Aurora Pen Factory Repair Service

[aawhite]

I sent my Aurora Optima to Italy for repairs. It came back after 4 months fully repaired (never had a problem since), at no cost and with complimentary bottles of Aurora blue and black inks. During that time, I did send them a handful of emails (in English) to which they replied with some delay, but replied nonetheless.

Edited July 31, 2013 by aawhite

[fabri00]

Be carefull when you send pens through shops, as sometime they ship late, because they want to collect several pens to ship at once.

I allways shipped directly to the company, aurora in this case.

[warblerick]

Be carefull when you send pens through shops, as sometime they ship late, because they want to collect several pens to ship at once.

I allways shipped directly to the company, aurora in this case.

Good point. I hadn't thought of that.

[TomJKT]

After 1,5 months, the Italian post office sent my Aurora for repair just back to me. I have no idea, why this happened, since I used the address specified on Aurora's website. Since it has been sitting at the post office in Italy for quite a while, I sent all documents to Aurora to get the pen from the post office (no custom duty to pay for). Obviously they did not do so or did not succeed trying. Though I did not get any update from Aurora about this. Now I emailed them to inform about the new status and received an out of the office message: "Sarò fuori ufficio fino al 26 agosto. I will be out of office until August 26th. Grazie,..."

So maybe you should refrain from shipping anything to them until end of August.

Oh dear...will try my luck again then.

 

 

 

 

Edited August 6, 2013 by TomJKT

[Ghost Plane]

August is the traditional month of holidays, so I'd wait until September.

 

Thank you for toning down the offensive commentary. We didn't want to lose the useful information, but things were skating close to a shut down.

[Raskolnikov]

I confirm that. I went to an authorized dealer I trust and he told me that the pen won't be inspected before the end of August anyway.

[abstract49]

Interesting exchange, many remarks as there are. I have an Aurora Afrika fp sitting here on my desk, in need of piston/barrel repair. I haven't sent it yet for several reasons, but mainly because I had 2 Viscontis in need of repair at the same time and elected to send them first. One (Black Divina) came back in a reasonable time, nicely done and working well; the other (Divine Proportion) is still in Italy while the whole factory is shut down for August holiday. I sent the Viscontis through Cole's of London since the Visconti website does not have any provision for sending pens for repair. So, I've been wondering whether to send the Afrika to the retailer for her to ship or to send directly to Aurora.

 

I think this exchange has decided me to to send directly to Aurora and just hope it doesn't take more than 4 to 6 months to get it back.

 

Any other or newer advice?

[paolino_paperino]

I have a good experience with the Aurora service. It took them a couple of weeks to repair my Talentum - it had dropped on a concrete floor - and send it back to me. The price was very reasonable too.

[abstract49]

Just revisiting this site after checking about 2 other brand's repair services. I've had a Pelikan M400 repaired (Chartpak - pretty good service) and a Visconti Divine Proportion repaired (Cole's of London - Cole's is pretty good about responding to inquiries and keeping things moving along, but Visconti factory is bloody slow) since I last looked here. Now I need to have my Afrika fp repaired, and I am wondering if dealing with Aurora is worth the hassle.

 

Here's the thing for me: It's a simple problem, and I think I could do it myself if I knew what the best glue would be. Piston mechanism came loose from the top of the barrel, It looks like I should only have to smooth the surfaces, removing old glue, apply new glue, and reinsert mechanism into barrel. Any experience, good or bad, with this? What glue should be used?

 

Many thanks!

[Chi Town]

I sent my Aurora Optima to Italy for repairs. It came back after 4 months fully repaired (never had a problem since), at no cost and with complimentary bottles of Aurora blue and black inks. During that time, I did send them a handful of emails (in English) to which they replied with some delay, but replied nonetheless.

 

May I ask where you got their e-mail address? They have my pen since Nov 22, 2013 and I would like to contact them.

 

Best Regards,

Mike

[RitchieMac]

This post would give a rough time frame for repair at the Aurora factory:

 

https://www.fountainpennetwork.com/forum/index.php/topic/200792-aurora-service-my-experience/

 

 

My experience: Sent my pen (Aurora Optima) off in Sep 2013, received pen in Dec 2013 - so 3 months.

 

Once my pen was there, all my emails were not replied. Maybe I did not have the right email address. There was no acknowledgement of the receipt of my pen.

 

However the pen did eventually come back after a few anxious months. What a relief! It would help if their communication is a bit better.

[Chi Town]

Just revisiting this site after checking about 2 other brand's repair services. I've had a Pelikan M400 repaired (Chartpak - pretty good service) and a Visconti Divine Proportion repaired (Cole's of London - Cole's is pretty good about responding to inquiries and keeping things moving along, but Visconti factory is bloody slow) since I last looked here. Now I need to have my Afrika fp repaired, and I am wondering if dealing with Aurora is worth the hassle.

 

Here's the thing for me: It's a simple problem, and I think I could do it myself if I knew what the best glue would be. Piston mechanism came loose from the top of the barrel, It looks like I should only have to smooth the surfaces, removing old glue, apply new glue, and reinsert mechanism into barrel. Any experience, good or bad, with this? What glue should be used?

 

Many thanks!

 

Aurora has my Afrika 525 F/P since around 11/22/13.......Now I cannot say that this is a hassle as my pen was badly damaged. It was broken in 1/2.... The section snapped in 1/2 and part of it was stuck in the barrel and the nib was stuck in the cap! I don't know when I'll get her back?

[aawhite]

 

May I ask where you got their e-mail address? They have my pen since Nov 22, 2013 and I would like to contact them.

 

Best Regards,

Mike

I used the contact address in their web site. Do not expect a quick reply.

 

If they have your pen, they will acknowledge it.

Edited January 16, 2014 by aawhite

[abstract49]

Sometime after writing in November, I sent my Afrika to Kenro Industries in NY state. I first went to their site and filled out a repair request form, got a case number, etc., then shipped it to them. No acknowledgment to date of their receipt, but I trust that I can follow up from the case number if it starts to seem too long. But, if I've learned anything about fountain pen repair, it is that no factory or affiliate is fast.

[ipinkgirl]

I finally have a story for this thread. I had previously read over this thread and heeded the warnings about sending the pen to Kenro/Aurora before August. So I contacted Kenro and let them know I would be sending the pen to them in September to be shipped to Aurora for repair. The pen was shipped out from Kenro the last week of September and I just got the call from them today that my pen arrived back in the states and they would be sending it back to me and I should have it by Friday. I did end up having to pay an additional $25 for the repair (replacement parts from Aurora), but that's a quick enough turn around in my book. Six weeks isn't that bad.

[Calabria]

 

Likely.

But we can test it: try asking me two questions

 

(and after you'll tell me where are you from so that we'll manly compare our stereotypes, italians are believed to have them bigger - the stereotypes of course )

 

Back in topic... it's months now I have to send an Aurora to assistance (a 2001 LE demonstrator) cause it has a tiny, almost invisibile crack - it formed "out of the blue" too, while sitting in a drawer - which annoys me a bit. I think I'll go later on this week, will keep this thread updated and see if I get the same problematic outcome.

 

By the way, I consider that paranormal delay you described totally unacceptable and reason enough never to buy again from someone. If that happened to me, I'd have stopped being polite after some time I think. For how I see it, after 3 weeks (which incidentally is the longest time I've ever waited for assistance with Montegrappa or Visconti - the rest I wouldn't know) there's a problem.

I'll add that after sale service is to me a very important part of the product itself (one day Visconti replaced a damaged HS cap I had in ...less than one day, I had brought it by person at the HQ itself ... but I never do it as it embarasses me, feels like overruling official queues).

[Calabria]

I had cracking problems with the Optima Demo. Cracks developed in the cap, and THEN the replacement broke clean in two while resting in a drawer.

 

I talked to the Kenro salesperson, but of course he denied there were any problems. Glad I'm not the only one experiencing problems.