Good question, Cheese. It must be leap year!
I checked with all of the anguish of late and there are about 43,000 registered members on FOG. I have no idea how many customers Festool has in North America, but perhaps the forum is maybe 25% +/- of their customers?
I was guessing at the number of people that have posted problems with their Kapex or other Festool tools in the problems forum. My guess is that maybe about 100 or so members have had problems they've posted about with many other members joining in on the discussion with their experience. I don't have an absolute count, but that represents 100/43,000 members or about .002% of the total customers that might have posted. Now I didn't count all the members with problems, but just guessed. I could be off, but it seems like a pretty small number. And even smaller when you consider the number of tools that the membership collectively represents.
Most companies would kill for 99.998% reliability. I have a lot of Festool tools and have had very few problems with them. Most I would buy again but a couple I haven't found to be 'best in class' but it hasn't soured me toward the brand, just kept me open to other alternatives when shopping. When I have had problems, a post here or a call to Festool has taken care of the issue. The availability of spare parts for seven plus years, 3 year warranty, free shipping to and from, youtube videos, training in three training centers (for a fee) and even this forum are quite the 'safety net' that Festool provides to their owners and membership.
Looked at it beyond members and to the standpoint of forum activity, there are about 18,800 posts in the 'festool problems' forum out of 435,000 total posts on FOG from the footer on page 1. That's about 4% of the total. Much higher than my guess on members that have problems, but still the problem thread is about 1/2 the number of posts in the 'projects' forum here. I only wish people were more positive on the work and would allow Festool service to handle the problems!
Thankfully, we have Phil in the UK chasing down some of the issues he has been following on the Kapex thread and I'm sure the US team in Brent, Tyler, and Scott who are monitoring things regularly along with Peter and Seth keeping things on track. I don't envy the role they play and am forever thankful that we have such a class group of moderators and employee advocates. Far better than ANY other forum I get involved with from a civility and company support standpoint.
I know from experience with tools that spending a big sum on repairs after a tool fails is a big frustration. It can sour you toward a brand or company. I've never felt like a company owed me a free repair after several years of good use. But I also expect for the prices that we pay that the tool be accurate and functional with no issues. And the warranty seems to support that opportunity.
Fortunately, March Madness starts soon and Spring is in the air. Hopefully, we find time for making things and watching basketball and allowing the forum to settle down and trust that Festool will take care of the issues.
Now lets go make something!
Neil
