Tunze being sued over powerhead flow rate study.

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without looking at all the info uve posted aku...they are over rating their powerheads correct? By how much?
 
Whether they under-rated them or over rated them, I still love them and would continue to buy them. I was always impressed with the flow pattern they produced. I had two of the tunze turbelle streams (1600 gph and 1850 gph) and one of the nano streams and was pleased with them all. I look at flow ratings as just a "general idea" of flow they will produce and don't consider what is displayed in their specifications as "gospel". If I think I need more flow, I buy a bigger model or add another one...Simple. Still can't beat the quality and honestly as a consumer I've never felt "cheated" by them over rating their pumps. I'd still go out and buy another today. I hope they don't get screwed in this lawsuit. I want them to stick around even with their numbers being a bit off. :)
 
hmmm idk never owned a tunze....im more of a korillia guy. I have 5 lol!
Will do aku! :ranger:
 
krish said:
Whether they under-rated them or over rated them, I still love them and would continue to buy them. I was always impressed with the flow pattern they produced. I had two of the tunze turbelle streams (1600 gph and 1850 gph) and one of the nano streams and was pleased with them all. I look at flow ratings as just a "general idea" of flow they will produce and don't consider what is displayed in their specifications as "gospel". If I think I need more flow, I buy a bigger model or add another one...Simple. Still can't beat the quality and honestly as a consumer I've never felt "cheated" by them over rating their pumps. I'd still go out and buy another today. I hope they don't get screwed in this lawsuit. I want them to stick around even with their numbers being a bit off. :)
Click to expand...

Krish I've never owned Tunze anything, but here are the key points in my mind.

Why I don't want to see Tunze get sued.

o that was not the point of the study
o there was not a standardized way to measure gph at the time of development.
o I don't want to see costs increase.
o Frivolous law suits could lead to fear preventing the release of future studies.

Why I think Tunze needs to get slapped across the face....

o I don't care how you measured it or calculated it (Bag method,blow through etc) there is NO excuse for a 63% negative difference between advertised and actual rate.
o Own up don't come up with a bull**** video that lacked even fixed instruments (Hand Held). You are a multi million dollar company.
o You don't charge 30$ fees to provide a Recall kit to bring the pumps up to the rates you advertised them at. That move right there will cause the courts to look at this case legitimately.
 
That's crazy they are charging a $30 recall kit! Almost like General Motors recalling a bad part in one of their cars and wants you to pay for it under warranty LOL!
 
Yeah I think that will be the straw that breaks the back right there. It is serious business in Germany after all...
 
Yup!! Guess we will have to see what happens. Pretty surprised their is a lawsuit though. Would have never thought it would go that far because I mean before the test was done, no-one really had anything bad to say about Tunze's besides they could get a bit pricey. I've never heard anyone say they didn't produce the flow they expected so this came as a shock. It is probably more on the grounds of people feeling cheated a bit. They pay big bucks for a Tunze to find out that they have Koralia's out their for half the price putting out more flow LOL!
 
Well you have to remember that corporate law firms scour the web for reports like this and launch official inquiries which is what this is now. The next step will become a class action lawsuit or if they felt compelled could push for criminal charges under corporate law. The huge deal is not a single one of there pumps was better than 46% below advertised rates....then 50 something and 60 something below.....

So yeah not good for Tunze and remember this is only the US side. There is no double jeopardy if Germany decides to also persue this in the home land. Related is that Tunze USA is a LLC...but the Home office Tunze is not....
 
I've got 4 Tunze 6105's, and 3 Tunze 6000's for my tanks. Overall, I'm happy with both performance, and customer service the few times I've needed it.

Am I dissappointed that they dont perform as advertised? Yeah.

Am I going to the throw them away because they dont perform as advertised? No

Is Tunze's response of selling upgrade kits for $30.00 appropriate? Not in my opinion.

Is this worthy of a lawsuit? Absolutely not.

Let the market place decide how to handle this. I happily paid more money for my Tunze's than for a set of Korallia's because of their reputation for quality and the fact that they moved just as much water as their competitors.

Now, it turns out that the competitors are less expensive, and move more water...well, that changes things abit.

I would bet that Tunze ends up having to adjust their prices over this, or if they're unable to do to the cost of manufacturing and monetary exchange rates, I'd bet you see a sharp increase in the purchase of Korallia's and other stream like powerheads.

Nick
 
I've only been a Tunze customer for a few years. Had a couple 6060's a few years ago and they were too much flow, and I didn't like the look and size.
I've had a pair of 6105's for a little over a year and I couldn't be happier.
I read some of the threads on Reef Central in the Tunze forum and on one Rodger mentioned something called a 24v jumper. So I pm'd him and asked about them.
He said that it would increase the current output by about 25% and since I already had the 6205 front cover, the 24v jumper would be about $2.
I may have to dial down the controller.
Even will all the screaming and arguing about how terrible the Tunze company has treated humanity, ( on all the forums) I will still buy their products.
 
The 24v jumper should have come with your 6105. I know all mine did. Thanks for reminding me about them. I'll be changing out the 12v jumpers for the 24V when I get home.

Nick
 
Maxx,

I have to say I am in agreement with you. I think a lawsuit is overboard. It is a lesson learned and the big machine called capitalism will dictate the consequences to teh companies actions. It is too bad to see law suits so prevalent over a study that was meant to be informative not malicious.
 
Not sure what the end result for this "lawsuit" is.

A...Best case scenario, Tunze ups its game and we the consumer benefit greatly from it.
B..Worst case scenario, Tunze shuts down completely because it cannot afford the lawsuit here, a subsequent lawsuit in Germany, and the resulting bad press killing the Tunze name in the market place.
C...Likely scenario, Tunze delays and obfuscates the lawsuit here, all while getting the next gen Stream to market with the proper flowrates, and allows previous customers to upgrade to the new streams at a minor cost.

Most likely what is going to happen is that the attornies for the "victim" are trying to force a settlement from Tunze without having to go to trial.

I realize that AA Online Magazine does their very best to scientifically test these things, but is this a hard core reproduceable test? It looked like it to me, but I bet that Tunze USA'a lawyers try to claim otherwise.

As a further unintended consequence, (the lawsuit being the first) we as hobbyists might see less and less products turned over to reviewers for free and therefore get fewer and fewer objective reviews of products out there for our hobby.

Sad...

Nick
 
LMAO. Shucks you could have got a koralia for 1/3 the cost and better performance. Hey ill re name a coral and re sell it to you for 1&1/2 what I payed for it. LOL
 
Hahaha....

I've owned Korallia's. There's a reason I bought Tunzes.

Do you always contribute this much to threads or did you just feel like poking the bear? :rolleyes:
Nick
 
Last edited:
Maxx,

Once again I think you are spot on. The big concern here is again that Tunze USA will fair well being a LLC but Tunze home office in Germany is a full scale corporation and can be persued to the point of bankruptcy. As far as the test being reproducible I also agree that it appears to be with the equipment and techniques used.
 
I dont think that Tunze in Germany can be held liable for products sold in the US. I would also be willing to bet that in order for Tunze to get hammered in court over there for false advertising, there would have to be proof that they knew it didnt deliver as advertised, or that it would have been impossible to deliver as advertised.

If Tunze can show they were acting on good faith in their ads, I dont think they'll get hit with anything more than a black eye PR wise.

Nick
 
Actually they can be held liable as a parent company. That ties into the relationship as mother corporation and sub LLC here in the States. Regardless a similar lawsuit in Germany will be much much harder to fight off.

Unfortunately for them it is regardless if they were acting in good faith the courts will find that irrelevant. The fact is they put a hard number on the boxes and sold the pumps based off varying flow numbers for different prices based upon that number. So basically they are going to have to provide that the tests they ran produced a valid data point to substantiate that number. They would also have to prove how a variation in the test justifies the 63% difference in advertised performance vs actual performance.
 
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