Definitely true about hounding them hehe.

I'm getting a free Wii from Gamefly, but there were a couple hiccups...I wasn't notified on time about my prize, so I emailed them...after a couple emails, everything was fine, so I'm getting my Wii at the end of the month, but they gave me free GameFly service through October for my troubles.

Companies give out free stuff so they don't piss you off too much hehe.

Ok, well, I hounded them again today and this is what I got. First, the "it's repaired and on it's way to you" that I got Monday was false. Don't know how they managed that. The gentleman I talked to today, "Steve" was very polite and seemed quite knowledgeable. The first two techs I talked to in this process were just short of brain dead. The company line is 4-6 weeks but according to the tech I talked to today, they are taking about 7-10 business days to turn around. He said that anything that is sent out as a refurbish is getting the new heat sink as well as any other tweaks they have done to prevent the RROD in the future but that not every console is being refurbed. Some are still being repaired for their specific problem (i.e. a bad drive) and returned without going through the refurb process. We discussed the problem with mine (DVD drive stopped reading disks) and said that more than likely they will replace the drive and ship it back but it just depends on what is going on at the time my console makes it to the table so to speak. That means I'm likely not going to see the new heatsink added and/or any other RROD prevention measures installed.

I take from this conversation a number of things:

1st)They don't have a stockpile of refurbished consoles with the latest updates to ship out for quick turnaround. I think this is a tactical mistake on their part. They would make customers a lot happier.

2nd)It doesn't sound like EVERY unit will be fixed properly. In other words, fix only what is wrong and nothing more. Again, I think they should be sending back units with the new RROD fixes in the regardless of the reason they were sent in for warranty. This would limit, to a great degree, the number of units that come back a second time, third, or more.

3rd)If they haven't or don't execute well on points 1 and 2 above, they won't be removing the hardware failure stigma from the console and holiday/future sales will suffer. I realize it would cost more up front to do 1 and 2 above, but the long-term results would more than offset the up front costs.

4th)Since it doesn't appear they are going to do 1 and 2 above, and are still spot fixing, I wonder if they "fix" they have come up with for the RROD is a solid, long-term solution or is their current best hope that it is going to solve the issue but only time will tell.

I'll update again next week.