I did the mistake of buying a hitachi ac this summer and went ahead and bought a summer qc 518. When the ac was delivered it was in bad shape the sealed box was opened to reveal a dented and bent case. However the installation guy managed to straighten it out with a screw driver and install it. As per him the transportation from gujrat to other part of india is rough and they just throw the box around that causes this problem!
Amazing the hitachi allows the acs to be thrown around!
I guess it is because of this throwing around that there is a snag in my ac. This I realized once the installation guy was gone, once hte compressor shuts down there is a noise like something hits the body inside. It is not the compressor and it happens 8 out of 10 times. The times it does not happen is when the fan is running real slow just before the compressor shuts down.
Now I have been calling hitachi and trying to get it fixed and they have sent a technician 3 times. The technician are badly behaved and do not even listen to you, they will think that they fixed the problem and simply leave. They do not have the time to wait for the compressor to shut down to listed to the sound .
After making 15 to 20 complaints to hitachi I finally found out that they have a service center but the people that were coming were from a franchise. So now they will send someone from the noida service center. I have been waiting for that to happen for 5 days.
I figured out that since hitachi does not make anything else that can use the same ac technician they do not have many people on their payroll. So they outsource to the bullshit local guys that have no sense about any ac.
I mean I even called one of the best local guys around that I use to service my old carrier and samsung acs and he was honest, he said that this seems to have something to do with the fan motor and he will not be able to fix it.
So if you buy hitachi and something goes wrong with it then well, throw the ac and get a new one because hitachi does not have the people to service it. It is a pity as the product is good, the cooling is nice, the features are good. It is 5 star rated 1550 watts and its running cost is rs 1.50 lower then my carrier ac with 2 stars - 1870 watts. But the noise it makes, wakes up sometimes in the morning from sleep and well, I think I would have been better off buying a lower quality lg ac that would give me service and peace of mind. It may last less but there would have been no hassles.
In the end, until hitachi realizes and fires their service head in india nothing is going to change and no product is worth it, because sometime or the other it will have a snag and when that cannot be fixed then what use is the product?
Update in 2016
Hitachi has opened their own service center now in Noida, I think rest of India too.
Perhaps they realized that fantastic products and pathetic service= Pathetic Products.
However, nothing much has changed. They still suck. And here is how. I got a call from Hitachi in Dec to get a AMC done, I thought about it and decided to get one done.
Now here is what transpired after that-
20th March I lodged a complaint for a cooling issue and after a day the
technician that visited mentioned that it is a problem of leakage and the
cooling coil will need a replacement. Someone was supposed to pick the AC
and take it to the center once the coil was in stock.
After chasing for 5 days I was told that the coil is now in stock and
someone took the AC for changing it.
After a Day the AC was delivered without the coil being changed since
only a gas recharge had worked. I was very disappointed that they had
taken a week to just do a gas recharge. I asked for assurance that the
issue will not repeat and was told we will change the coil if it happens
again.
On 15th April, in less than a month I had the same issue of no cooling
and this time once more the same story. The AC was taken for coil change
and there was also an issue with the fan motor making a lot of noise.
I kept on following up and today I was told that the coil is not in stock
and will come in stock in a couple of days.
Today I was informed that the DC motor has been changed and the coil is
okay, they have just done a recharge of the gas.
This is unacceptable, just because I have an AMC with the cooling coil,
Hitachi is not changing the coil when gas has leaked 2 times in less than
a month!
This is unacceptable and unprofessional behavior from Hitachi.