Some brands commit suicide in the customer’s living room. Not with a product that is “bad” in the lab, but with technical support that treats the installer as a suspect and the end customer as a problem. When that happens, marketing, price and datasheet do not matter: the brand burns itself.
We have lived it up close with V2C Trydan — and that is why we stopped installing them on new builds. It is not a “special case” of one bad week. It is the example of how a defensive SAT, a channel that hides behind “misunderstanding”, and a warranty read against the person who pays can destroy a Spanish brand from the inside.
This article is about that: how technical support can break its own brand… and why at A Todo Sol brand support is not someone else’s process: we control it and we always defend the customer on warranties.
The product sells. The SAT decides whether they hate you
The end customer does not buy an SKU. They buy the promise that the car will charge on Sunday night. When it fails, they do not call marketing. They call someone who will tell them the truth in five minutes.
If that person is a brand technician with a defensive script — as we have seen with the V2C/channel ecosystem — the sequence is predictable:
- The unit fails (often around the year mark, when nobody expects drama).
- SAT arrives at the home — without the installer, without the full history, sometimes without even reading the photos.
- Instead of looking at the hardware first, it looks first at who can absorb the blame.
- In front of the customer: “this looks like installation”, “we should check the cable”, “maybe it was tampered with”, “the warranty…”.
- The customer does not remember the datasheet. They remember the doubt. And the doubt sticks to the installer… or the whole chain.
Result: even if they later swap the board “as an exception”, the brand has already sown that “something smelled wrong”. The customer stops recommending. The installer stops buying. The distributor loses volume. The manufacturer wonders why “the channel went cold”.
The product does not need to be 100% bad. It is enough for support to treat the installer as guilty by default. With V2C Trydan we have seen it repeated: the human fuse is the installer. That is a very efficient form of commercial suicide.
How a SAT can break its own brand (with V2C as the mirror)
No science fiction needed. Twisted incentives are enough. These are the mechanisms. We have seen them in the field — and we will not sugar-coat them:
1. The technician goes alone… and plays detective against the channel
The installer knows the feed, the board, the history, the firmware, what was touched at commissioning. Brand SAT often arrives with a blank ticket and an implicit incentive: close the call without warranty cost.
A scenario we have lived: protections that trip, heat on a connector, a communication error. The technician, measuring poorly or not measuring, suggests in front of the homeowner that “the cable section is tight” or that “protections should have been outside”. The customer nods. The installer, not in the room, hears later on WhatsApp: «the brand guy said you fitted it wrong».
Even if the opposite is later proven — even with a refund — the damage is done. The brand turned a product fault into a trust crisis between two people who should be on the same side. In one concrete case that cost us a multi-thousand-euro PV expansion. Not “perception”: an invoice that never arrives.
2. The call centre / channel always starts with “who installed it?”
Some brands’ first warranty filter is not the symptom, but the scapegoat. Typical script:
- «Is the installer approved?»
- «Do you have torque photos?»
- «Was anything touched after commissioning?»
- «Send a 12-minute video and wait 10 working days.»
Documentation helps. Turning it into a systematic wall does not. The customer hears: this brand does not want to help; it wants to slip away. And reviews do not distinguish “PCB failed” from “they treated me like a fraud”. With Trydan the pattern worsens when the same failure mode (terminal/board) appears in public forums… and the local story still insists on the installation.
3. Voiding warranties with invented fine print
A lethal mechanism — and we have seen it in writing with Trydan: the unit is sold with an “option to add protections”, the manual contemplates that option, the catalogue boasts about it… and when it is fitted and the unit fails, someone in the channel claims that adding that automatically voids the warranty.
That is not after-sales. It is moving the frame afterwards. It tells the customer: “we sold you flexibility; now we use it against you”. A warranty read against the payer stops being a warranty: it is marketing until claim day. And that destroys the brand more than any firmware bug.
4. Slow RMA while the car will not charge
Brutal logic: a dead charge point is not a “P2 ticket”. It is a car that does not leave, a taxi, a domestic row. If SAT takes weeks to admit the fault — or only admits it “as an exception” while sowing doubt — the customer does not only hate the installer: they hate the logo on the shell.
Brands that survive replace first and argue later (with the channel, with evidence). Brands that suicide argue first in front of the customer and replace — if at all — when no reputation is left.
5. The snowball in the professional channel
Installers talk. Distributors too. A SAT that throws the channel under the bus does not create “one complaint”: it creates a stable rumour.
First they stop recommending the brand on new builds. Then they clear stock. Then the manufacturer sees sell-out fall and blames “the market”. In reality the market learned a simple lesson: I will not stake my face on a SAT that uses me as a fuse.
That is how a brand breaks from inside. Not from a bad advert. From ten badly told technical visits — and from four identical cases with the same script.
Why at A Todo Sol we control brand support
We are not V2C’s call centre, or anyone else’s. We are the face the customer saw on install day, the Saturday WhatsApp, and the company still here when brand marketing looked away.
That is why our rule is inflexible:
An A Todo Sol customer is never left alone facing a brand SAT. Not V2C. Not any other. We diagnose, document, accompany and — when needed — fight the warranty. We defend the customer. Always. No “exceptions” or “misunderstandings”.
That is not a slogan. It is an operating design forged precisely because we have seen the opposite:
- First line: us. If something fails, you call us. We do not send you to a 902 to fight a script.
- Diagnosis before the accusing finger. We measure, photograph, review history, firmware, feed, protections. If the fault is ours, we own it. If it is the unit, we prove it — with evidence, not corridor opinions.
- Brand SAT does not enter “alone” to sow doubt. When a factory or channel technician intervenes, we arrive with the file ready. We do not let an improvised story rewrite the install in front of you.
- Warranty = customer right, not brand favour. If the manual, catalogue or rules back the case, we do not accept “creative voids”. We push RMA, board, full unit or whatever is due.
- We choose brands by product… and by how they behave when they fail. A brilliant unit with a toxic SAT is a reputation risk. We prefer to sleep. That is why Trydan left new builds.
What “defending the customer” means (how we actually work)
- Inverter or battery with recurring alarms: we do not say “call the manufacturer yourself”. We open the ticket, add logs, ask for a swap and keep you informed. If the manufacturer hides behind “installation”, we counter with evidence.
- Charger that stops charging on a Friday night: we prioritise you being able to move the car (workaround, provisional charge, visit). The bureaucratic fight with the brand runs in parallel, not at the cost of your weekend.
- Attempts to blame cable / board / Wi‑Fi without measuring: we stop the script. If section, voltage drop or communication must be measured, it is measured. No theatre. No “maybe” in front of the customer.
- Warranty part that is late: we push deadlines, ask for progress, and if the channel will not show its face, we escalate. You are not the messenger between two companies passing the ball.
- When the brand lies about what was installed: we document in writing, demand correction, and do not accept that your trust in us is used as currency for their RMA.
The difference is mental model. Some companies “pass the ticket to the brand” and disappear. We treat brand warranty as part of the service we owe you. If the brand plays dirty, the fight is ours — not yours.
What we ask of any brand that wants to work with us
If you manufacture or distribute equipment we install — V2C or otherwise — the bar is not only price and datasheet:
- SAT that looks at the product before looking at the installer.
- Technicians who do not improvise accusatory diagnoses in front of the end customer.
- Warranties coherent with the catalogue itself (if you sell the option, do not use it later to void).
- RMA with human deadlines when the equipment is critical (mobility, backup, production).
- Channel treated as an ally: the installer is who sells your brand every day… or who stops selling it.
Whoever fails that leaves our new builds. Not on a whim: because our name is also on the line. V2C Trydan is the public example. There will be more if needed.
Conclusion
A brand does not break only when hardware fails. It breaks when technical support turns the fault into an ego fight, an “external culprit” or a fake warranty. The end customer does not forget who left them hanging. The installer does not forget who threw them under the bus. And the market, in the end, stops paying for that logo.
With V2C Trydan we have documented it: product with known failure modes, SAT that points at the installer, channel that talks about “exceptions” and “voids”. That is not an accident. It is a way of managing cost… until the cost is you.
At A Todo Sol we have accepted it: we control brand technical support. We diagnose, document and defend our customer on warranties. If the brand plays clean, we work together. If it plays human fuses, it is out.
If you have equipment we installed and the manufacturer or its SAT is spinning you around — including Trydan — write to us: we prefer to fight the warranty ourselves rather than leave you alone between a ticket and a script.
The concrete product-cut file: We stopped installing V2C Trydan chargers.