Or:
The ongoing saga of why Phil never seems to post about espresso these days.
I'm on my third espresso engineer. The Gaggia in question is a 2 group TD commercial machine, for those who have forgotten.
The first engineer, Scott Anderson of Drinksproblems Ltd (aka "Scottydog" on alt.coffee), sold me the machine, supposedly reconditioned, for cash. When I pointed out that only one of the groups worked properly he promised to return to fix this. He was also going to fit a water filter, something I'd asked for originally. He actually offered to pitch up on an occasion when I couldn't make it (I was in Finland at the time) but subsequently was involved in a nasty accident. Although Gaggia UK tell me he's working again (and has been for some time), he's refused to reply to all attempts to contact him since, even when I pointed out that the machine had developed a serious fault rendering it unusable.
The second engineer, James Fisher of Clifton Coffee, turned out to fix the machine when I became desperate. He'd been referred to me by Gaggia UK. The machine had developed a steadily worsening boiler leak, and eventually I was forced to stop using it. James came over, cleaned the boiler level probe and then it seemed that the leak had gone away. Shortly after he left the machine started to hiss, and the leak continued to get worse although the machine was not unusable as it had been previously. One night the kids (damn them) unplugged the machine for some reason and left it that way. I normal leave it on 24/7. The following morning I found the machine unplugged and so plugged it back in and left it to heat up. It gurgled for a few minutes, then hissed loudly. There was a nasty bang and a blue flash and that was the end of that. James refused to come back. He maintained that he was going on holiday, something I subsequently found out was a lie. He just didn't want the job, partly because he thought that Scott that should fix the machine (true, but that wasn't going to happen this side of the end of the world) and partly because I wasn't a commercial customer who was going to buy lots of coffee from him afterwards (apparently this is where he makes a lot of his money).
Finally, I called Gaggia UK for help again. They put me on to Roy Ireland. He eventually came out, after a few false starts. He took the machine away without examining it. He also admits he's not a Gaggia specialist (although James and Scott are). He didn't even know what I was talking about when I told him why the second group wasn't working properly (the TD has extra electrical heating in the group although it's a heat exchanger machine, and my LH group didn't have this fitted although it should have). He's had the machine for near enough three weeks now. He warned me that he was going on holiday for a week of that period, but promised to keep in touch regularly and to tell me everything that he needed to do to the machine as he did it. I haven't heard a word from him since.
Both James and Roy admitted that although I was going to be charged full commercial rates my repair was not a priority because I'm not a commercial customer. I suspect that Scott feels the same way, to the extent that he doesn't need to honour the (verbal) warranty he gave me.
I'm going to call Roy tomorrow, exactly 3 weeks after his last visit. He's had the opportunity to work on the machine for two of those weeks. I have to say that I feel pretty badly let down by everyone in this saga.
And there's a big hole in my kitchen where the espresso machine used to be ......