How not to replace a light bulb <g>

[Dave Siciliano]

Last November, I began a rehab on an existing home I purchased a couple blocks from my former home. Didn't do anything structural, but almost completely redid the interior. Among other things, new appliances.

We'll the light bulb in the new micro wave went out last month and the appliance was under warranty. So, I tried to replace it myself, but there was no easy way; so, I called to have it fixed telling them the oven was fine, but the light bulb had gone out.

A few days later, a repair team comes out and 'trouble shoots' the problem. After about 30 minutes, they declare the microwave is fine, but the light bulb will need to be replaced $169 charge (to the manufacturer). Would have been my expense if not under warranty. They had to disassemble the case of the oven and open a smaller encased structure to get to the bulb which is a special bulb. They did say it shouldn't have gone out this quickly.

I asked why they didn't bring a bulb; they said they had to verify what the problem was.

A week later, they came back with a new bulb. It takes them about 30 minutes again to disassemble and reassemble the oven with the new bulb in and test it. Once again, the charge is $169 plus a $8 bulb with tax it was $181.32.

The oven cost around $300 new, and one wonders why we don't fix anything anymore.

The double oven I installed has never worked properly. They came out four times with different parts and couldn't fix it. Now, the manufacturer has called in a second repair team to get a second opinion since the first team recommended I receive a new oven. Bills so far are over $700 from repair folks. This is a Kitchenaid appliance which is supposed to be made better than some.

I still don't have an oven that works.

Sigh.

Best,

Dave

 

[Richard]

Supervisor is genius.

This would be hilarious if it weren't true.

 

[geneseib]

Looked at my daughters garbage disposal a couple weeks ago. Starting coil in the stator had burnt up. Cost for new stator - $199. Cost of new disposal one size bigger - $99.

 

[Let'sgoflying!]

what is the icon for head-banging?

 

[denverpilot]

Customer service isn't free nor rolled into the cost of mass-produced products anymore. If they did that, that oven would cost a lot more.

One of the few protections we all used to have was "take this hunk of crap back then!" which has been usurped by "restocking fees" by almost all manufacturers.

We've made mass production and distribution so cheap we can't figure out why "rolling a truck" with a tech costs more than the product nowadays. Pretty normal now, though.

 

[John Baker]

It sounds similar to my experience with my Bosch dishwasher I bought from Sears.

It started leaking after the third or fourth time I used it, about a three week period. I had foolishly purchased one of those sucker repair contracts, so, smiling to myself for being so clever, I called Sears repair department.

It took a total of six visits to my home to repair it, costing me about four hours away from my shop each time. The darn dishwasher only cost around $400.00. The time I lost from work could have just bought me four or five new dishwashers.

The Bosch dishwasher from Sears lasted about five more months before it was spewing water all over my floor again. It was not worth my time to go through that again, so I never bothered. I use my fancy dishwasher for storing my dirty dishes until I wash them by hand Saturday mornings. Ten times as fast, twice as clean, a lot less water. My water bill was noticeably lower after I gave up on it.

John

 

[Let'sgoflying!]

One of the few protections we all used to have was "take this hunk of crap back then!"

I have not posted follow ups to my engine thread but it has involved lots of unsatisfactory calls, unresponded-to letters, failed repairs with puffs of blue smoke. They are wearing us down. I am ready to throw in the towel on this one, and try their competitor. Sell the thing as scrap. Wait maybe I'll fedex it to the company president in a homemade coffin.

 

[Henning]

I have not posted follow ups to my engine thread but it has involved lots of unsatisfactory calls, unresponded-to letters, failed repairs with puffs of blue smoke. They are wearing us down. I am ready to throw in the towel on this one, and try their competitor. Sell the thing as scrap. Wait maybe I'll fedex it to the company president in a homemade coffin.

Dude, your camshaft is timed 180*out. It'll take you a couple of hours to do at most. This is dirt simple junior high shop class stuff.

 

[Ted]

Dave, sounds like my recent experience with the double oven in our kitchen. Lower one stopped working due to a burned out relay. Turns out the wiring was screwed up, causing the relay to overheat. Sears said it needed a new power board. If they'd just thrown that in, I'm sure that it would've lasted about 5 minutes before failing again, and they would've deemed it "satisfactory." Warranty paid for the $300 repair (on an oven we paid about $900 for). Next time, I'm fixing it myself.

Sigh, indeed.

 

[Dave Siciliano]

Ted: The oven won't turn off <g>. Once you turn it on, you have to go out to the garage and throw the CB to stop the thing. Could be kinna dangerous. Anyway, they've come out four times and gave up. New firm has come once and is scheduled to fix it next week. By the time they fix it, the one year warranty will have expired and if anything else goes wrong; I'm on my own.
I think the warranty should begin from the time it works FOR THE FIRST TIME!

Sorry to raise my voice.

Best,

Dave

 

[Ted]

Dave, raising your voice is completely understood.

It's a shame that a warranty is more work than fixing it yourself. That defeats the whole purpose of the warranty. In fact, I think in a number of cases it may cost more.

Big sigh.

 

[Henning]

Dave, raising your voice is completely understood.

It's a shame that a warranty is more work than fixing it yourself. That defeats the whole purpose of the warranty. In fact, I think in a number of cases it may cost more.

Big sigh.

Warranty work is always high profit for the provider. Warranty work is what keeps the doors at a new car dealership open a lot of the time.

 

[Ted]

Warranty work is always high profit for the provider. Warranty work is what keeps the doors at a new car dealership open a lot of the time.

Yes, and I don't have a problem with that. What I have a problem with is when it costs me more time and money to take advantage of a warranty than it would take for me to fix it myself.

In the case of our double oven, we were without a working oven for a month. Unacceptable.

 

[Aztec Driver]

Warranty work is always high profit for the provider. Warranty work is what keeps the doors at a new car dealership open a lot of the time.

Horse$hit.


While that may be true in the automotive arena, it is certainly NOT TRUE in the appliance industry.

Speak not of things you have no knowledge of. In the appliance industry, the manufacturers are the one's who set the prices for the providers. The providers have absolutely no say in the pricing at all. They are also the ones who have to purchase and pay for the parts to repair said products. They get a set price for the repair, no matter how often they have to go out to fix the product. They will not get another labor payment for that product again until the original problem has been repaired and it is problem free for at least 31 days.

After the repair is completed, the provider then has to submit a claim to the manufacturer, claiming all parts and their agreed labor, and they may or may not get paid, considering all of the hoops that must be jumped, i's dotted, t's crossed...etc. These claims get rejected for reasons beyond the control of the provider. The provider then has to spend hours tracking down the problem and trying to get it repaired. There are times that they are not corrected properly, and the provider ends up footing the bill. These can be on products not sold by that dealer.

The situation encountered by the OP is a definite problem in the industry. There are a lot of unskilled folks trying to do repairs, and it makes the rest look bad. Even they, however, will only get one repair labor charge out of that one repair. While they may have a contract that stipulates $169 for the repair, that will cover both parts and labor and it will be a flat rate also covering parts and labor for a unit needing an electronic control costing $150 or more.

Most of the providers, private contractors anyway, will be getting a labor payment of around $65 flat rate for the repair, and get reimbursed their cost of the part, paid directly to the parts distributor. That part adds another dimension, in that you have to follow up on the parts distributors to make sure they credit your account for the parts.

All of this extra paperwork so some provider can come out to work on units that people purchased at some big box store to save a few bucks.

 

[Henning]

Yes, and I don't have a problem with that. What I have a problem with is when it costs me more time and money to take advantage of a warranty than it would take for me to fix it myself.

In the case of our double oven, we were without a working oven for a month. Unacceptable.

Don't even get me started on that road... Often warranties aren't worth the hassle.

 

[Henning]

Horse$hit.


While that may be true in the automotive arena, it is certainly NOT TRUE in the appliance industry.

Most of the providers, private contractors anyway, will be getting a labor payment of around $65 flat rate for the repair, and get reimbursed their cost of the part, paid directly to the parts distributor. That part adds another dimension, in that you have to follow up on the parts distributors to make sure they credit your account for the parts.

All of this extra paperwork so some provider can come out to work on units that people purchased at some big box store to save a few bucks.

I don't understand... You're not making a profit on these repairs as a private contractor? Why are you doing them?

 

[pilot_dude]

Warranty work is always high profit for the provider. Warranty work is what keeps the doors at a new car dealership open a lot of the time.

Not for the last 10+years. I can provide reams of documentation to validate my point.

 

[Aztec Driver]

I don't understand... You're not making a profit on these repairs as a private contractor? Why are you doing them?

My company does service work for several dealers. In order to do their out of warranty work, I must be warranty authorized to also take care of their warranty work. At that time, products lasted a lot longer and did not need the amount of warranty work that they currently do. And yes, the products made are pure junk. Warranty service now amounts to 60-70 percent of my service work, when it used to be around 20-30 percent. Warranty service work is a money losing proposition, stand alone. Our service barely stays afloat with all aspects of service put together. And now, many of the dealers are pushing and selling extended warranties. These companies are just as bad as the manufacturers, as they limit what they will pay, depending on the cause of the repair. Only thing is, they don't give you all of the information ahead of time, they just reject your claim and you have to fight to get it paid, or charge the customer, who will not pay because they have an extended warranty.

In order for us to sell new equipment, the dealer wanted us to be warranty authorized to service other dealer's sales. They did not want to offer a franchise to anyone who would not service others in our area. So it was a Catch-22.

With all aspects of the business, we keep 7 people employed and feeding their families and manage to just barely keep our head above water. Some years are worse than others, but we manage.

 

[Dave Siciliano]

So Bryon, tell me when they present me with a bill for $169 to sign agreeing warranty work was done, what does that represent? They don't pay you that from what you say. Isn't that a blatant misrepresentation to me? Are they saying if we were billing you, it would be this much, but the manufacture will never pay it <g>. Anyway, what's the purpose of giving me a bill for an amount that seems meaningless?

Best,

Dave

 

[Aztec Driver]

So Bryon, tell me when they present me with a bill for $169 to sign agreeing warranty work was done, what does that represent? They don't pay you that from what you say. Isn't that a blatant misrepresentation to me? Are they saying if we were billing you, it would be this much, but the manufacture will never pay it <g>. Anyway, what's the purpose of giving me a bill for an amount that seems meaningless?

Best,

Dave

They are presenting you with a representative amount of the approximate cost of the repair if you would have had to pay for it. That is in no way indicative of the amount the manufacturer will pay that company.

Assuming an $8 lamp and the need to order the part and then come back out to reinstall, the retail cost can vary substantially from company to company. Most companies charge either a flat rate repair labor charge, which is usually high, on the order of $150, to cover any possible labor scenario, or at least the vast majority of them, or they will charge a trip charge and time.

Assuming that $8 lamp, a reasonable trip charge, including 30 minutes of time, is around $75, add in another $24 for the second trip's labor time and the lamp, and you come up with $107 plus tax for a typical retail price.

A lot of the large nationwide chain servicers, who have a high turn around rate for their techs, and generally employ lower standard techs, charge a flat rate of around $150-$160 for the trip and diagnostic. Some of these companies charge the same amount for the return trip as well, which is absolutely criminal. The same repair could easily cost over $300 with those companies. I really don't see why anyone uses them, yet they do.

As to the amount paid by the manufacturer. It would be more like this:
Company diagnoses the problem.
Company orders and pays $5 for the lamp.
Company installs lamp.
Company submits claim for $5 for the lamp and $62 labor charge.
Manufacturer reviews claim for a few weeks to determine validity.
Manufacturer pays $5 to part distributor from which Company bought part.
Parts Distributor credits part amount to Company.
Manufacturer pays $62 to Company.

This assumes noone screws anything up wit the paperwork, which happens at least 10 percent of the time, either purposeful or not. Talkng to a former representative of one of the companies I deal with, I found out that they were rejecting claims for anything, requiring the Company to submit more paperwork, and the percentage of resubmitted claims were far fewer because of people just losing these items through the "cracks," allowing the manufacturer to renege on millions of dollars of claims each year.

So, for $62 the company sent a tech out twice, spending money to send a truck, insurance, and all other expenses related to running a business, and a total of approximately 2 man hours of time, including driving time. Sorry, but this is less than expenses quite often.

As far as the company having to order the part, I can't fault them for that. First, there are so many different lamps, it is almost impossible to stock them all, and the cost is exorbitant, even for lamps. And a lamp is not a really necessary functional item, so it is less on the priority list.

And the need to come out to diagnose the problem before hand, well, days gone by if the bulb went out, you thru a new bulb on it and it was done. Nowadays, "we" have gotten brilliant. We now run a lot of those bulbs through a transformer and a relay on the main electronic control board, so it isn't necessarily a bulb anymore.

 

[Dave Siciliano]

Thanks. The manual that comes with the micro wave doesn't even refer to a light bulb. There was no part number for me to order one. They left the old broken bulb here; no distinctive part number or identifier except 30W 130V so I couldn't order a replacement if I wanted to. Why can't they ask me if I want them to bring a bulb if I know that's what's wrong? The oven worked fine, the light just went out.

What a way to run a rail road <g>

Best,

Dave

 

[Aztec Driver]

Thanks. The manual that comes with the micro wave doesn't even refer to a light bulb. There was no part number for me to order one. They left the old broken bulb here; no distinctive part number or identifier except 30W 130V so I couldn't order a replacement if I wanted to. Why can't they ask me if I want them to bring a bulb if I know that's what's wrong? The oven worked fine, the light just went out.

What a way to run a rail road <g>

Best,

Dave

Welcome to the NEW WORLD ORDER.

 

[Aztec Driver]

Thanks. The manual that comes with the micro wave doesn't even refer to a light bulb. There was no part number for me to order one. They left the old broken bulb here; no distinctive part number or identifier except 30W 130V so I couldn't order a replacement if I wanted to. Why can't they ask me if I want them to bring a bulb if I know that's what's wrong? The oven worked fine, the light just went out.

What a way to run a rail road <g>

Best,

Dave

Is this an Over the Range type? Was it for the surface, or an internal lamp?

 

[Dave Siciliano]

I was an internal lamp. MV is installed. No brand on the front by a little Maytag label for service. Model AMC2206BA

Best,

Dave