What to Put in a Shockwave Machine Contract: Warranty, Response Times and Spare-Part Lead Times

Two clinics buy the same shockwave unit, on the same day, at the same price. One is running again shortly after a handpiece fails. The other spends a month arguing about whether the fault is covered, who pays the courier, and whether the damage happened before or after the crate was opened. Nothing about the hardware separated them. Four sentences in the contract did: when the warranty starts, what it covers, how fast somebody must answer, and who owns the risk between the factory door and the treatment room.

This equipment is usually bought against a one-page quotation and a proforma invoice with a few lines of terms on the back. That works while everything functions and stops working the first time something does not. The cost of a failure is rarely the part; it is the sessions that do not happen, the therapist apologising to a client, the distributor absorbing freight they never priced, and the slow loss of confidence that follows a repair nobody can date.

What follows is a buyer's document. It takes the clauses that decide what a breakdown costs — warranty start date, coverage, response, spare-part lead times, remote diagnosis, liability, transport risk, payment against documents, acceptance — and sets out what each should say and what to write instead of the weak version. It is written for distributors signing annual agreements, clinic owners buying a first unit, and service managers who inherit a machine somebody else specified. One rule runs through it: a term is worth only what the paperwork behind it can prove.

The warranty clock: factory shipment date versus arrival date

The warranty on this equipment runs for 24 months from the factory shipment date. That is a clean sentence, and it is the one buyers skip. What matters is not the length but the anchor: the clock starts when the goods leave the factory, not when the crate is opened in the clinic. On an air shipment the difference is days. On sea freight with a transhipment, port congestion and a customs hold, the machine can sit in a container while a measurable slice of its cover is consumed.

That is not a trick, and it is not unusual, because no manufacturer can police a crate after it hands over to a forwarder. The buyer's answer is not to demand a longer term but to shorten the exposure: pick a faster routing for the first unit, book acceptance early, and hold one spare handpiece so a fault in the first weeks does not stop the room.

The second thing to fix is which document carries the date. "Shipment date" is only usable if the contract names the evidence: the export invoice, the bill of lading, or the air waybill. Those three can differ by days, and near the end of the term days are the entire argument. Have the warranty certificate print the same date as the shipping document, and check on arrival that they agree. The third thing is to resist a start date that floats: "warranty begins on installation" sounds generous and behaves badly, because it depends on a signature a busy clinic may not give for months.

Two related points belong in the same clause. When a part is replaced, the workable answer is the remainder of the original 24 months, tied to the same shipment date and recorded on a service note quoting the original serial number. And because distributors resell and clinics trade units in, ask for the certificate to be transferable inside the term on written notice, and keep the shipping documents with the unit.

What the 24-month warranty covers, and the exclusions to name

The word "warranty" on a quotation covers, in most buyers' imagination, everything that could go wrong with the box. In most contracts it covers defects in materials and workmanship in the parts the supplier made, for 24 months from the factory shipment date, with repair or replacement at the supplier's discretion. The gap between those readings is where nearly every dispute begins, and it closes only one way: by naming both sides of the line in the agreement.

On the covered side, name the expensive and invisible items: main board, power supply, display and controller, wiring harness, handpiece body and its drive, foot switch, enclosure hardware. A clause that lists these removes the supplier's ability to argue that a particular board was "a component" rather than "the machine". On the excluded side, the honest list is short: consumables and wear parts, liquid ingress, dropped handpieces, incorrect supply voltage, unauthorised repair or modification, operation outside the manual's duty cycle, cosmetic wear. Naming them is not the supplier escaping responsibility; it is what makes the covered list credible.

Two exclusions are often blurred and should not be. Transit damage belongs in the shipping clause, not the warranty clause, and faults caused by the room's own supply belong under a precise exclusion for voltage outside the manual's range rather than a vague one for "electrical faults" — the precise version tells the buyer what to fix before it happens.

Two procedural points decide whether any of that coverage can be used. The serial label must stay on the machine — a removed or over-labelled serial gives a supplier a legitimate reason to refuse a claim. And the buyer must report a fault before attempting a repair, keeping the failed part available for inspection. A supplier told "we replaced the board ourselves and it still does not work" cannot establish whether the board was ever faulty.

Response times: writing a fault-report clause you can enforce

"Fast after-sales support" is the most common sentence in a shockwave quotation and the least useful. It cannot be measured, breached or claimed against. What a buyer needs is a sequence with an owner and a deadline at each step: a channel to report through, an acknowledgement that the report arrived, a diagnosis, a coverage decision, and a plan for the part or the visit. Each step can carry a window that is negotiable and recorded in writing at order stage, and each can be attached to a named person rather than a general mailbox.

This matters more than the headline warranty because downtime, not repair cost, is the expensive part. A room with a full appointment book loses revenue for every day a unit is out, and a distributor with units on demo or under a service agreement loses credibility no free part restores. A 24-month warranty that takes an unmeasured period to activate is worth less to a working clinic than a shorter, sharper obligation.

Start with the channel. Name one service address and one number, the language in which claims may be submitted, and require a ticket number or written acknowledgement for every report. Without a ticket number the buyer has no evidence of when the clock started and the supplier has no proof it responded; email beats a messaging app here simply because it is searchable and dates itself. Then define what a valid report contains — serial label, photograph or short video of the symptom, the programme in use, the room's supply arrangement, what the operator already tried — and put that list in the contract as the buyer's obligation. It sounds bureaucratic; in practice it turns a week of questions into one exchange.

Then the timings, which is where the negotiation happens. A workable structure has three windows rather than one: acknowledgement, diagnostic conclusion, and resolution once a part is confirmed. Each is negotiable and should be agreed in writing, and each should carry a consequence if missed — an escalation contact, a freight upgrade, a credit against the next order. A window with no consequence is a target, not a commitment.

A note on scope, because this is where distributors get caught: response obligations are written for the party that bought the machine, not the one that owns it. If you resell, the clause you sign has to be at least as strong as the one you offer your own customers, with the same ticketing and evidence requirements so their expectation lands inside what you can meet.

Spare-part lead times and the wording that keeps them honest

A spare-parts commitment is the part of a contract a clinic actually experiences: nobody reads the liability clause during a session, everybody experiences the wait for a membrane. It has to be built from three things that are rarely on the same page — a list of parts with prices, a lead time against each line, and a statement of where the part ships from. Remove any one and the other two are decoration.

The list should cover the failures that stop a room and be specific enough to order by name: handpieces, membranes or exit windows, tips and impact bodies, cables, foot switches, fuses, cords, display, main board, power supply, fan filter. For each line the buyer needs a unit price at signing, a currency, a validity period and a lead time. "Please contact us for pricing" is not a commitment; it is an invitation to negotiate at the worst possible moment.

State lead times per line rather than one figure for "spare parts", because the lines behave differently. A membrane or a cable is usually held and moves quickly; a main board may be built in a batch; a handpiece may depend on a sub-assembly run. One number for all three means the fastest item is quoted at the speed of the slowest and the buyer's stock plan is built on the wrong assumption. The wording matters as much as the figure: a range with a clear starting point — from receipt of a purchase order, from confirmation of payment, from a documented coverage decision — is enforceable, and one without a starting point is not.

One sentence buyers forget: the price of a part after the term ends. A supplier who will not state post-term pricing at signing has reserved the right to set it when the buyer has no alternative. And for a stock plan, no failure rates are needed: count the parts whose absence stops a room, then hold enough of each to cover that line's lead time.

Remote support and video diagnosis as a written obligation

Most faults on a shockwave console are resolved without a part leaving the factory. The console reports its state on a display, the handpiece announces its condition through sound and feel, and the room's supply is measurable with a socket tester — which makes remote diagnosis the cheapest route for both sides, and the reason it should be an obligation rather than a favour.

The obligation has two halves, and both need writing. The supplier's half is engineer time: a named channel, a stated language, a first-session window that is negotiable and agreed in writing, and a commitment that the session ends with a written conclusion rather than a suggestion to try again. The buyer's half is access: a technician in front of the machine, a phone or tablet that can hold a steady image of the screen while buttons are pressed, the manual to hand, and a way to measure the supply at the socket. A call in which nobody can see the display produces nothing.

What the diagnosis must produce is a decision, not a conversation. Three outcomes cover almost every case: a setting the operator can correct at the machine, a part that must be replaced, or a return for workshop repair. Require the engineer to state which applies and, where a part is involved, to quote its number and price immediately, so the buyer can decide on the spot. Then require a short written summary — symptom, tests, conclusion, action — filed against the serial number. That history is what turns a disputed claim into a routine one at the end of the term.

A limit worth naming: remote support diagnoses, it does not certify. If output is the complaint, the answer is a comparison against a baseline recorded when the unit was new, plus a check of the coupling and the head — which is why the acceptance record described below is a service document as much as a delivery form.

Liability limits, transport damage and the handover point

Every export contract contains a point at which the goods stop being the seller's problem. Most write it as a three-letter trade term, and in most disputes nobody can say precisely where that point fell. That ambiguity causes more bad feeling than any hardware failure, because a machine damaged in transit is nobody's fault and everybody's cost unless the contract has already decided which. The mechanics are simple: under a term that hands over at the carrier, risk passes on loading; under one that includes carriage and insurance, it passes later at a named destination. The code itself matters less than consistency — the same term on the quotation, proforma, commercial invoice and packing list. When those four disagree, an insurer reads them in whichever way costs it least.

The inspection window is a different thing from the acceptance window: require the receiver to inspect before signing, to note damage on the carrier's own document, and to photograph the crate before it is unpacked.

Liability caps deserve a plain reading. Most suppliers cap total liability at the invoice value and exclude consequential loss, loss of profit and loss of business. For a clinic the consequential loss is what hurts: cancelled appointments, refunded packages, a rented replacement. No supplier in this market will accept unlimited consequential liability, so asking wastes negotiating capital. Ask instead for a priced mechanism — a loaner, a priority freight upgrade, a credit against the next order — which addresses the same risk in a form that can actually be granted.

There is one more handover point, and it is internal rather than contractual. The moment the crate is opened is the last moment the buyer has leverage over transport damage, so a twenty-minute receiving routine — photograph, count, check the serial label, keep the packaging until the unit powers on cleanly — produces evidence that can be used months later, and costs nothing to implement.

Payment milestones and the technical file

Payment terms are usually quoted as a deposit to start production and a balance before shipment, and buyers spend most of their energy on the percentages. That is the less important half. The half that decides whether the machine can be run, maintained and repaired is what arrives before the balance leaves: a unit paid in full and delivered with no wiring diagram, no parts list and a manual nobody on site can read is not a commissioning problem but a contract that was never finished.

The file itself is short: the manual in the market's language, covering controls, programmes, cleaning and fault indications; the packing list, which doubles as the acceptance reference; the parts list with numbers and prices; a wiring or interconnection diagram, which is the first thing a biomedical technician asks for; and an exploded view of the handpiece, the part most likely to be opened in the field. Two more are worth naming — a one-page programme summary in plain language, and the factory test record for the specific serial number, which gives a baseline for any later performance question and reinforces the shipment date.

Tie delivery to the payment schedule rather than to goodwill: a deposit against the order, the document set supplied at pre-shipment with the balance against the shipping documents, and a retention held until the acceptance sheet is signed. The retention need not be large; its function is to keep the acceptance conversation alive after arrival, when the buyer's attention has moved on and the supplier's has too. Where a retention is unacceptable, make the final document set a condition of the balance rather than a promise to follow.

One habit carries into this clause: ask for the document set as a numbered list in the order confirmation, so that when the balance falls due the conversation is a count against a list rather than an argument about what was promised.

The acceptance period and the sign-off sheet

Acceptance is the moment the machine stops being goods and becomes equipment, and it is the moment the buyer's leverage is highest and their attention lowest. A written acceptance period — a fixed number of working days from delivery, negotiable at order stage — with a defined list of checks and a defined consequence for failure turns that moment into something useful.

The list should be short enough that a busy clinic completes it and specific enough that each line produces evidence: count the crate against the packing list, photograph the serial label, power on and check the display and language, fit each handpiece in turn and listen for a change in tone, operate the foot switch and any interlock, and record the counters as the starting point for the head's service life.

The consequence matters more than the list. If a check fails, the buyer should be able to require correction before the window closes, and the window should pause rather than run out while a part is in transit. That one sentence prevents the most common bad outcome in this trade: a fault reported on day one, a part promised, the window closing, and the claim reclassified as a warranty matter with a freight bill attached. Pausing the clock is a reasonable ask and normally granted when it is written into the order rather than raised afterwards.

The negotiation checklist, clause by clause

The page compressed into something that can be taken into a meeting. It is written as questions rather than statements, because a question produces an answer that can be written down and a statement produces a nod. Work through it in order; the early items change the meaning of the later ones.

1. Warranty start. Which document carries the date, and does the certificate print the same one?
2. Transfer and replacement. Does cover move with the machine, and does a replaced part carry the remainder of the term?
3. Covered list. Are board, power supply, display, harness and handpiece drive named individually?
4. Excluded list. Are wear parts, ingress, impact damage, supply voltage and unauthorised repair named?
5. Repair route. Part shipped, workshop repair, or head swap — and who pays freight each way?
6. Reporting. One address, one number, and a ticket number on every report?
7. Windows. Acknowledgement, diagnosis and resolution agreed in writing, each with an owner?
8. Missed windows. Escalation contact and a priced consequence?
9. Parts list. Numbered lines with prices, currency, validity and a lead time each?
10. Post-term price. Stated now, with notice of increases?
11. Remote support. Free inside the 24 months, in which language, at what rate afterwards?
12. Handover. Trade term identical on quotation, invoice and packing list, and who insures?
13. Liability. The cap figure, and what sits outside it?
14. Payment. What is released at deposit, pre-shipment and acceptance, and against which document?
15. Documents. Numbered file list, manual language and wiring diagram included?
16. Acceptance. How many working days, from which event, and does the window pause for a reported defect?

Sixteen items is more than most buyers will get in full, and that is not the point: the point is to know which ones you gave away. Mark each line as agreed, refused or amended, and keep the marked copy as the reference for the next order as well as this one.

Frequently asked questions

Does the 24-month warranty start when the machine arrives or when it leaves the factory?

It runs for 24 months from the factory shipment date, which is the date on the export shipping document and should be the date printed on the warranty certificate. Transit time therefore sits inside the term. Plan for it with a faster route on the first unit, an early acceptance, and one spare handpiece rather than with a request to move the start date.

Are handpieces covered by the same warranty as the console?

The head body and its internal drive are covered for defects in materials and workmanship inside the same 24 months; the wear items inside it — membrane or exit window, tip, impact body — are not, because their service life is consumed by use. Confirm which of those are field-replaceable and at what price, so the head can be maintained rather than replaced whole.

Can response times be written as fixed numbers?

They are negotiable and should be agreed in writing at order stage rather than taken from a brochure. Insist on the structure rather than a single figure: acknowledgement, written diagnosis, and resolution once a part is confirmed, each with an owner and a consequence. A supplier who discusses windows in that shape has a process; one who answers with an adjective has a sales line.

Who pays freight on a warranty part?

This is the commonest gap in a warranty clause and should be settled before the order. The usual arrangement is the supplier covering outbound freight on an accepted warranty replacement and the buyer covering the return of the failed part, where a return is required. Whatever applies, name the freight method and who books the courier; a free part held at a port over unpaid clearance is not a free part.

What if the unit arrives damaged?

Transit damage is handled under the shipping clause, not the warranty, and is decided by what the receiver does in the first hour: inspect before signing, note damage on the carrier's document, photograph the crate before unpacking, and send the photographs the same day. A claim backed by a signed delivery note and dated images is routine; the same claim made a fortnight later is usually unwinnable.

Which documents should arrive before the balance is paid?

The manual in the language of the market where the unit will be used, the itemised packing list, the spare-parts list with prices, and the wiring diagram. Add the handpiece assembly view and the factory test record if you intend to service the unit rather than return it. These are working documents, cheap to send and slow to reconstruct.

How long should the acceptance period be?

The length is negotiable and should be a fixed number of working days from a documented delivery event. More important is the pause: if a defect is reported inside the window, the window stops while it is corrected and resumes on confirmation. Without that sentence a part in transit can consume the whole period.

Who you would be ordering from

The equipment described on this page is made and supplied by Honkay, the brand of Guangzhou Huang-Kai Technology Co., Ltd., an OEM and ODM manufacturer of physiotherapy and wellness equipment. Our factory and offices cover more than 1,000 square metres and employ more than 50 people, including an in-house research and development team of eight to ten engineers working alongside the production floor.

Because the consoles, the handpieces and the wear parts are built in one operation rather than sourced separately, the commercial documents can be settled as a single package: the 24-month warranty certificate with its shipment date, the parts list with prices and lead times, the manual in the buyer's language, the wiring diagram, and the packing list the receiving team will count against. Distributors who sell under their own badge order the same units under private label, with serial numbers travelling with the order so a repeat shipment can be matched to the first.

Honkay exports to South America, South Asia, South-East Asia, Western Europe, Northern Europe, Southern Europe, Eastern Europe, Oceania and North America, so most questions on this page have already been asked by buyers in those markets. More background is on our about page, and the checklist above can go straight to the team as the starting point for a quotation.

Honkay supplies professional wellness and physiotherapy equipment to clinics and distributors. The information on this page is product and purchasing guidance, not medical advice. This device is intended for adjunctive use alongside professional care, not as a replacement for diagnosis or treatment. For any specific condition, consult a qualified clinician; individual experience varies.

Send your contract checklist to the Honkay team on WhatsApp: +86 13751821215

Email the Honkay team: hk6@huang-kai.com