Everlast 250EX dead out of box.

[dutch-master]

Longtime lurker first time poster.

Backstory: I'm in the military, and am a hobbyist who weld mostly MIG. I was looking to get into TIG welding. I did some research and settled on the Everlast PowerTig 250EX. I ordered the unit online and had it sent to my parents house, as I was on a course in another part of the country. I return from course, have a few days break and get sent on back to back training exercises. Come back, set up the machine but cant get get Argon, thanks covid. Then I get deployed for 6 months. So, a year and a half later I get to try this thing out.

I set it up, cooler, proper coolant, brand new argon bottle. HF and lift start dont work in either AC or DC Tig. Literally, the only reasons I bought the unit.

Triple checked everything. All the settings, electrodes, flow, point gap, wiring, power, 99.9999999% sure it not me. I e-mail support(Mike) and he was fairly quick to respond. I even think he worked past their support hours with me. He verifies my settings and has me test things, I make little videos, nothing seems to help. On the upside the stick function works, just as well as my 200$ Cambodian Tire unit. After a day of back and forth he says he will contact their admin department to get an RMA. 2 days later they send me an e-mail to send it back for testing/diagnotics. So, I get to sent my ESSENTIALLY BRAND NEW welder back to Everlast, at my expense.

I get that its not an extremely expensive welder, but it definitely wasn't cheap. With the Everlast cart, welder and cooler and argon tank I'm easily in over 3 grand. If I knew this would be the case I'd have bought a similar big name used unit. At least it would have worked at some point. I probably should have tried to borrow a bottle off somebody and tested the thing, butI honestly didnt expect a BRAND NEW WELDER TO BE DEFECTIVE. I would not have been home in time for their 30 day return window anyway.

Moral of the story, test your welder immediately or they wont take it back after 30 days. Oh and for some reason the Canadian Everlast warranty is only 3 years instead of 5 years.

[robert-r]

There are several Everlast facebook groups: https://www.facebook.com/groups/Everlastwelders & https://www.facebook.com/groups/1512906382087894 that are directly monitored by Everlast. The owner of Everlast frequently comments. Join them and post your feelings. You may receive some love.

[lugweld]

FWIW, the unit was bought in July of 2019, according to Canada where he bought it from. It's a unit nearing the end of the warranty period. It's not new, even if its been in the box. Regardless of the unfortunate circumstances that brought this on, the OP is slightly misleading in the title. Everlast Canada is working on it with the customer and it isn't dead out of the box as posted. There seems to be a malfunction of some sort, but the unit is working, just not correctly.

Things can happen due to disuse. And that is one reason that other companies like Miller start the warranty ticking (technically that is what they claim, so Caveat Emptor) at the dealerships if the unit isn't sold within a period of time. Even they seem subject to storage issues where relays and solenoids can stick up.

Everlast USA has offered to help with shipping expenses on return to the customer after repair and additionally where they can in this situation.

To be fair to the post and provide a balanced view, the OP didn't test out or use the unit for 2.5 years into a 3 year warranty since he got the unit due to being shipped overseas, and claims covid kept him from welding for another long period of time. I don't know about what the exact delay of the situation was up there, but around here, we had plenty of Argon to go around and the stores were able to deliver and sell gas even at the height. If he had it shipped, I would have gotten someone to test it while I was away. It isn't an insignificant investment, and where there is a will, there is a way to get it done imho. Definitely the shipping out overseas caused a bobble in the normal routine that would have covered the customer IF there was something wrong at the outset.

And the warranty for each country is posted on each countries site. Canada isn't the USA, nor is the distribution or the geography and infrastructure. There are differences and reasons that different warranty periods exists. But the post and title does grab attention doesn't it?

[lugweld]

If this is the same customer, I believe this customer's issue was found to be a wire that had popped off the HF board during shipping and HF start would not activate. The connector was reseated and it worked.