Their is no corporate policy, however, I can explain the way Tunze warranty works. Your distributor covers all labor and shipping out of their pocket, this comes from the profit made from the original sale. The distributors margin is quite thin, about half of the industry standard, as a result any more than one warranty claim on a product results in a net loss. All Tunze Germany provides is the part and to get that part a substantiating warranty report must be submitted (which takes a fair amount of time on its own) and the parts are shipped with a future order, meaning your distributor also has to pay shipping on the part and they had to pull the part from existing saleable stock and wait for resupply. They are fairly within their rights to decline service on a grey market item. They would be taking a financial loss servicing your product for no net gain to them of any sort, you have not purchased from them and they are not likely to earn your future business. Many other distributors instead charge a labor and shipping fee for grey market products. Most ethical distributors in other countries try to avoid this situation and ask dealers to not export, we have this issue constantly with Canada and our terms lay out that US product is never to be exported. I usually get excuses about how everything is so automated they cannot filter where it is going to. The problem for Canada is the shipping alone is expensive and we cannot cover it on the margins made on the product so while we will service a product at no charge if it was grey market to Canada, the customer will have to pay the return shipping. Basically, every distributor sets their own policies and Australia is particularly extenuating due to very high tariffs and transport costs.
