague Mark has shown me the emails he has sent to you yesterday and the first one was indeed very short and I understand your frustration in a poor response, But you have not mentioned that he also sent you another email shortly after with a full quotation for the 626 with DRO and Powerfeed fitted!

If you have not received this we would be happy to re-send to you!

As to any other complaints etc:

We are currently in the process of setting up a Customer Care Department at Chester to hopefully resolve these issues before they escalate, so if anybody would like to raise a complaint you are invited to email directly to [email protected] this will go to a chap called Andrew Clarke, he will then be responsible for finding a full resolution to your complaint and making certain that you are kept informed of exactly what has happened and what will happen to resolve.

I hope from this will offer some comfort to those people who have had issue with our service, that we are actively trying to make our customer care work properly!

And as always you are more than welcome to contact myself directly with any other questions or concerns.

Kind regards,

Tony

Having never personally dealt with either company ; my opinion may be of no relevance ... but I am very pleased to see Tony's post.

Ketan has led the way, by actively engaging with this community, and it's good to see another supplier 'on board'.

MichaelG.

In response.

Yes he did send another email which simply stated what's available on your web site. 626 with DRO and Power feed £2516.81

However does this actually answer my ignition enquiry. I wanted a 626 with 3 axis DRO, does your website specify how many axis the dro covers?. I also wanted power feeds to as many axis as possible, again does your website actually specify how many axis the power feed is fitted to?

Like I say I had to be tenacious to get any sort of response from Chester and then, knowing my frustration, all they could be bothered to do was quote the web site. I could have done that but wanted specifics.

Warco on the other hand did not just point me to a website but actually went out of their way to put together a personal quotation for me.

So, to be honest, I gave up with Chester as I decided that if they could not be bother to spend 10 mins putting a personal quotation together then what chance of any service would I get if I purchased from them and then had problems.

The first point of contact with any business is so important and that paves the way and if you get a poor response you move on to the next supplier.

Warco vs Chester

Many years ago I bought a 220 lathe new from Warco with most of the accessories. Made sense at the time as it offered Myford capacity at a fraction of the cost. Over the years, the topslide feednut has worn out, so I emailed Warco regarding the availability of spares. Not just once, but about 5 times over the space of 4 years (at the time I had the use of other lathes, so not urgent). Not one single reply to any email, not even the expected 'sorry, but we don't carry spares for this machine any more'.

When the time came to expand and buy a mill, I compared the pricing from Warco and Chester, and went for the Chester Super Lux. Machine turned up exactly as specified, when expected and was positioned in the workshop in 10 mins by the truck driver. This was 5 years ago, and no fault has been found so far, even so much as the tram was within limits straight out of the box. This machine has not been used lightly either, for about 6 months it was being used for 8 hours a day.

I'd still look at the pricing from both companies in future, but those are my experiences.

Having just looked at Chester's web-page for this Mill ... **LINK**

http://www.chesterhobbystore.com/626-turret-mill-3999-p.asp

I can appreciate petro1head's frustration ... There is not enough information there to form a reasonable basis for a purchasing decision.

Adding a link to a PDF of the user manual would be an excellent start, and would [hopefully] answer many 'potential customer' questions.

MichaelG.

Thanks Michael, my point exactly

Hi Michael,

As we have manuals for the majority of our machines on our own forum, making a link from the each machine description page shouldn't be too much of a stretch, I will get our IT people on it.

Thank you for the suggestion.

Kind regards,

Tony

Though you don't have to be mastermind to simply add up the cost of the basic mill plus DRO and a power feed from the accesories shown at the bottom of Michael's link to see you are getting a small discount for mill + 2 axis DRO + One power feed for the £2500. Also the same as what's shown in the photo.

J

I guess everyone is entitled to their opinion and in my case I make no exception...

I can sympathise with the op and the experience he has had with both vendors.

All I can say is I've had nothing but good service from Chester, Tony is a credit to the company when it comes to service and its good to hear that some effort is being made to resolve aby future issues that may arise. Nice one Tony!

It is all too easy to write about the poor service us as paying customers receive or not as the case may be, but seldom do we praise vendors for the good that they do do.....

Usual disclaimer: no connection in any shape or form just a satisfied customer and I'm not that easily satisfied, before there are any further comments!

I bought a VMC from Warco about 7 years ago. The quotation, purchase and delivery experience could not be faulted. My only issue was a failure of the electrical box housing the on/off and reverse switch. This appeared to be made of recycled plastic with the consistency of a crumbly mature cheddar cheese. It was replaced under warranty no questions asked. I see from newer images that teh design of this has changed, so shouldn't be an issue for new purchasers. Never had any dealings with the C company.

I bought my VMC from Warco as well. The whole process went smoothly and the delivery guy (Dave) was extremely helpful and wheeled it straight into my workshop and dropped it exactly where I wanted it. I damaged the switch box on my mill as well during a later house move. I replaced it with a cast alloy box.