I purchased a new Furnace and A/C unit from Goodman. Just after two years I find that the A/C unit had a leak. I called Main heating and cooling, their Shelby office to have them check it out. On the first visit the technician found the issue was a bad evaporator coil. He charged my system with freon, check the manufacturer and said that the unit was under warranty, that he was going to order the part from the manufacturer and he or another technician would return no later than 12 days maximum with the new part from the manufacturer. He stated that the coil is very easy to replace in the furnace. The manufacturer had an easy access panel for it and the unit just slides in and out of the transition for easy replacement . That it would take no more then 2 hours for installation of the new part and that the leak was so small that there would be minimum leakage from the time the unit was filled and the time they would come out for the second trip to install the evaporator coil. So I paid the $465 for the visit waited for their call.
Well I had to call the company exactly one month later to get the status of my part. I spoke to the operator/dispatcher. She couldn't find the status of my call and had to call me back. An hour later I receive a call from her. She stated that they have the part in and that they will schedule a day for a technician to come out to install it. She gives me a quote of 328 dollars for the installation of the new coil, 4 hours installation time, warranty processing fee and freon.. I said to her that the initial technician said that it was an easy installation for a total of under $160 and as for the freon charge they were suppose to call me no later than 12 days after the initial visit, and that I had to contact them a month later. She apologized and said that they had technicians that had quit their company and a huge backlog of work. That was her reason why they hadn't contacted me. My response to her was 'This is my problem... how?" Somehow I think she expected me to understand why other customers stepped in line in front of me while I was waiting for my work to be completed by them. I had to point that out to her as well.
She stated that the reason why it would take 4 hours to install the evaporator coil was that original technician said that the 'transition' from the furnace to the duct work was tricky and it would take longer to install contradicting what he said to me.
I didn't understand why the technician would have said something different to me and than to her but I said that I needed this part installed, was pretty much held hostage to getting this job finished and would we would talk about this later. When the technician came out almost a week later he had the part and installed the part in less than two hours as the first technician stated. He was a nice guy, and was knowledgeable. When he gave me the bill it was for $328. I said that the original technician said that it would only take 2 hours at the most and this charge was a lot more then two hours. The second technician said to me that they had to use a part specifically from the manufacturer because the transition was part of the furnace and it had to be special ordered from the manufacturer. Well actually I wanted the part to come from the company that manufactured it anyway and not something that was just laying on their shelves, and the cost for the the part was free covered by the manufactures warranty. The first technician said that they had to order the part from the company after he checked the warranty of the unit so I don't know why the second told me this, like it was 'something special' that they do.
After receiving the bill for the installation the technician said that he just does what the office tells him to do and if I wanted to take it up fee for installation with them I should call his office , which I did. I spoke to the operator again and she told me a different story, again, as well as the manager, her superior could not be reached at that time and that she was the only person I could deal with on the matter. She said that for ANY installation in which a part is installed they ALWAYS charge a minimum of 4 hours. After a lengthy debate with her she also stated that there was a warranty processing fee as well added to the bill. I asked her how much that costs and she said $75. For the price they charge per hour this fee didn't make sense because at $72 per hour for service it comes to $288 and for $75 for warranty processing fee the final bill would be $363 plus taxes. The technician Todd was a good guy and did his job well. I will see next spring however how good their work is and if the unit works fine. I was charged almost $800 for their service of a $1400 unit. Almost the price of the entire unit.
I would be VERY SKEPTICAL in dealing with this company. It reminded me of dealing with a transmission company. Deal with them at your OWN RISK read more