Ecotech Vectra L2 repair strangeness

[MorReefs]

So for background I bought a Ecotech Vectra L2 pump a year and 8 months ago. Every two months I pull it out and do my maintenance on it, otherwise it sits in my sump and it pumps water to the tank. I dont have it on any schedules, I dont use it for feed mode, it functions like any other continuous pump. 4 months ago the pump gives up the ghost, and I send it in for repair to the vendor.

I knew it was out of manufacturer warranty but I wasnt too worried about repairs considering the pump was not even 2 years old. My best guess was something was wrong with the driver and maybe 100ish dollar bill plus shipping and we would be good to go. Now I get an email back from ecotech telling me my entire pump is too far damaged for any meaningful repair and its best to replace it. I dont need to worry about it since they also will give me 40% off a brand new one.

I have a 10 year old pond pump I got at petco for 75$ and it still works great! It is very curious why a premium product would die beyond repair less then two years from purchase. I am grateful for the discount provided by the vendor for replacement but I cant help but feeling like Im being "taken for a ride".

Has anyone else experienced this before from Ecotech? Does anyone else have a Vectra L2 that is still chuggin along? How long have you had it?

 

[RoanokeReef]

Its electronics, sometimes you get a good one and sometimes you don't. I doubt Ecotech is taking you for a ride but unfortunately, we are now a throw away society instead of a repair one and that's how things are produced. I have personally found DC pumps to not be close to the reliability as a good AC pump.

Edit - Forgot to answer your question, I still have an original L1 that I got for testing it before they came out, still working great.

 

[MorReefs]

I am a career IT man who started as a computer salesmen, well aware about our electronic's fickleness. It would seem a driver replacement would be the fix, (and maybe it is and that is the cost of the repair -waiting for itemized damages list) as the pump had functioned just fine prior. I should mention the issue it has is it starts up and tries to work then stop and reports a stall issue. It smells like a driver issue, it doesn't seem like a mechanical failure.

At the end of the day my pump is too far gone to use and I need to source it's replacement, this encounter has swayed me into considering perhaps they dont have a very good ROI, at least for the current models. I went with Ecotech because when I started the hobby they were something akin to the "gold standard". I see from my research into this subject that is not really the case anymore, which is unfortunate to see.

 

[RoanokeReef]

If you want gold standard I would take a look at Abyzz.

 

[Ufjd144]

If you still have the power supply, and you decide to get rid of it, would you be so kind and give it to me? I have a L2 also that recently burned up after many years of working. Truth be told, I sucked at cleaning it, actually I never cleaned it once in like 4 years. Recently we had a bunch of power outages and it ended up melting the controller and the power supply at the connection.