C= repair service?

[nikoniko]

Just trying to fill in a gap in my memory...

Did Commodore ever have its own repair service for ailing hardware? Seems like everyone I know either fixed their own or knew somebody local who had a ton of spare parts and great prices on repair.

Nintendo of Japan recently announced that they would stop repairing Famicom (more or less what many know as the NES), Super Famicom and some others as of October 31st. I had no idea they were still supporting those systems for all this time.

[airship]

Commodore had a dealer network, and individual dealers did the repair work. My local dealer is still in business, but he's moved on to building and PCs. He's still got all of his old Commodore technical manuals, repair parts, and diagnostic equipment, but he doesn't repair Commodore computers anymore. He just thinks of his stuff as 'collectibles'.

There were some dealers who would  advertise in the computer magazines and do work by mail. They usually had a flat 'bench fee' for just taking a look, with repair labor, parts, and shipping on top of that. Getting your computer fixed that way could cost you a fortune. But remember that the C64 cost $595 when it was introduced, so a $100 repair bill seemed pretty reasonable!

[Golan Klinger]

Commodore Canada did. They had a service department with repair rates that were, in most cases, lower than authorized repair shops/dealers and their repairs came with a warranty.

[Blacklord]

Commodore Canada did. They had a service department with repair rates that were, in most cases, lower than authorized repair shops/dealers and their repairs came with a warranty.

Commodore Australia didn't, they outsourced. But on the one time I needed the power supply of a PC20 repaired, they did locate the nearest authorised repairer to my home location.

I actually only ever needed to contact C= here three times in a 'private' capacity (also dealt with them multiple times in a business sense) & always found them fast, efficient & extremely helpful. Beats me why they were the first of all the C= companies to go under

Lance

[airship]

I forgot about this, but Commodore here in the States had an agreement with RCA to use their service centers. I just  pulled a card out of my 1520 plotter docs last week that had a list of the Commodore-authorized RCA Service Centers at the time.