Arctic Spa Warranty Solution

[Rob in Mississauga]

Hi all. I have an Arctic Tundra just over 4 years old. I paid them an extra $1000 for a metal cabinet, maintainence free and beautiful.

However now there is corrosion on all 4 bottom corners, I have been offered a solution by Arctic Spas ( I won't get into how long it took or how many attempts for answers).

1) take $1000. and fix it myself.or,

2)Arctic will pick up the hot tub, sand it down and refinish it.

Has anyone else had their tub repaired like this? How did it turn out? The original finish is baked on like quality garden furniture would be. Can a new paint job work as well?

Please chime in with your thoughts, Arctic doesn't build spas with metal any longer because apparently it either doesn't sell or too many issues. For instance the doors rattle a little because the nylon machine screws used can't tighten down enough without snapping off at the head.

Currently four screws on 2 doors are silver metal screws and the rest of the tub has black nylon, come to think of it, it looks pretty amature.

Anyone want to buy a used hot tub?

[Pathfinder]

If they are offering you $1,000 back in cash not product take it. Who knows how long you're going to be without the tub while they try to fix it & it may not come back any better.

[hot_water]

Hi all. I have an Arctic Tundra just over 4 years old. I paid them an extra $1000 for a metal cabinet, maintainence free and beautiful.

However now there is corrosion on all 4 bottom corners, I have been offered a solution by Arctic Spas ( I won't get into how long it took or how many attempts for answers).

1) take $1000. and fix it myself.or,

2)Arctic will pick up the hot tub, sand it down and refinish it.

Has anyone else had their tub repaired like this? How did it turn out? The original finish is baked on like quality garden furniture would be. Can a new paint job work as well?

Please chime in with your thoughts, Arctic doesn't build spas with metal any longer because apparently it either doesn't sell or too many issues. For instance the doors rattle a little because the nylon machine screws used can't tighten down enough without snapping off at the head.

Currently four screws on 2 doors are silver metal screws and the rest of the tub has black nylon, come to think of it, it looks pretty amature.

Anyone want to buy a used hot tub?

Rob, I don't know what the Arctic cabinet is made of but I'm guessing that since it's showing corrosion it's probably sheet steel.

If so, I would think that you would need to repair the rust and refinish the cabinet just like you would refinish a car. And that's neither easy nor cheap. $1000 is not enough. If it's rusting, it wasn't done well to start with so a quick sand and repaint isn't going to fare much better. You need to clean everything to car-refinish standards (i.e., really clean, using a solvent like acryli-clean from PPG)) address the rust, then phosphoric acid etch, good self-etching primer or epoxy primer, light sanding, and finally spray a single stage urethane. Yikes.... not really practical unless you restore cars for a hobby and have all the gear and significant expertise you're going to need. Plus expect to pay about $500 or more for the chemicals, primers, paint, reducers, etc. And keep in mind that this stuff is not healthy... so you need an air-fed respirator. I have all this stuff, but normal, sane people don't.

Getting a decent finish on a large expanse of steel sheet is not likely using rattle cans, and the odds are the rust will re-appear after a short while.

All this is just a huge deal and none of it sounds too practical.

Since your spa is not that old, and the metal cab sounds like it was a bad design that has been abandoned, why not push Arctic to give you your $1000 back AND replace the metal cabinet with a standard one rather than stick you with a hack solution?

[noarctic]

Sounds like you've tried to resolve the situation "I won't get into how long it took or how many attempts for answers" and that you've been more than patient.

Have you gone to the BBB?

[Rob in Mississauga]

Sounds like you've tried to resolve the situation "I won't get into how long it took or how many attempts for answers" and that you've been more than patient.

Have you gone to the BBB?

No I haven't. Yet.

The most upsetting part is the lack of communication.Two trips to the store in Mississauga where we purchased the spa.The salesman I first talked to told us Arctic Spa was REPLACING these models when the corrosion problem arose.

The sales guy emailed the Customer service manager Jan.4 and I didn't get a reply until Jan 21 after I complained the service request to address 4 items was not completed as the service guy wasn't informed about them, he thought he was fixing a diverter.

Salesman in an email replied"I am off for a couple days, but please rest assured that I have our customer service manager is looking into this for you. I don't deal with service issues, but I did promise you that I would stay on top of it, so I am just letting you know that I am!

I will give you a call when I am back to work on Saturday and let you know what I have found out.

Take care,"

That's the last I heard from anyone.

So, I went back to the store.The original sales guy who sent the email to the" Service" Manager

is no longer there so new sales guy sends another email and/or he phones service manager who will for sure get back to me.

He doesn't.

So I phone service manager and leave a voice message and I DO get a call. From a secretary? who tells me they are waiting for parts.(2 months?)

Next day same lady phones and says they no longer make said parts therefore here are your options...as I described in original post.

Were they lying to me? Are they very confused? Is there no standard procedure for this service problem?

The Arctic Spa catalog I have in front of me states"(and this is very important as I based part of my decision to spend $14,000 on this)

"Performance and reliability are the Arctic Spas Customer Guarantee.If your spa cannot be repaired under our extensive warranty,Arctic Spas reserves the right to provide a repalcement spa equal in value to the original purchase price of the defective spa. Our philosophy guarantees your complete satisfaction."

I wouldn't need to slowly type this and air greivance out here except the Customer "service" manager has not had the time to speak to me in 2 1/2 months.

Thank you guys for replying to my original post, I trust a solution will be found that is reasonable. Word of mouth is the very best endorsement.

What would you do if you were in my shoes?