ComplaintsforDodge Company, Inc.

• Initial Complaint

  04/11/2022

  Complaint Type:

  Service or Repair Issues

  Status:

  Answered

  More info

  We wish to express our concern regarding the defective Ferno Mortuary Cots 24 MiniMAXX purchased from Dodge Company on November 2021. The Mortuary Cot was received back on Nov. 2021, and first time use started in the beginning of Dec. 2021. Soon after the first week of use, we encountered an incident were the cot legs did not collapse during our house call removal. The deceased weighted around 400 Lbs. After 30 minutes of trying to gain control of the mortuary cot with the deceased already loaded, we continually pushed the cot into the van with no luck. We raised the cot high, we tried to move the van to a better ground thinking that the pavement was not level. Even with all tries, the mortuary cot legs did not collapse into the van. We ended up collapsing both legs front and back, and lifted the cot which took 5 people to load it into the van. After thatincident, we contacted Dodge and which they sent the technician to inspect the mortuary cot (January 19, 2022). The technician **** found that the cot did not show any issues and serviced the cot meaning he greased the cot and losing some screws on both ends. From the time the cot was serviced, we use this cot around at least 80 times without having any issues at all. One month or so after the technician serviced the mortuary cot, we had another house call which the mortuary cot legs did not collapse no matter what we did. On this case, the deceased weighted around 250 lbs. We tried to test the cot once we arrived at the funeral home, with no weight at all and after 4 tries the mortuary cot legs finally collapsed into the van. We received several death calls during the same weekend and felt that the cot may have a defect depending of the weight of the deceased. However, during the same weekend at a facility, we had a case were deceased only weighted about 125 lbs. and the cot legs failed again to collapse into the van.

  Customer response

  04/21/2022

  I have not heard from the business in response to my complaint.

  Business response

  04/28/2022

  To Whom It May ********************************** is in response to BBB Complaint ID: ******************* filed by ******************************* of *******, **.
  
   
  
  The Dodge Company is a reseller of Ferno Mortuary Cots.  The customer was shipped the Ferno #** MiniMaxx Cot on November 2, 2021.
  
   
  
  When the customer made the initial call about an issue with their cot in mid-January, we followed protocol which is to inform *****, the certified repair company for Ferno cots, and they dispatched a technician to service the cot. 
  
   
  
  When ***** went out on the first call, they found no issues with the cot.   They have indicated that when the load wheels were not properly resting on the vehicle floor and bearing the weight, the legs would not collapse which is to be expected.  The load wheels need to be resting on the vehicle floor to work properly.
  
   
  
  The customer called back again on 2/21/22 to say they were having the same issue with their cot.  A technician from ***** was dispatched again.  The customer told the technician the cot had been used 80+ times since ***** inspected it in January on the first service call. The technician could not replicate the issue and stated that the cot is in working order per the manufacturers specifications.  Again, the technician noted that the wheels need to be properly resting on the vehicle floor to collapse the legs.
  
   
  
  At this point in time because the cot has been used many times and is deemed as working per manufacturers specifications, there is no replacement or exchange warranted.
  
   
  
  Cordially,
  
  ***************************

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