GE Service Warning

[phil harold]

Well dont go out and buy a new one yet and if you do dont buy Whirlpool who owns kithen aid, maytag, amana, and afew others.
with all this enrgy star ratings manufactures are making compressors chaeaper and smaller and then they give out if the coils get dusty on frig / freezer. Then it is not covered by warranty if the coils are dusty

and lets not even mention my maytag neptune (leaks Mold/mildew, and circutboard replacements) with the class action suit I was offered 100 off on the next maytag I bought with in the next year

the stove...

/rant

[Chris Kennedy]

Laugh if you want, but my "go-to" people for appliance repair is Sears. (I won't shop in their stores, but that's a completely separate issue.) They change supplier brands for "Kenmore" often enough that their guys are fairly savvy regardless of what you actually have in your house.

I won't laugh. I am not a wild fan of Sears as a store, but I have always found their service techs to be very good. Honestly, can't complain.

Cheers,

Chris

[Eddie Watkins]

I've had good service from Sears, they are a little pricy but results have been good.
I buy a GE product about once every ten years then I remember why I swore never to buy another GE product ever.

[Al Willits]

Mike,
I feel for you - and have had a similar experience only with the servicing of our boiler. Seems many servicing companies have a policy of not "taking into consideration the customer's amateur diagnostics." I guess it's a nice way of saying they ignore the customer and need to look at it themselves. Allows them to make more calls per day.
In your case I think I would be calling the management and demanding my money back. $1000 for a repair - at least half the value of the unit is ridiculous. You should have been informed about that before they scheduled the appointment. Then again, they probably make more money on these false calls than we might think.

I hope the unit keeps working - at least long enough for you to have time to pick out a new one.
Of course, this is one reason we have our 1946 Philco in the basement.
Wes

Hate to burst your bubble, but servicers rarely take customers diagnostics as fact, way to many wrong parts and the servicer then has to deal with all them wrong parts then.
Customer are more often wrong, way more often.

So, they don't know if you've been in a related field for 30+ years or just some guy who thinks he knows what's wrong, so they come see for themselves.

They should listen to what you have to say and use that in diagnosing the problem, customers usually are pretty good at giving clues as what's wrong.

If they come and get the wrong part ordered, that's another matter.
But with todays electronics and ever changing updates and models, it gets harder and harder to get it right, factories aren't always open or correct with technical info too, that makes matters worse.

I don't know the model you have, but I'm betting GE probably has a update on it, their updates on frost or ice in the fresh food or freezer section goes on page after page.

The last I heard, GE is still trying to get out of the appliance game, those in the field say its because of poor products, who knows.

Al

[Eric Larsen]

Mike, went though this two months ago.

Ended up paying $300 for a $20 solenoid so it would make ice again. General Electric can [censored, censored, censored, censored.]

If it breaks again, I'm going to replace it with a brand that isn't out to unfairly chisel their customers. Everyone in this development has GE refrigerators, and ALL OF US have similar stories about the ice system. Every single one of us.

To heck with GE. Next time, Sub-Zero.

Guess what?

Take a wild [censored] guess what just happened????



My ice dispensing system just failed in the exact same way again -- 24 days after their oh, so generous 30-day service warranty expired.


I HATE GENERAL ELECTRIC APPLIANCES.

I hope they build their [censored] nuclear reactors with a little more care than they build their [censored] refrigerators.

[Ken Fitzgerald]

Guess what?

I hope they build their [censored] nuclear reactors with a little more care than they build their [censored] refrigerators.

Each of the GE companies are run as totally independent companies.

[Rich Stewart]

I checked the BBB after I bought a GE fridge. Something in the neighborhood of 30,000 complaints just on the refirdgerators. It has been my understanding GE is now making appliances that will last for just over a year. Builders buy them for new houses and all they want is for them to work for the warrantee period on the house. Bought a Maytag before this one and the door warped. The service guy told me 800 bucks to fix it. Are there any appliances that ARE worth anything?

[Wes Bischel]

Al,
Understood - but in my case a power vent for a boiler - bearings went bad - one part number for the whole assembly. I don't expect them to take my diagnostics as fact, but I do expect them to at least listen especially when not doing so would leave me without heat for three days. Sorry Al, no bubble to burst here.

Wes

[Mike Henderson]

To prevent this from becoming a GE bashing thread, let me again say that my GE referigerator has been a good unit. It's about 15 years old so I don't mind having one service call in 15 years.

My complaint is that the service guy did not do any diagnostics but simply recommended a very expensive "icing kit" when there's probably only one failing part. Basically, he threw the expense on me, so that he wouldn't have to do any diagnostic work.

A kit makes sense when it's very inexpensive, such as a carburetor kit (for those of you old enough to remember carburetors), because as long as you're taking it apart, you just as well change everything. But those carburetor kits were less than $20, not $900.

Mike

[Dustin Lane]

I've had some bad luck with our Whirlpool duet washer. They put a filter in front of the water pump but then didn't tell anyone about it. It doesn't show up anywhere in the owners manual and is hidden behind the front kick panel with no label so it seems clear they don't want you to know about it. Seems like a repair trap to me. Washer throws an error code and so you have to call a service tech to come fix what is nothing more than removing three screws and emptying a filter. Unfortunately it seems the water pump ran dry too long and burnt up so that needs to be replaced. The part is $50 from ebay. 5 times that from a repairman + labor. DIY rules all.

[Eric Larsen]

It's about 15 years old so I don't mind having one service call in 15 years.

I think that's the operative sentence. Me and 10 neighbors have had more than 25 service calls in 14 months. All with the same ice-maker problems. There have been flooded freezers, no ice, no crushed ice, flooded floors, burnt-out ice makers, etc.

I'm on my second ice-maker and my third solenoid.

Perhaps we ALL got refrigerators from a horribly-made batch. It wouldn't surprise me. But I think I have every right to have an axe to grind with the GE appliance division.

Whenever I talk with my neighbors, conversation invariably turns to the [censored] ice maker.

EDIT -- Every time the technician comes calling, he tries to sell me a $600 extended service contract. I want no part of that. I'll take the $600 and put it towards a refrigerator that will last more than four months without a malfunction. This time was it was free. I called GE and politely read them the riot act. Next time it involves more money, I'll replace it. What a waste.

[Mike Henderson]

Eric - I wasn't throwing stones at you. I just wanted to note that I'm only complaining about GE Service, since I'm the one who started all this.

Maybe I didn't word it properly. sorry.

Mike

[Eric Larsen]

Eric - I wasn't throwing stones at you. I just wanted to note that I'm only complaining about GE Service, since I'm the one who started all this.

Maybe I didn't word it properly. sorry.

Mike

No worries, it's all good.

But I do feel a bit of a responsibility to tell people here how frustrated I am with GE.

I'm having a similar conversation with a woman on another forum whose 'fridge flooded her basement. Same problem I've had, and all my neighbors have had as well. I'm lucky in that I don't have a basement. Otherwise I'd be in the same boat. She's reported tens of thousands of dollars of damage. And it's the same part that has plagued me.

My refrigerator was assembled in [country that doesn't have a good record of quality control], made with parts that are made in [country that also doesn't have a good record of quality control.]

These appliances came with the house. I didn't really want them, but they were essentially "free." If I had it to do again, I would kick these appliances to the curb and install better appliances. I firmly believe that if I had sold these appliances as "basically new" on Craigslist and used the money to purchase more reliable equipment it would be worth it.

But we had thousands of dollars of work to do, and kitchen appliances were near the bottom of our list. If we knew what we know now, we would have swapped it all out.

[Al Willits]

Al,
Understood - but in my case a power vent for a boiler - bearings went bad - one part number for the whole assembly. I don't expect them to take my diagnostics as fact, but I do expect them to at least listen especially when not doing so would leave me without heat for three days. Sorry Al, no bubble to burst here.

Wes

I think I mentioned the listening part, but many electrical parts can not be returned and depending on the size of the servicer, doesn't take to many eaten parts to chew up profits.
Just trying to show you their side.

Just wondering why three days for a common part, unless you have some sort of specilized boiler?

Al

[Mike Cutler]

Just to add a little balance here, I had my first ever warranty service a few months back.
We had purchased an obsolete, floor model, Sub Zero refrigerator from Percy's in Worcester Mass. It came with the remainder of the factory warranty, and an extended warranty.
We got the 'fridge home, plugged it in and it was not working. Called Percy's and they sent a repair tech out the next business day. Long story short, either the unit had never been charged, or lost it sitting on the floor for so many years in the demo mode.
When the repair tech came out he called Sub Zero and gave them the serial# for the unit to get the warranty authorized and they told him the warranty was expired on that the unit in Oklahoma. The Tech worked through the issue with Sub Zero, as clearly the unit was sitting in my kitchen in Connecticut,and had been purchased 3 days prior in Mass. He ultimately replaced the evaporator, cooling coil, and condensor, as all of these parts had outstanding issues with this particular model, and then he charged the unit. Basically he rebuilt the unit in our kitchen.
Point being that the tech could have just thrown a charge in it and called it a day, but he didn't. He took the time and initiative to make everything right.
There are good techs, and companies out there.

PS
Eric
Yes, GE apparently makes better reactors than appliances. I've been working on their reactors and turbines for 25+ years.