Service 4 Appliances

I wish I'd checked out this website before calling Service 4 Appliances to repair my washing machine. i see that they repeat their unscrupulous business practices over and over.

When arranging the service call they quoted $80 to come and diagnose the problem and tell me what it would cost to repair the machine - pretty reasonable. When the tech showed up he said he'd remove, clean & reinstall the pump and the total service fee would be $180. I told him to go ahead. Literally 8 minutes later he told me that the pump needed to be replaced & it would cost $500. Yikes! It was an older washer, so there was no point spending $500 on it. But the fee of course was $180, not $80. that was a very expensive 8 minutes.

I complained to the tech that he shouldn't be charging me $180 since he didn't fix the machine. "You'll have to call the office, that's how they charge it". So I called the office, where a woman said she'd speak with management and get back to me, which of course she never did. When I called back I got the same lame excuses and denials. She's clearly very experienced at stonewalling frustrated customers.

Save yourself a lot of aggravation - call someone else.

My dishwasher pump was leaking and required immediate repair. I called Service4Appliances and they were able to come within a reasonable time frame.

The two guys who came to look at the dishwasher spend a long time assessing the problem, which turned out to be two problems. The repair would have been very labour intensive and so they recommended getting a new machine instead. Sine my dishwasher was 10+ years old, it was probably time. The guys were very helpful and knowledgeable, although I found the service to be very expensive, especially considering they did not repair the machine during their visit.

dishasher wasn't working. phoned and gave details of error codes. 2 people showed up after apparently going to the wrong address across the street. showed them dishwasher and error message and appeared obvious that they were not advised and had no idea what it meant. eventually said they would charge 240 for a complete diagnostic to try to find problem after i advised them that internet research indicated electrical problem. almost 2 hours later they called me over and advised they didn't know what the problem was and asked how would i like to pay. said they can check to see how much a control board would be but advised that if i paid for it and they installed it there would be no guarantee if it didn't work. said they would check price and get back to me. haven't heard from them since and glad for that.

July 9th, 2012

This is a copy of the letter i sent to the owner of this company:

My LG dishwasher stopped working the night of June 28th, 2012. It displayed a TE error code on the panel. I looked up the code on the LG website and it stated that it is a "Thermal Error" and that the water temp is too high, and to check wiring and to check the Thermistor.

As we were having company that weekend we needed it to be fixed asap. The morning of the 29th, I looked online for a registered LG service provider and your website came up.

I arranged to have a service done for that afternoon. Your servicemen arrived and began to examine the problem. They were told the information regarding the error code.

My wife had them call me at work after they arrived. They said that it would cost approx. $250 to fix the machine. I agreed to this work and price. An hour and a half later I received another call at work from them telling me that the “motherboard is fried and to replace it will cost $1000”. I thought this was a very expensive price for a repair (the same cost as an entirely new machine) and did not agree to them going ahead with such expensive work.

The next day I called both LG Canada and Sears Canada (where the unit was purchased) and enquired about the part. The 1st thing that both places asked me was which of the 3 parts needed to be changed. I told them I did not know. They told me to call you and ask. They also informed me that the price of the most expensive of the 3 was $145 for the part plus approx 1-2 hours labour. The other 2 parts were $45 and $65. They also informed me that the motherboard comes in 3 parts: heat control, machine control and light panel control.

I called your company back to ask for a more accurate diagnosis. I was told by your receptionist Nadia that I had already been given all the information I would need and that you are a private company and are allowed to charge whatever you want for repairs. I attempted to explain that I needed to know what specific part needed to be replaced but she was very frustrated with me and my questions. I asked her to call the service tech and just ask which part it was. She refused and asked me to email her the complaint. I told her I did not need to email her because I had just explained it all to her. She said she would find out.

After 4 hours I had no response so I called back. She was very angry that I had called back. She said that the worker had not responded to her email. I asked her again to call the worker and just ask him the quick question. She grew very angry with this and told me to not tell her how to run her business and to tell her what to do. At this point speaking to her was futile so I asked to speak to the manager. She claimed she was the manager. I then asked to speak to the owner and she claimed that she also owned the company.

The next day I awaited a call and of course, no call. I called back myself the following day and spoke to her again. She had no answer for me and said that despite charging me $282 for labour, a diagnosis was not done because I did not want the $1000 of work to be done. Does this make sense to you?

How can you know something will cost $1000 to fix if you do not know what part it is? If you are authorized to service LG appliances why do your service people not know about the 3 parts?(see below). How did they know which of the 3 motherboard components were broken?

A quick seach by myself online revealed: “This type of failure will require using an ohmmeter to check the value of the thermister. The thermister is located on the heater assembly mounted to the sump/motor and comes together as one part.

The thermister should ohm out between 11-14k ohms. If the thermister checks good I suspect a wiring harness problem. The thermister harness runs through the door area & has been known to cause problems. If the wiring harness & thermister check good you will need to replace the main control PCB.
I am writing to you, the company owner, as a company owner myself, to help correct this problem.

Sincerely,

First of all I have to say this experience cost me a lot of money. Not only did the repairman from Service4appliances break a part on the machine but the water leaked from the second floor down to the first floor where there is significant water damage now. The technician guaranteed that I would not have to pay for the repair.
We had to wait over a month and could not use the machine at all during that period. Everytime I phoned, the office staff got ruder and ruder. One admitted that she had told me a untrue story about when the part was arriving just to keep me from calling.
Finally when the repair was completed , the technician harrassed us for payment and was extrememly rude and refused to leave.
I phoned the office to speak to management and was told that they were not in. I requested their voice mailbox and was told that the manager did not have voice mail. I asked to leave a message and they told me it was best to keep calling back. My advice is to stay as far away from this company as you can. I would imagine the only good reviews they received on this website were from relatives or ones they wrote themselves!

Michael Lipkin spent an hour and a half diagnosing a problem with my icemaker, where other companies simply replace parts and hope that this fixes the issue. He took the time to test and analyze each component. He was clearly very knowledgeable as well as friendly and he explained exactly what he was testing for and the results. An excellent service experience!

Our washing machine leaked. Two nice gentleman came on time and diagnosed the problem in about 10 minutes. In another 15 minutes the leak was fixed without requiring new parts. Excellent job.

It would have taken 11 days for a service call from the appliance company's repair service. Service4Appliances came the very next day and were able to diagnose the problem and fix it within a few short hours. It works like new! Thanks Service4Appliance.

The bottom elements of my oven as well as all 4 burners were not working, i heard about service 4 appliances so i decided to give them a try.
I called them and i was very happy with their customers service as well as their technician they sent out to me.
I would reccoment this company and i will be using them again in the future.