well, its a warranted repair, so, Im curious what the bottom line to you should be, please keep us all informed. harman is theoretically paying someone $450 to do the work....the only possible out of pocket I could see for you, POSSIBLY, would be to cover the new dealer and his mileage picking the stove up and delivering it. What a headache! (Both for you and the "new" dealer who has to support a unit he didnt sell) Looks like the only one here who really made out is the original dealer who profited off of the original sale!
Harman Warranty Sucks - UPDATE - Now I am MAD!
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how you coming along swalz? i work for a harman dealer. we have changed 6 or so of the feeders. harman pays well to do this. after doing one it is not that bad 4-5 hrs and 2 trips. harman pays good for this repair. i dont know why other dealers wont do it.
rickwa said:
depending upon which unit it is, Harman pays differently for a warrantee rebuild. One of the biggest problems this time of year is other work. Its cold out, folks stoves need service. in the time that you can pick up, rebuild, and deliver and reinstall a unit, how many other customers can you service? For us, thats on of the biggest issues. But just for fun, sit down and add in the time it takes to pick up, deliver and re-install......depends where the stove is, but I will bet youve got another 3-4 hours there of work.....so, in reality, for each rebuild, youve got 6-8 hours of work......let alone the lost revenue in serviceing your own customers (assuming, like this, the unit came from another dealer).....
OK, just got off the phone with the company repairing my stove, they want $1140 for the repair!
I told them that was unreasonable and if I new that they were going to charge that I would not have let them take the stove. They are charging me 5.5 hours for the repair and 4 hours to pick up and deliver the stove at $120 hr. He was going to charge $175 hr and I almost had a heart attact, after I told him that when we last spoke he said it was $120 hr for on site but he was going to see about the shop rate to make it less. They are charging 4 hours at $120 to pickup and deliver the stove. 2 hours to pick up, I had the stove out and all they did was load it up on a truck and two guys did it while going to another job, he said he needed 4 guys to offload it. So I am getting charged $480 to pick up and deliver the stove, Not right at all!
I put in a call to the dealer and the person handling the issue is out today, waiting to hear what they are going to do.
Buyer beware of Harman!
I told them that was unreasonable and if I new that they were going to charge that I would not have let them take the stove. They are charging me 5.5 hours for the repair and 4 hours to pick up and deliver the stove at $120 hr. He was going to charge $175 hr and I almost had a heart attact, after I told him that when we last spoke he said it was $120 hr for on site but he was going to see about the shop rate to make it less. They are charging 4 hours at $120 to pickup and deliver the stove. 2 hours to pick up, I had the stove out and all they did was load it up on a truck and two guys did it while going to another job, he said he needed 4 guys to offload it. So I am getting charged $480 to pick up and deliver the stove, Not right at all!
I put in a call to the dealer and the person handling the issue is out today, waiting to hear what they are going to do.
Buyer beware of Harman!
This sounds more like a dealer problem with them not honoring their agreement with you for the agreed upon rate. They deserve to be paid for their time to come get it and bring it back but NOT $175, or $120 per hour to do so. I agree that you should get some form of a lawsuit going if the representive will not step in to get this straigthened out. What is the point of the warranty if this is how a customer is going to be treated. I don't believe you can start a lawsuit until you are actually out something. Time to notify your state agencys and the BBB about how you are being treated. If Harman is a member they don't want something like this on their record and will do most anything to get it fixed. You need to be the squeaky wheel right now.
Bkins
Bkins
I'm sorry if this has been covered, but I am confused. the problem is clearly within the warranty period, the warranty clearly states parts and labor, but you are getting charged $1140 for a repair??
Can't you take it to small claims for breach of a written contract? Funny how they aren't clear about how much it will cost until after they have your stove they can hold for ransom. Do they have a consumer watchdog at one of your local papers or TV stations? Time to bring this to light and make life difficult for some people. They've certainly made it difficult for you.
Can't you take it to small claims for breach of a written contract? Funny how they aren't clear about how much it will cost until after they have your stove they can hold for ransom. Do they have a consumer watchdog at one of your local papers or TV stations? Time to bring this to light and make life difficult for some people. They've certainly made it difficult for you.
Before you go to court, do you have a consumer protection agency for the state? This is a "bait and switch" type scam. Tell the dealer to restore the stove to the condition you brought it in/had it picke dup and return the stove. Interestingly, in Utah one of the TV stations have a regular consumer advocate reporter who is a true bull dog, he'd grab a hold of this and tear that dealer a new one. Do you have something like that? You are in a tough spot and the Attorney General of the state is there to protect you. Get the dogs on the dealer and the tune may change
I am waiting on the dealer to get back to me on how they are going to handle it, not only do I have to worry about this I am getting quotes on replacing my boiler that is dying. After being told the cost I am feeling sick and upset, not what I needed to her right now. I have been asking what the cost will be ever since Haman said they would cover $450 and no one would give me an answer. I told the dealer that I could not afford much and they made the arrangements to be picked up and serviced. I never agreed to any amount of money and never signed anything saying that I authorized the repair. The service company just came and picked up the stove and never said what it was going to cost. I would think if it was going to cost this much they should have informed me, not sure if I can use that against them or not, I will be talking to the Harman dealer tomorrow morning and might have to start seeing what I can do legally.
I am going to see if I can find a way to pickup myself, maybe rent a small u haul truck so that extra 2 hours of them doing nothing can be charged.
I am going to see if I can find a way to pickup myself, maybe rent a small u haul truck so that extra 2 hours of them doing nothing can be charged.
littlesmokey said:
I will give them a call after I talk to the dealer if they don't resolve the issue.
IF you wind up in court get everybody involved... the dealer, his employees, the Harman distributor (if there is one) and all the officers of Harman and it's parent company... serve them all. No one will want to get involved and they will settle to make you go away.
krooser said:
I agree that he should serve everyone possible, but I think in the case of harman & it's officers, he'd have to have them served in the state & city where the parent company offices are in Penn. .....very $$ to do from Delaware
Yeah, you don't want to spend money and time to make a bad situation worse.
Usually better to try honey first.....
I just had a situation with bedding where I got some satisfaction, but Ma. has a decent customer protection law...you basically send a form letter with your problem (mine was bait and switch) and if it goes to court the other party is due 3x damages.
But a situation like this can be more complicated. Better to start with the low cost local (county or state) customer orgs...that is, if Harman or the dealer or whoever you feel wronged you does not make things right.
Usually better to try honey first.....
I just had a situation with bedding where I got some satisfaction, but Ma. has a decent customer protection law...you basically send a form letter with your problem (mine was bait and switch) and if it goes to court the other party is due 3x damages.
But a situation like this can be more complicated. Better to start with the low cost local (county or state) customer orgs...that is, if Harman or the dealer or whoever you feel wronged you does not make things right.
Lousyweather said:
What do you charge an hr?
Not to many places service pellet stove here in upper DE, I would like to know about what the going rate should be.
harman provides all the parts and 450 for labor. even if your dealer is charging 100/hour (excessive) that gives 4.5 hrs to do the job. your dealer is getting parts and 450 from harman. which means he is getting almost 1600 FOR THAT JOB everybody needs to make a living but it sounds like he is trying to make his on you harman dealer have to sign a contract for warranty repair. i am sure this is a breech of that contract let us know the name of the dealer so nobody else gets screwed by this clown
FOR THAT JOB everybody needs to make a living but it sounds like he is trying to make his on you harman dealer have to sign a contract for warranty repair. i am sure this is a breech of that contract let us know the name of the dealer so nobody else gets screwed by this clownThis is not being done by a Harman dealer if I read this thread correctly. It is a servicing shop that the dealers in his area use. TheHarman dealers have no techs of their own. Someone needs to be paid for the travel time to his house, to the shop, and back to the house. The servicing shop is acting like they have a home run. Time to make some serious noise. As I've mentioned before I've had very good luck with the BBB. Takes a little bit of time but anything he does, short of just paying the inflated bill, is going to take some time. What does the Harman rep say about this? Will they take the stove back and repair it at the factory?
Bkins
Bkins
I own a Harmon, but after reading all of the negative posts regarding this company over the past year, I'll be damned if I will ever buy another one! It is also infuriating that you can buy no parts for their stoves except through their dealer network - complete crap! Their warrantee which is a big part of their appeal is also apparently next to worthless.
Sawduster said:
yeah, I bought a p61A last season and after reading everything here I'm a little nervous. One of the main selling points was the warranty. I had a slight issue with my room sensing probe last year and it took an act of congress to get the dealer out here to look at my stove- and I have AGREED to pay the mileage to get to my house since its about a 40 min drive from the shop. I just wanted my stove up and running again!
Bigjim13 said:
Looks like we all need to become pellet stove experts so we can fix our own stoves. Would the dealer give us the parts to replace ourselves if it's still under warranty?
rap69ri said:
I doubt it, if they did there would most likely be a "dealer to owner part transfer fee" that would be involved and of course cost of labor for ordering the part and opening the box when it comes to the shop.
I say this sarcastically of course, I know there are several great dealers out there...
Bkins said:
It would seem to me, that to have been selected as a Harman dealer in the first place, they either told harman they had no techs of their own and would be using "outside help" (therefore harman knew & agreed to this), or they told Harman they had their own techs on premises (in which they lied, but it seems Harman would STILL be responsible).
IMO, at this point, and with the $$ numbers that are being thrown around to "fix" the stove, I would be demanding that harman take the stove back & refund the purchase price.
rap69ri said:
we have, in fact, done that. Ive several customers who work on their own units, or just dont want their dealer to work on it , for some reason or another
.......we just check to ensure the unit is still under warrantee, get the info from the customer, and the bad part, and put it through as a "parts only" warrantee (we dont get labor, of course, we didnt do the work)
Lousyweather said:rap69ri said:
we have, in fact, done that. Ive several customers who work on their own units, or just dont want their dealer to work on it , for some reason or another
lousyweather, Thats very sporting of you. I hope this may make a trend. Heck I would even offer to pay for the time it takes to do the look up and warranty paper work. What other brands do you carry. May need to pay you a visit some day. May I PM for details?
3 cheers for you and very nice of you to do this.
jay
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