I called St. Louis Appliance Repair Group to diagnose and fix a problem with my Sub-Zero wine refrigerator - only the bottom portion of the two-zone refrigerator was cooling properly. I obtained their company information from the Sub-Zero web site, which listed them as one of two authorized repair companies in the St. Louis area for Sub-Zero appliances.\r
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Their repair man arrived at my house, and after a fairly quick inspection of the unit, he told me that I needed a new compressor as well as new upper and lower evaporators. Additionally, he said that it would be a two-man job because the unit needed to be pulled out from the wall where it was installed. I asked him if the entire repair would require two people -- he admitted that it would not but said I would be charged for two repairmen for the estimated 5-hour job. I asked him about the warranty for the unit, which was only four years old (which he confirmed by looking up the unit's serial number), and he said that Sub-Zero had a 12-year warranty, but that it only covered parts and not labor. The labor, he estimated, would cost $1700 for two men for five hours. I was shocked and said I could almost buy a new unit for that price; he told me that they essentially needed to rebuild the entire unit except the shell. I told him I was going to wait and think about it, and he billed me the standard $90 fee for the diagnostic service visit. \r
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I called the other company in St. Louis authorized by Sub-Zero to do warranty work, to get a second opinion. Their repair man spent considerably more time inspecting the refrigerator than the man from St. Louis Appliance Repair, and after an hour he said that the evaporators and compressors were fine. He said that the problem was with a different component of the unit and that fixing it was a one-man, 90-minute job (not a two-man, 5-hour job). What really amazed me, though, was that he said that the entire repair, including labor, was covered by warranty! Sub-Zero has a 12-year warranty on parts, but the first five years also cover labor. In fact, even the diagnostic visit that day was covered by the warranty -- I would not have to pay a thing. He ordered the necessary part, installed it two weeks later, and now my refrigerator works perfectly.\r
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St. Louis Appliance Repair Group COMPLETELY misdiagnosed the problem with my refrigerator, and not by a small amount. They wanted to charge me $1700 for an unnecessary repair that still would have left me with a broken refrigerator! But what I find completely unacceptable is that a company authorized by Sub-Zero to perform repairs does not even understand how the Sub-Zero warranty works! Even if they had correctly diagnosed the problem with my unit, there should have been no charge to me (including the diagnostic visit) because the unit was still under a parts and labor warranty, being less than five years old.\r
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After my refrigerator was fixed, I called St. Louis Appliance Repair Group and asked to speak with a manager about getting a refund for the diagnostic fee that should not have been charged to me. The woman who answered the phone argued with me and said there was no 5-year warranty on parts and labor - when I told her it was on Sub-Zero's web site, she told me I must have visited the wrong web site! I called Sub-Zero directly, and a woman confirmed that the unit was covered for parts AND LABOR for the first five years and that St. Louis Appliance Repair should NOT have charged me, even for the diagnostics visit. She said she would call St. Louis Appliance Repair to clarify to them how the Sub-Zero warranty works. I called St. Louis Appliance Repair back to inform them of this, and this time the woman I spoke with was very snippy and demanded to know the name of the Sub-Zero representative with whom I spoke (like I would have made it up!). I told her I wanted a manager to call me back, and I am still waiting to hear from one.
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