Repair Policy

Our standard service call fee is $200.00. If your game was purchased from or reconditioned by Pinball Medics, we offer our clients the reduced service call charge of $150.00. This includes travel time to the South, West and Central Ottawa area, Manotick, Barrhaven, Riverside South, Kemptville, Richmond, Kanata, Stittsville, and other nearby communities, as well as diagnosis and service of up to one hour on site. Service is then billed at a rate of $25.00 per 15 minutes., or $20.00 per 15 minutes for games we have sold or fully refurbished. Any parts required are in addition to our hourly rates.

Outlying areas, including East Ottawa, Orleans, Central and West Gatineau, Carleton Place, and their surrounding communities, are subject to an additional travel surcharge of $100.00, when we are available, or have other scheduled appointments in your area. Please understand that as the only commercial brick and mortar pinball repair firm in Ottawa we are extremely busy, and we are only able to service a fraction of the repair requests we receive, and a service call to these areas involves a return trip of a hour and a half or more in ideal weather and traffic conditions, associated vehicle expenses and fuel, may require a second visit to install parts that we may not have with us on our first visit, and for these and too many more reasons to mention, can become difficult to justify financially from our position or that of you as a customer. Bringing your machine to our shop is a much less expensive option, please call or email to discuss any time.

The reason we offer a discounted rate to regular customers is based on two main factors:

1) We do not know the condition of any machines we have not sold or reconditioned. Very often, pinball machines have not been properly maintained, or worse yet have been improperly repaired resulting in damage that can be very difficult to troubleshoot, as the condition would never normally occur with regular use. Playfields, wiring harnesses, circuit boards, and any of the other interrelated mechanical and electrical systems can take incredible amounts of time to troubleshoot and repair, just like a car. To be clear, if a game can’t be repaired within the first hour and you decline our estimate and recommendations, the service charge will still apply.

2) We offer our clients a reduced rate as a loyalty discount. We want you to keep your game well maintained and well enjoyed, and always prefer to take one of our own games back in on trade down the road, and will pay a premium for the trade-in based on it having been in home use only after we reconditioned it last.

We very rarely accept “basket case” restoration jobs bought from 20 year old barn piles, online for under market value, or from unscrupulous pinball “curb-siders” on Kijiji. These projects often cost more to complete than they’re worth for the customer or us. We will take any and all games in on trade towards a reconditioned game, which is what we will normally advise under these circumstances.

We will occasionally take on these projects on a cost plus hourly basis, will not guarantee a completion date (as it could take _months_), and will only consider these cases when we know it’s either a treasured “must have” for a personal collection, is an insurance restoration project, has sentimental value, or you _really_ feel the need to contribute to our retirement funds in a significant way…

Service calls outside the greater Ottawa area are not available as we simply do not have time to travel beyond our service area. If you need to ask how much it would be for me to consider this rule as more of a guideline,  I would be remiss in not pointing out that it would be less expensive to hire professional movers to bring it to our shop and return it.

Most on-site “house calls” are limited to small repairs or service work that can be done within one or two hours. If, upon inspection of your game, it is determined that it requires more extensive repairs than are possible to be performed at your location, for a fee, we can carefully disassemble your machine, transport it for off-site repairs, then return it , set it up, and ensure it is in perfect health before leaving. Our fee for one way delivery is $150.00 within our Central service area.

We do not service commercially operated equipment.

We also offer drop-off service. Our in-shop rate is $100.00 per hour, but we will often offer a flat rate once we diagnose the game and determine there are no complicated issues that can not easily be predicted until we begin working on the game. Any parts required are in addition to our hourly rates.

Pick-up and drop-off are by appointment only.

Circuit board repairs are available in person or by post. Once we have inspected your boards, we will provide a quote, which must be accepted before work begins. Once your board is repaired, we create a digital video recording of it working on the bench, and whenever possible in a game of that system (often we even have the actual game in our shop). Upon receipt of payment in full for all repairs, shipping, and taxes, we will provide you with a tracking number and return your boards by Expedited Parcel via Canada Post, or by Local Pickup in Ottawa, Montreal, or Alfred ON.

Tech support is offered by phone, Skype, or Facetime, to ensure you install the boards correctly, at no additional charge.

We generally bring a spare working computer with us when we do service games on the road, and can often offer it to you and take your damaged board on trade as a core, which we will repair in our shop and sell again, re-using and re-cycling original equipment for many more years of faithful service!

Unless arrangements are made in advance, any games left on our premises seven (7) days beyond our notifying you through whatever means we have been provided with by you that they are ‘ready for pick-up or delivery’ will be subject to a storage fee of $50.00 per month, per machine. If you have not made arrangements otherwise within three (3) months of our having notified you through whatever means we have been provided with by you that they are ‘ready for pick-up or delivery’, the item(s) will be considered abandoned, disposed of as we see fit, and the account closed.

We do not offer free technical support of any kind by phone or otherwise unless it is related to a game or boards we have sold or serviced.

Telephone support is billed at $25.00 per 10 minutes, and we accept no responsibility for any damage to your machine, regardless of anything we do or do not recommend.

NOTE: All prices are subject to any and all applicable taxes, and are due and payable upon completion of services unless previous arrangements have been made.

NOTE: All the above rates and conditions are subject to change without notice.

Accepted methods of payment are: Cash – Visa – MasterCard – PayPal