You have hit the nail on the head. Shame HAAS can’t understand this and don’t see why I’m worried. I will sell machine once all repaired and checked and chalk this one up to experience. if I had booked more work then this machine would have cost me half its value in downtime. I thought I’d seen some poor customer service in my time but this tops it all.

Yes I have serious buyers remorse and won’t be buying anything from them again. I know lots of machines running well and all manufacturers can have a bad machine but the support is so slow I cannot afford to keep the machine.

I have an ST10 bought in 2020 and the machine is a lemon. Spindle very whiny like you say but after 36 cutting hours spindle has failed and I have waited 37 days for replacement under warranty. Also wouldn’t hold size and took around 6 different visits with weeks of downtime to determine that software was problem and messing with thermal compensation. Screen Replaced Probe arm wasn’t adjusted correct smashing arm into probe guard. Turret is now also 0.02mm out of parallel to x axis which is double their allowable and 0.08mm across outside edge of bolt on turret (makes for interesting U Drilling. I have requested new machine a few times now but it’s a no from them and they won’t even buy it at used price back from me. Soon as faults fixed will be getting rid of it. I have a 20 year old Chinese lathe in corner more reliable. Warranty is good for parts but broken down for many days because they don’t have engineers available means downtime outweighs parts and labour cost of fix. I will be going to next MACH show in UK with a T shirt offering to share my experience with potential buyers. Apart from that it’s been great though haha