Looks like my new Rio-car has it's problems keeping time & I will have to send it back to SB, when unplugged the time & date reset. I don't like having to do this considering they still haven't got back to me on where the rest of my order is (missing faceplate kit) after several emails to them w/no response. My player may get lost at SB and never get back to me I don't trust sending it to them.

Remember that the people who do repairs on your player are the Cambridge "empeg" team, the very people who you talk to here on this BBS.

The people handling the order fulfillment here in the US are a completely different group of people.

So if you send your player in for repair, you don't have anything to worry about. (I hope you contacted support for a repair rather than trying to talk to SonicBlue about an exchange, right?)

Aren't support and SB the same animal? I really thought that they were all the same thing now not seperate still.
No actually I haven't contacted them yet on this matter only the missing item matter and still no reply.

I had a problem with my backup unit I just received. I sent an email to carsupport@riohome.com and received a very quick reply from David Moss (Thanks David!). He hooked me up with with all the shipping info (customs documents, instructions, etc.) needed to send it back to the UK. They even paid the shipping charges! It just arrived there today, so hopefully I'll get it back next week sometime.... no rush though, since it's my backup.

I don't think you have anything to fear, since it probably won't be going through the 'normal' Rio corporate channels.

Good luck!

Aren't support and SB the same animal?

All car player support is all forwarded to the team in England. SonicBlue's main HQ, ordering, shipping, and customer service departments are in the US.

I really thought that they were all the same thing now not seperate still.

Yes, the team in England are part of the SonicBlue corporation. But as you know, in many big corporations, different departments can often have completely different ways of doing things. Your problems with the ordering and shipping part of things is handled by the US side of things. Repairs are handled by the team in England.

I think your reluctance to even call support with a problem says something about the way SonicBlue has been handling its first-level cusomer service.

I think your reluctance to even call support with a problem.....

Actually I have no problem calling support I've just been using their email channel that should work just as well shoudn't it?
Although reading some posts here sounds like you can't even get a hold of them via phone so I haven't tried that route.

Actually I have no problem calling support I've just been using their email channel that should work just as well shoudn't it?

Yes. Provided that you're calling the right number or using the right e-mail address, they should work just as well.

Although reading some posts here sounds like you can't even get a hold of them via phone so I haven't tried that route.

You're confusing US and England departments again. The people who can't get hold of anybody are not trying to call the English car player technical support team. They are trying to call the US customer service and sales center.

I'm trying to make this as clear as I can:

The people whose job it is to sell and deliver the car players are a completely different group of people than those whose job it is to do technical support and repair on those same players.

There is a clear difference between the customer service department and the technical support department. The former is the US operators who deal with things like shipments, credit card charges, and refunds. The latter is the Cambridge, England team which deals with repairing faulty players.

I will guarantee you that if you talk to someone in Cambridge about a problem, if it's within their power to do anything about it, they will handle it quickly, efficiently, and without trouble.

My point was that you were so worried about what would happen if you did call technical support, that you weren't sure if you should even pick up the phone at all. You feared that your call to technical support would encounter the same problems as your call to customer service did. I think this says something about the customer service department.

I've noticed this a few times ... what if emplode set the unit's time from the local machine, or even an NTP time server whenever it is synched?

Greg

Duly noted.

Please make this an option as my computer is a terrible time keeper as well as terrible everything else

Just a thank you for the info on sending my unit back, turns out itwas a faulty chip and they put my HDD drive into another Rio car. This all took just a week to do and now all is well. The unit keeps time and doesn't choke on 2.0b7 like the other one did.
Funny how they can fix and send back a unit within a week but I still can't get my faceplate kit I ordered over a month ago or even a reply as to what they plan on doing about it.

Funny how they can fix and send back a unit within a week but I still can't get my faceplate kit I ordered over a month ago or even a reply as to what they plan on doing about it.

Remember that the "they" who fixed your broken player was a different "they" than those who are responsible for tracking your US e-store orders.

The "they" who repaired your player are in England. The "they" who handle the e-store transactions are in the US.

Yes I do realize that it was more of a comparison of the two seperate yet same.