So I thought I would share my little adventure with my x55 I embarked on recently. Full disclosure, I love my x55, its worked like a dream for the most part with only one real issue I ran into (before this) with the VEAO Hawk. Otherwise I love the stick, and would recommend it to anyone. That said, let me take you on my journey of hardware loss.
Stage 1: Denial
It was a nice quiet evening, the little one was fully engaged with her iPad, the wife was fully engaged with… err wife stuff… I don’t exactly remember, but apparently she wasn’t bugging me. You might think that meant I was knee deep in DCS World, but no, I have an problem, the problem is War Thunder gives me bonuses each consecutive day that you log in… so I must not forget to login (currently I am at day 100 something)! I generally play with the tanks, but this night I was taking my old Lancaster out for a bombing run. I love bombing. I sit back, launch the game… and my bomber begins to climb… and climb… strange. I cant stop it from climbing. Stupid WT must have messed up my controls again. Dammit… so I drop to the menu, check controls. They are fine.
SO now the plot thickens… my, just under year old, x55 isn’t responding, well the guns do, the POV switches, the throttle, everything is good. But not the X & Y axis. What the heck… its not broken though, my stuff never breaks, its always those guys on the forums breaking their stuff, it couldn’t happen to me!
I exit out to windows, I run through the usual gauntlet of troubleshooting that my many many years of simming has instilled in me… still, nothing. I uninstall, I take apart, I clean, I change USB ports, I mutter bad words quietly under my breath, but none of the usual stuff seems to work. Damn.
Stage 2: Anger
I couldn’t believe it, I have never had a stick die on me, this thing isn’t even a year old. I tell myself there were no signs of it, but I know there were, the stick slowly had issues staying centered. It was getting worse. I scoured the Mad Catz website looking for the magical fix. Nothing… Argh! I know what I must do now, something no man is willing to do without a fight. I have to ask Tech Support for answers. June 13th the initial email goes out. June 14th, I get the auto reply. June 15th, 16th, 17th… nothing… Finally June 18th an answer!. I wont post the answer here, instead you can go read all the things I already did, that’s what they asked me to do. I do them again… argh… of course they don’t work.
Stage 3: Bargaining
I send back a reply later that night, none of that worked. I try to make sure they know, I am ready, I have my trusty tool box right here, tell me what to rip apart, or splice, or hit with a wrench. I can fix it! Next day. “Attached is your RMA” Man, that’s no fun… Grab a box, some bubble wrap and off to the post office I go. I Make sure to get a tracking number, and I eagerly watch to make sure it delivers. July 3rd, delivery. Now I wait.
Stage 4: Depression
July 4th, 5th, 6th… It delivered, I know it delivered. But not a peep. Feels like its been years since I had my x55, now I am relegated to my old Thrustmaster. July 7th I send out another email, did you get it? What’s up, please confirm that you got it. July 8th, the response is, can we have your tracking number… ugh, what does that mean, did they lose it? I wait some more… July 9th. I get a message from someone else. “We have placed an order for your x55, currently the items is back ordered but we should be getting a shipment in a couple of weeks”
Stage 5: Acceptance
I have come to terms with the whole ordeal, the support has been decent, I mean its pretty canned responses, but I expect that for the most part anyways. They didnt put up a fight, of course the stick wouldn’t show any signs of abuse. The last time I tried to abuse a controller is punching a Microsoft FFB steering wheel… which really hurt, so I don’t do that anymore. So I wait.
July 31, didn’t they say two weeks? What the heck! I send off a new email. Any update on this? Its been over two weeks! (ok barely… I might have jumped to acceptance too soon!).
August 5th, Sitting down at Red Robin for the step daughters birthday dinner, wife gets a text from her son. A box has arrived for me, its on my chair. Finally, it’s arrived. I set it up, noting all the dust on my poor x55 throttle compared to the shiny clean stick and get her fired up. I feel complete again. Back in the DCS Me 109K-4… feels good to be back.
Conclusion
All in all, it was a pretty good experience from support. Looking back on it now, it really wasn’t that long, and might have been shorter had the stick not been back ordered. Reflecting on it, I saw early warning signs I probably just decided to ignore or accept as normal. The stick didn’t hold center very well, now I had been flying the DCS Me 109K-4 a ton, so if you are familiar with that bird, a centered stick doesn’t do you much as you are holding it slightly forward anyways. When I did calibrate, it would be fine for that use, but then go back to the off center position. I should have opened a ticket then, even just to have a paper trail (do they have a new term for paper trail when there is no paper?) on it.
I really do love the stick, I am glad to have it back, and still am happy that I got it. Even after this small hiccup.
Morale of the story… dont accept anything short of how its supposed to work! This worked out as it was still under warranty, but it might have held out longer (past the warranty period) and I would have been screwed. This time it worked out well.
