The Ol’ Naps VS. Whirlpool continues. I bought that stupid hot water heater less than six months ago and it worked great up until Christmas Eve, then everything went haywire. It started flashing codes and saying that the lower element is shot. After numerous tests, talks with whirlpool, and one service tech, it was supposed to be fixed. Big surprise, it wasn’t fixed.
Now, I call Whirlpool, again. They send me another new control board, and I schedule another service call with A&E Factory service, who also sucks at times. (Their techs are good techs, but getting them to not overbook their techs and reschedule your call a million times is the issue). They were supposed to show up Monday, I talk a half day off and get home to get a call saying that there are not enough techs to service my area today, so they’ll reschedule for Friday. Fine, whatever, I just what the damn thing fixed.
So Friday comes and it is supposed to be a good day. My Mom is taking A Bird overnight, the service repairman is supposed to come and fix all of our problems, and L Bird and I were supposed to go out to dinner, a movie and possibly one or two drinks. So My Mom, picks A Bird up and they’re out the door, the service repairman is in the laundry room and he checks everything, he checks the electric coming into the water heater from the panel, he tests the upper and lower elements, he tests the temperature sensors, he replaces the control board. He checks everything once more and everything is checking out great. He gives it a clean bill of health, flips the breaker, hangs out for 15 minutes to make sure everything is good and is out the door.
Great, things are moving along nicely. Now L Bird gets home and we are both in good moods because we know we got a night out and more importantly hot water. She goes to jump in the shower and whammo no hot water, its ice cold. I run in to check the water heater and sure enough its flashing the same code. The tech has been gone less than and hour and its already acting up. I’m so pissed I can’t speak, so L Bird calls Whirlpool and complains, they tell us to call call A&E and have the tech call them. She calls A&E and gets the run around “the tech is out on another call and he will call as soon as he’s available”, yeah right. I call A&E back and get the same run around only, I get “well, there are no guarantees that the tech will call you tonight”.
Great, our night out is sabotaged. We have to sit around and wait for a call that may never come. Screw that noise, I had L Bird change the answering machine, and we went out for a quick dinner. The rest of the night was blown, no movie and no drinks, even though I could definitely used a keg at that point.
So this morning comes, I wake up and I am determined and livid, so I call Whirlpool and I am ready to breathe fire at whoever answers my call. Then this nice gentleman answers the call and he is instantly pleasant. My mind and my mouth mellow a bit, and I explain what has happened, how long its been going on and that I would just like the unit replaced. He puts me on hold for 15 minutes and comes back to me with a glorious string of numbers. That string of numbers is my return code to take to Lowe’s to get a whole new unit. I thanked him profusely and even thought about asking for his address to send him a thank you card. I’m ecstatic. Then comes the catch, I have to unhook the old (new) water heater and take it to lowe’s with me to get the new one. What a pain in the ass, but whatever, I’m getting a new unit.
So for those of you keeping score at home, the fight card reads as follows: Rounds 1 & 2 go to Whirlpool for dicking me around, Round 3 is a clear cut victory for me as I get a new water heater. So now we are heading into the final round with me trailing, if the replacement is installed and it works great, then I win by decision. If it is installed and does the same thing, I lose by TKO and peel myself off the mat and go home and cry.
DING!!! There the bell, let’s get it on….
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