whats fair? Warranty work on a stove we didnt sell......

no, the original dealer basically said that they would charge $150 to come out, up and above the warranty. So, the owner was simply looking for a cheaper alternative.

 

thank you for your honesty! Some industries are similar, some are way different, so cant paint them all with the same broad brush.

 

Understood and agree 100%. Probably comes as no surprise that I am OCD about researching every aspect of an item before making a purchase, especially a high dollar item like a Harman stove...So I read and researched everything and I knew all of this stuff before purchasing, especially the part about being married to the dealer from whom you purchase. Likely much of my learning came from you guys in fact Unfortunately, some of us live in an area where all of the dealers in the pool are like dead rotten fish and all you can do is pick the one that stinks the least, if you know what I mean? There were only 2 dealers around here when I bought my P68. I payed them both visits and "interviewed" them so to speak, before deciding where to purchase. Price was not a factor because IMO all dealers charge virtually the same prices for the Harman stoves, in fact to the consumer they might as well be priced fixed (at least back then).

You will laugh, but having read so much about dealer A being unwilling to service a stove sold by dealer B, that was one of the questions I asked both. If a customer comes to you needing service on a stove they bought from a different dealer, will you help them? To me, as a consumer, this is important - because at some level it really makes a statement about your overall commitment to customer service in general.

Dealer #1: Paraphrasing - "Hell no. You didn't buy the stove from me, so why the f should I help you?" He then proceeded to verbally destroy the customer who just walked out the door angry because he ignored them for 1/2 hour. Dropping f-bombs right and left (talking to my wife and I who were complete strangers / new customers to him). This guy was certifiable. Needless to say, we quickly scratched that dealer off the list.

Dealer #2: At the the big question, there was a lot of hemming and hawing, but no f-bomb shutdown and certainly no other glaring issues like the first guy. Only thing that gave me pause was their unwillingness to come to my house (pre-sale) to do a "site survey" so to speak, so they could give me an accurate assessment of what the install would cost. See, I was having the stove installed in a pre-existing 100% vertical 8" SS fireplace flue. Their response to that was to pull out a 3" - 8" adapter and say "This is what we use for your kind of install. Our install fee is a flat $600". I strongly suspected that was wrong and not best practice (again, according to the anal research I had done), and when they got out to my house everything would change and they would whack me another XYZ hundred or thousand dollars for a liner kit, unexpected labor, etc. Yet they would not come to my house before the sale; a mere 10 mile drive. Well, they were still night and day better than the first dealer and my only option, so I went with them.

Bought the stove, it came in a couple months later. When it arrived, I drove to the dealer and picked it up in my truck, brought it home, and had my chimney sweep I have used for years install it (liner kit and all). Waited a day for the RTV to cure, turned it on for the first time and within 15 minutes knew there was something wrong. The distribution fan would not turn on. The stove itself was scary hot, but the fan would not turn on. So I powered it down, called the dealer and a couple days later the tech came out. He re-produces the issue, pulls the distribution fan off, puts a new one on, powers the stove up, and everything works fine. Then, he tests the original fan to prove it was broken / malfunctioning, by attaching it to an alligator clip electrical harness and plugs it into the wall. The fan powers up immediately. He says "Hmm, must have been a bad connection." Packs up all of his stuff and before he heads out the door says, "That'll be $75". I said "Huh?". He explains that is their fee for a service call. I said how can you charge me to fix a brand new stove you just sold me? It's never been used before. That's when he goes into the song and dance about how Harman doesn't pay them properly to do warranty service so they have to extend their travel and labor costs to the customer. I said again - the stove is brand new. It didn't matter. He then proceeds to tell me that Mr. Boss Man back at the shop wanted him to charge me $150 because it was close to a holiday (it was sometime around Thanksgiving) and he talked the boss down to the $75 on my behalf. Now I'm staring daggers at him. Sensing my anger, he said he would "give me a break" on a future stove cleaning, like that was some kind of peace offering. I grudgingly paid him the $75. From that time on, he called me every fall wanting to come do a stove cleaning. I never called him back. Completely disgusted, I didn't want anything to do with them after what happened that day. I taught myself how to clean the stove (OCD research again) and have done it religiously ever since.

So now I ask you - How should this have gone down? I've tried to put myself in their shoes and always come to the same conclusion. In these circumstances, if I had charged the customer, I could not sleep at night. It's just ethically wrong. Period.

LW - It was not my intent to make this a pizzing match. Just wanted to shed some light on the topic from the point of view of a customer who has had first hand experience with the Harman dealer warranty process. At the end of the day, it's a dealer issue, and not all dealers are pirates - I get that. I just wish Harman would take a more active part in standardizing and providing dealer funding to make sure what happened that day can't happen anymore.

 

I have read all the posts and as a consumer this is what I see and what I would expect.

The Harman warranty pays for parts and labor. No travel time or shipping. My interpretation is I would get free parts and probably a ridiculous travel charge from a greedy dealer or a modest or lower travel charge from others.

The warranty also basically gives dealers the ability to charge whatever they like for non customer warranty work. It is for all intents and purposes a useless warranty at that point. I would expect again to get screwed at this point and would be pleasantly surprised if I didn't.
Now as far as you LW, take a look at each case as they present themselves and see what makes the most sense for you. ( which it sounds like you do )
One thing I think as a consumer we can all appreciate is honesty. If you tell someone it is gonna cost x then it should be very close to that number when you are done. These stoves are not that complicated and with your experience you can probably judge where you time will end up. You will win some and lose some, just win more than you lose.
To be honest, warranty is the last thing I look at nowadays for any product. I have come to expect a hassle when I need to use one and am pleasantly surprised when it goes smoothly.

 

I think it prudent here to do exactly what you did- ask if they would service others' units. Get an answer, yes or no. THEN, ask if it is their unit, under warranty, if they charge additional funds to do "under warranty" repairs. Both are great questions, and you know what? They almost never get asked. We get the question to service other dealers' stoves AFTER the fact.....stove in question is installed and not running. Our answer? You really should have the originating dealer service the warranty. That's when you find out the real issues. Its rare that they are no longer in business.....very rare. More commonly, its more a difference of opinion in the stove owner versus the selling dealer. What happens in cases such as that, we will service their unit, but WILL charge a service charge to do so, and that charge will depends on where you live. We still wont travel to areas beyond our service area though. North Shore of Boston? Sorry (and yea, its been asked!). We will still provide covered parts at no charge though. You're issue, ttdberg is fairly obvious....would be either the blower, the board, or the ESP....and 30 secs with a DDM would tell us which. In my opinion, that service call should have been for free, and its easy to say from my side of the fence, but that's how we deal with them. Not all dealers do.

I do agree there should be warranty changes on the HHT/dealer side, and its been mentioned, but to no avail.

As for all dealers not being pirates, well, that would depend on your point of view, I guess. If you don't get the answer you want to hear, they are pirates....which is why its important to ask the questions ahead of time, before you buy and install the stove.

As an aside though, I think I would be somewhat insulted if someone came in, prior to buying the stove, and asked if they bought it somewhere else if we would do warranty work on it.

 

I agree with pretty much everything you said, IHP. And, its America. The land of free enterprise. So, yea, I also feel its fair for a dealer to charge whatever they want for NON-warranty work. Then, ball is in your court. If its ridiculous, call someone else! What we try and do is tell people what the labor charge will be (that's labor and travel), plus parts. If the part is obvious, we tell them THAT price as well. But, sometimes its impossible to diagnose a unit over the phone. In that case, its "labor + parts". The labor charge is always the same, its the parts which varies. Now, parts will be roughly the same everywhere, so, it comes down to labor, I guess. If my labor charge is too high, its cool, there's other folks you can call as well, and I understand if you find it cheaper, you might go that route...its your prerogative.

As for us, we have a fairly extensive question list for service work.....Where did you get the unit? When? Where do you live? When was the last time you cleaned your unit? and finally: What's the issue? The toughest ones are answers like "I dunno, it doesn't run".........hard to give a parts price there. Its important to qualify customers, as why waste their time if its so far away, we wont go there? Tell them the labor cost for non-warranty stove work. We have had folks tell us..."WHAT?! We aren't paying THAT!" Well, I guess I am not working on your stove either, its what we get.

As for honesty, agreed, I appreciate it as well. But, some folks sometimes folks just cant handle the truth (In my best Jack Nicholson voice). Try telling someone that their stove isn't running because they do a terrible job cleaning it.

 

What HE said...