If you don't want to read the wall of text below, the upshot is that, while their work is good,…read moretheir pricing is absurd, offensive, and preys on customers' ignorance. KC Garage Door Masters charged me ~2-4x what their competitors quoted me after the fact, and the owner refused to work with me on it when given the chance.
First things first, they did what they said they were going to do. They were responsive, showed up on time (their truck did leave oil stains in my driveway, but that's the least of my worries), completed the work efficiently, were friendly and knowledgeable, and the repair was successful. On that basis, it's a five-star review all day.
Unfortunately, it has to be a one-star review. Where things fell apart is the pricing model. Taking advantage of the fact that most of their customers, like me, are entirely unfamiliar with the market price for various lengths and gauges of torsion springs, they have decided on some truly offensive mark-ups.
To replace two torsion springs, they charged me $1,200. Helpfully, they included a breakdown on their invoice, which indicated that ~$950 of the $1,200 was parts (the two springs) and ~$250 was labor. The labor price isn't offensive, and if anything, they should've charged me more for answering all of my questions. The offensive part is, well, the parts.
Turns out, retail pricing for the springs they installed is around $75 each. KC Garage Door Masters charged me $477.13 per spring, or more than 600% of the retail price, a mark-up that (again) only works if you're preying on the ignorance of your customers. What's doubly offensive is that the $75 price is *retail*, which is *already* marked up to a profitable level and is almost certainly substantially higher than the wholesale price the company would be paying to their supplier. On top of the 600%+ mark-up, they also charged a $230 labor fee, making the installed per-spring cost nearly $600.
Once I had a chance to do some research, I reached out to Andrew (who I believe to be the owner of the business). I explained my concerns and offered for him to make it right. He refused and told me that he believed their pricing to be consistent with their competitors' and that they needed to charge these prices to fund their marketing efforts, among other things. In his view, competitors would charge me similar prices - he said that Precision would've charged me 20% less while A1 Garage Door would've charged me 20% more.
As it would happen, that was not even close to true. I was unable to get a quote from A1 Garage without them coming to my house (and I didn't want to waste their time), but Precision quoted me an all-in, installed price of $225-$350 per spring with no trip charge. That's not 20% less... that's somewhere between 40% and 60% less than the $600 per spring KC Garage Door Masters charged me. Wanting a couple of additional datapoints, I also called two other local competitors who both quoted me all-in installed prices of $250 - $325 per spring, consistent with the quote I got from Precision. When I let them know what I'd paid to KC Garage Door Masters, every single person legitimately refused to believe it and confirmed that I'd been taken for a ride.
Quotes in hand, I called the owner again and again gave him the opportunity to make it right before I posted this review (and told him that his decision would be reflected in my review either way). He refused and would only reiterate that I had signed the estimate and, as a result, they did nothing wrong. And to be fair, I agree with that. I'm not accusing the KC Garage Door Masters of doing anything illegal; I agreed to the price (though I wasn't happy about it), I signed the estimate, they did the work as we agreed upon, and the repair seems to be good. What I am accusing them of, however, is being offensively priced and well out of step with the market.
In my view, mark-ups like these are inherently unethical. Take your business literally anywhere else, save 40-60% on an already costly repair, and don't reward this behavior.
