I had complained to BEV CSR's on a couple of occassions about the fact that the fan in my 5100 just stopped working totally within a month after getting the unit (November 2002).

BEV's response was that this was normal and not to worry about it......yeah right.

As a result, the hard drive whining noise had gone up considerably. I finally told them on June 26 that I want a replacement.......a brand new unit and not a refurb. (It still works fine, but I just want to make sure I get it replaced while still under warranty.)

They agreed and said one would be sent ot me with 5 to 10 days. Today (July 7) the courier guy arrives with a 3100 receiver (my wife was home to take the delivery).

Then an hour later I check my voicemail and the same CSR who had handled my case tells me that the 5100's are on "extreme" backorder and that they had sent me a 3100 "loaner" until a replacement 5100 arrives.

Man, I don't want another 3100. I already have 2-3100's, a 6000 and the 5100. I want a 5100!!

I will be phoning them back tomorrow to let them know that I will be sending them back their 3100, and I will really push the issue for them to upgrade me to a 5800, which are apparently more readily available.

I would even be willing to pay a small fee to get this upgrade.

Wish me luck, and I will keep you posted on what BEV does for me.

If they are planning on giving you a 5100 then you are getting a refurb as there are none left.

Kryspy

I insisted that it NOT be a refurb. I was told that it would not be, it would be a brand new one. I will hold them to that.

Refurbs are usually not that long on a "backorder" status........typically that would be for new units.

BEV is probably shuffling those few left around the country.

I did talk again to them today. The first CSR hung up on me. I was extremely polite, and told her I do not want to wait for an undetermined amount of time to get a 5100, however, I would be happy to take a more readily available 5800. SHe put me on hold to check and then disconnected me.

I called right back and got a guy who was much more helpful, and he took some time to check, but said the replacement 5100's should be arriving by either Friday or Monday.

I won't hold my breath.

I have sent them back the 3100 that they had sent to me.

If under warranty I would insist on a replacement right now. What do they care it is the same damn unit just twice the HD space bid deal.

Kryspy

If my replacement 5100 does not arrive by the middle of next week, or if it is a refurb and not a brand new unit, I most definitely will insist on a 5800, or I will cancel my $100.00+ subscription.

The math there would be simple.

In the end, I am confident that I will be satisifed.

I can sympathize with your situation. When I complained about my 5100 I was told that they would be happy to send me a refirbished unit for $100. I asked about a 5800 upgrade and I was told there was no such thing.
I went to 2 different Espace Bell outlets and got the same answers.
If you are able to get them to upgrade you to a 5800 I'd love to know your trick.

Good luck

Some independent retailers might give you a trade in allowance for the 5100 on a new 5800. Don't expect much for the 5100 though. New subscriber rebates knock the value out of used DTH receivers.

It's quite simple.

My solution:

Sold my 5100 on Ebay and bought a 5800 with the cash.

I too had a similar situation...

December 2002: Acitvated my 5100 reciever, the installer tells me there is something wrong. So I call it in and they told me to go to a Bell World store to get it tested. None of the Bell Worlds in my area do any testing (In fact no Bell Words due any testing). Since it was a minor problem (when I press any direction occationally it would keep going as if I pressed that direction 7-10 times on both remote and front panel).

April 2003: I was getting a whining sound. BEV sends me a replacement, but it was refurbished. There was (no joke) 11 ID stickers placed one on top of the other. I had asked for a new reciever, not the oldest 5100 they had. I figured I can live with this problem too. So I return the 5100 relic of a replacement reciever they gave me.

May 2003: Getting all sorts of problems. The signal would blink in and out, even though I'm get a solid signal when checking the signal strength. I had to call 5 times to get a replacement receiver. I called 10 business days after the replacement was ordered, but they told me it was in the mail. They said there was a back order for the 5100, but since the replacement 5100 is in the mail, they won't sending me a loaner for the time being.

June 2003: 10 days later a 3100 arrives. It was a loaner.

July 2003: Just 3 days ago (a month and a half after the order was placed for a replacement reciever) I get my replacement reciever (refurbished). Now everytime I try to record something or rewind live tv, it will stall for a minute. Then play for 3 seconds and stall again. I also loose regular TV and get nasty error messages. If I use it without using any PVR opions, then it functions fine.

I too spend $100+ per month on Bell ExpressVu. I am even a Bell Canada and Bell Sympatico customer. On top of that, I work for Bell Canada management!

Sorry Phil, I hate ExpressVu customer service too, but it won't get you a brand new reciever.

I just think it sucks that I have to go through this crap again, just to get another refurbished unit that may or may not work.

Latest Update!

I am getting the same"backordered" crap as in the beginning. I get the CSR telling me that it should not have taken this long, and they they put me as a "priority" on the list. I tell the CSR that is probably what they have told the others BEV Customer's who have been waiting for their replacement PVR's

I still push hard asking them to upgrade me to a more readily avaialble 5800.........heck, I even told them again that I would be willing to pay some kind of upgrade fee. The CSR says that they also do not have any 5800's available.

I am on the verge of cancelling my BEV account. This is absolutely ridiculous. To top it all off, BEV satellite transmissions have been so flaky the past couple of weeks. I have already recorded complete shows of just the "Lost Signal" error page.

No wonder the cable guys have pounced on this as a BEV weakness........it really is.

Hey Phil,

I too was a "priority" and I had to wait 4 weeks for a loaner and got my faulty replacement reciever 2 weeks later. My turnaround time from when the order was first placed was 6 weeks. I did get credited for the 4 weeks I was without a functional reciever and a bonus $25 credit for having to wait for a replacement.

I called today about my 5100 (got a 3100 loaner for 3 weeks now but 5 weeks broken ).
The guy said that they will repair mine or send me another one that was
fixed maybe yours :). He said to call back in 2 weeks. He mentionned
that there are not making new 5100 only refurbished. What would happen
next year? I think that the first 5100 that were always on in the start are
more subject to break and make noise.

I ask him if I could get a 5800 and that I was willing to give him $100
(more than $15-25 difference on a 40gig to 80 gig). I would even keep my
old remote (forgot to tell him that) to cut cost down. He put my suggestion
in there suggestion box.

What would you pay in exchange(if your 5100 is really broken) for a
brand new 5800?
$100, if less than 6 months old?
$150, if between 6-12 months old?
$200, if more than 12+ months old? (I could even live with that)

In two week, I will ask for a supervisor if I don't get one by then.
I paid a lot and now I'm a PVRholic %&$@ expressvu :). I will make
the demand/suggestion to him or ask for a programming credit.

Rumor or fact?. 2 different guy(compagny) told me that 7200? is on it's
way but they don't know much than that maybe it's the Dish 811.

Me, I will wait for a $400 HD box or a HD-PVR then get my HDTV.
No OTA HD near me.

Thank god I took the extend warranty!

Just got my 5100 replacement delivered today. Of course...........it is a refurb :evil:

I have not yet set it up, but will do so tomorrow. I will keep you posted of the results.

IrishDuke:
I too had the $100 figure in mind for them to upgrade me to a 5800.

When I proposed this (several times over several phone calls), I was told that the 5800's were also in short supply. So BEV MUST do something to rectify this shortage. I cannot imagine how many customers/potential customers they must have lost due to unavailable product (especially the 6000).

my first two 5100 replacements were refurbs that both lasted less than a month.

I complained so much much the third replacement was a new one. That was six months ago and it's still operating well. (knock on wood!)

A new 5800 probably costs BEV about $500. The cost to check and refurb a working 5100 is probably about $100. BEV can probably sell a used 5100 for about $200.This means it probably costs BEV about $400 to upgrade a 5100 to a 5800.

Used satellite receivers are not worth a lot these days, especially with next generation receivers due out real soon now. The best remedy you might have is in consumer protection laws. As a general rule, once an item has been repaired 3 times under warranty then it it should be replaced by a new item of equivalent value and functionality. If your 5100 has been repaired or replaced 3 times under warranty then you might have some recourse. I would start with the provincial or federal consumer protection agencies in your area.

Good point. But they could at least convert the 5100 to 5800 when the
HD gives a problem and charge for that. It's only software after all. How
many did it by themself with the 5100? They won't make 40gig for ever.

In sept. 2004, will be the last year of my warranty. I hope I will not have
problems by then.

I fired up the "new" 5100 last night, and so far it is whisper quiet (as it should be). Although the unit is a refurb, it is a much newer revision that what I had, and it is in good shape.

I guess BEV's left hand did not know what the right hand was doing though. When I called to activate it, the CSR said that the paperwork had not yet reached him (my refurb unit was not in their database).

As a result, my unit was not yet activated as of this morning. My guess is it will be once the regular shift gets in later. All my other BEV receivers were up and running withing minutes of my phone call.

Here's hoping that this unit will run smoothly for me.

That is another problem I ran into with refurbs. Sometimes the receiver is not deactivated properly or their is some other glitch in the paperwork and you must beg to have them activate it. :evil:

UPDATE!!
As of 8:30pm Atlantic Time, my replacement 5100 is still NOT activated. Just got off of the phone once again with a BEV CSR, and he said he "pushed" my programming through, and I should have my full service within 10 minutes to an hour...............

:evil: This is my first time posting but I've been reading for a while... I'm not going to go into great detail as it would take forever to explain it all. Well we bought a 5100 in Sept'02 and we are now waiting on our 6th YES! 6th (5800) receiver. You may be thinking "5800"?. Well let me tell you quickly, the first three receivers were 5100s and upon receiving the 3rd one my wife noticed that it was visably "USED" (refurbished). This pissed us off and we told them that we bought it "NEW" so we wanted a new replacement 5100. After a bunch of phone calls we demanded to talk to somone with the authority to make us happy. Two months later we received a 5800 in the mail. We were happy but confused as they told us that the 5100s were on backorder and they tried the old 3100 loner thing but we refused it and they told us that they couldn't give us a 5800 even if we paid extra for it. We since have found out that the 5800 was sent by mistake but now they have to honor it because of their screw up (WICKED!!!) but the fun only begins. The first 5800 had loads of hard drive problems (to much to list) so we called and they sent out another 7 days later and it was so screwed up we couldn't even get regular programing so now we're waiting on our 3rd 5800 (within a 2 week period)... so if you think the 5800s are better, they aren't!!! ha ha ha! it's just a joke now and our warranty is up in Sept'03 and we're screwed. Back to cable I guess?
I'll let you know how the 6th one works out. Take it easy!