BOB WALLACE APPLIANCE SALES

Could not repair and could offer no suggestions.

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Servicing could not be scheduled for any approximate time of the day. Thus, I needed to take entire days off work. The 1st date scheduled didn't happen at all as was the case for 2 more dates. It took 5 scheduled calls to achieve the repair. Two actual visits were needed. I called Bob Wallace late AM on the 1st day for an approximate time. Subsequently, the service man called back and said he was just starting another call which was 15 minutes away according to his GPS. When he said he'd be there at noon and it was already 11:40, I knew that could not happen and I cancelled.

I believe the dispatcher is the problem but it was a very painful warranty service experience.

unknown

The last time I used them was a month ago. They were professional and did a good job. there was a little wait to get somebody out here to do it, but they did a good job once they got here. It cost eighty dollars. I would use him again in the future.

I dropped off our non functional dryer on Wed, 5/14  I paid $60 towards the repair and was told that they would probably look at it Friday. On Friday they called and said it was fixed. I picked it up and was charged another $110.06, for a total of $170.06. The diagnosis was a failed thermal fuse.  The replacement fuse cost $16.89, while the labor cost was 91.65. This was in addition to the $60 "diagnostic charge.  I asked what that was for, i.e was it for an hour of labor or what and was told that it was a standard charge.  I later searched for "thermal fuse replacement Whirlpool"  and found a 3:13 video in which the thermal fuse was replaced in real time.  Removing and replacing  the back panel was partially edited out of the video, but it did show removing 2 or 3 screws. This took a 5-10 seconds per screw, using a manual nut driver.  It would have been less with an electric screw driver.
My estimate is that it probably less than a minute to remove the back panel.  While I don't know all of the diagnostic steps, my guess is that checking the thermal fuse is pretty early in the sequence and it can be checked with a simple ohmmeter.  In the video the fuse was replaced in less than 50 seconds.  Replacing the back panel would take another minute or so.  The repair was probably tested which might take another minute or two.  I think it's fair to say that I paid $150 for roughly 0.1 hour of labor, which is $1500/hr.  If it took as long as 10 minutes to fix, that works out to $900/hour.
What would be fair?  I think $60 + the parts would be fair and Bob Wallace would still make money on the transaction.  $60 + parts cost +  $35 for the repair labor would not have been too out of line.  $170.06 for this repair was, in my opinion, unethical, and I will never do business with them again.  I wish I had asked them to call me with an estimate when they diagnosed the problem.