Don’t get me wrong....a microwave in the kitchen and the wife glows like a 500watt bulb in a power cut! but my experience - although nearly 8 years old has taught me one of the oldest rules in the book - " Mehenga roye ek baar - satsa roye baar baar".
We got married in 1998 and it was a dream come true for us - going steady for nearly 10 years before that - a gala wedding and the works. Eternally grateful - we decided to thank our parents and thought that a microwave in each kitchen would be a boon to our respective moms and hence our dads ( or vice versa - moms in law and dads in law ). IFB was promoting electron as the entry level microwave and it was priced - I think - at Rs 7990 as opposed to all others being in the 12000 + bracket. Order - Wait the week - Delivered - TWO MICROWAVE OVENS !
Within six month to a year later - KAPUT ................................. both of them!!
We were too caught up in our work and lives to try and solve our mothers’ problems but when we did get to the sales agency they were none too helpful.
Finally with the calender turning to another year we got hold of an IFB engineer ( again I think it was ) he said something about the touch pad in one piece and the transformer in the other. Now we were at fault - having delayed in insisting but the problem had occured during the first year of service and the agency had noted our request for service in that period but we were told that we had to shell out a couple of thousands for getting both done up.
We thought it was money well spent if both get right - but that was not to be!
Currently my mom’s oven works but has no safety i.e. if we open the door while a cycle is on it still keeps going - mind you we have never tried to do that but that’s what the agencie’s serviice guy told us and with a four year old brat around the house we thnk we are better off not using it ! Even if it did work - there was no child lock feature.
As for my mom in law’s piece she has bought a Samsung last year after all the fireworks and the scary sounds that emanate from the IFB’s behind - maybe it’s the rich Punjabi food :-) ! she says.
All in all we were unhappy - twice over and IFB for us is a big big NO.
PS : If someone big at IFB reads this and has something to say - would love hear from them. I’m sure youv’e got better models - probably discontinued this one and service has improved and some of this mess would’ve been thanks to a delay on our side but - when all is said and done - more is said than done!