adudinsk Posted November 11, 2008 Report Share Posted November 11, 2008 I have a friend that has a high end Cal Spa. thats 3yrs old.. the GE heater that has a lifetime warranty.. died. They still have 2yrs left on parts and labour they called the dealer.. he said no problem.. but $150 for them to come out.. Labour ONCE THERE is free.. and parts are free.. ?? Is this right.. can they charge for the service call while fully under warranty?? Is anyone else having to pay that... and if so.. is $150 normal.. or high.. or low?? Thanks Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spatech (the unreal one) Posted November 11, 2008 Report Share Posted November 11, 2008 I have a friend that has a high end Cal Spa. thats 3yrs old.. the GE heater that has a lifetime warranty.. died. They still have 2yrs left on parts and labour they called the dealer.. he said no problem.. but $150 for them to come out.. Labour ONCE THERE is free.. and parts are free.. ?? Is this right.. can they charge for the service call while fully under warranty?? Is anyone else having to pay that... and if so.. is $150 normal.. or high.. or low?? Thanks They should be able to show you a section in the warranty that says they "may assess a reasonable travel or mileage charge per service call, which may include diagnostic time" but I would question the term "reasonable" in this case. A "trip fee" is very common but $150 is way more than normal for a trip charge unless this dealer is in another county and has to travel a good distance to get there. Let us know how it works out. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
adudinsk Posted November 12, 2008 Author Report Share Posted November 12, 2008 Actually the dealer is about 20 miles away... I called Cal Spa... in california, they said that yeah.. the dealer can charge for that they dont police it,.. nor do the police the actual charge/amount. I will look in the warranty.. to see if it says that.. though.. What are they thinking.. your going to bring the spa to them??? and yes.. they do say the dealer can charge reasonable charges for travel time ... Nuts.. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dan.The.Spa.Man Posted November 12, 2008 Report Share Posted November 12, 2008 Actually the dealer is about 20 miles away... I called Cal Spa... in california, they said that yeah.. the dealer can charge for that they dont police it,.. nor do the police the actual charge/amount. I will look in the warranty.. to see if it says that.. though.. What are they thinking.. your going to bring the spa to them??? and yes.. they do say the dealer can charge reasonable charges for travel time ... Nuts.. I would say that $150 is ridiculous, but Here are some of my thoughts on the extra "sevice charge": 1. Many companies that do in-house service calls during the warranty period of their product have 'travel charges'.....appliance companies, electronics, furnace (repair)companies, and yes most spa companies among many others.... Unfortunately the cost of doing regular business has increased through gas (which is luckily and suddenly lower), insurance, benefits, and other economical factors has caused this practice to take place. 2. Most manufacturers pay a certain amount to the dealer for each service call. Unfortuanately for the dealer and their customer, many manufacturers have not increased their fee to the dealers over the last 5-6 years. Instead of losing money, the dealer is forced to do something, like institute a service fee. 3. Although there are lots of customers that take great care of their investment, there are way too many customers that take advantage of the "warranty" and do absolutely no maintenance to their hot tub and have ruined it for the rest. I have asked customers to do something as simple as taking their filter out to see if that takes care of their 'no heat' problem. After claiming that they did, I drive an hour just to find out that in fact it was the filter, and they did not perform this simple task. Now they expect no charge after you have wasted an hour there, an hour back, and a bunch of gas for nothing? Believe me, this happens many times every week. I used to be a fool and leave notes to people that the filter was dirty or the high limit was tripped due to a dirty filter so please be weary of it in the future. Well after leaving notes at some of these houses 3-4 times with no change it's amazing what a $125 bill will do to change their effort in attempting to solve these problems. Although my company has not imposed this service fee in 40 plus years, I believe we may institute a meager travel fee policy next year. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Roger Posted November 12, 2008 Report Share Posted November 12, 2008 I have a friend that has a high end Cal Spa. thats 3yrs old.. There's no such things as a high end Calspa.....just middle of the road. He may have paid alot of money for it but that doesn't change it's classification. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris H Posted November 12, 2008 Report Share Posted November 12, 2008 The fee reduces the amount of nuisance calls. It helps especially when it comes to resetting the breaker or cleaning the filters. Most appliance repair shops charge this service fee. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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