Hot Tub Not Heating, Think It Is The Spa Pack...tired Of Throwing Parts At It

[terpjr]

I have a 2002, Saratoga Spas Lexington model hot tub. It is controlled by a Geck S-Series Spa pack.

I drained it recently to give it a thorough cleaning and, upon startup, it was not heating the water.

I briefly got a message (3 dots at the bottom of the display) indicating that there was a water flow issue, I pulled the filters and checked for debris and then reinstalled and the message went away.

I opened the rear panel and saw nothing that made a ton of sense to me, so I called the company who had sold the original owner the spa and they sent a repair person.

He looked and decided that it was a pressure switch issue. He replaced the pressure switch ($60), plus service fee ($125) and turned it on, watched it rise a degree and said it was all set.

It stayed at the same temp for another 2 hours, so I called and said it wasn't heating.

He came back the next day to replace the heater unit ($250). The unit he brought had slightly different connecting leads than the original. The original had two L shaped metal brackets to connect to the spa pack. The unit he brought had two short wired leads which did not match up exactly to the connections on the motherboard. He threaded the wires together and taped them up. Turned the unit on, it rose a degree after a little while (I assume this is the sun and the nature of the moving water), then he was on his way. 2 Hours later, still no more heat.

This morning, I turned the unit on to see if anything had changed and got quite a bit of smoke coming out of the spa pack/motherboard (there was previous evidence of a little burning in the past - there was some black, soot inside - particularly on one of the two leads to the heater), the display was reading weird numbers (14 - we use Fahrenheit here), the pressure lights were flashing and the blower/jets were firing on and off.

So I am thinking that I wasted my money on a pressure switch and a heater...and should have bought a complete spa pack with heater to begin with and replaced the whole darn thing. I think the motherboard was probably malfunctioning to begin with but maybe the bad heater connection was the issue...

Is there any chance I would be able to get my money back on the pressure switch and heater from the company if I buy the new spa pack from them?

Or, am I better off buying one online (I assume the price I would find is a few hundred cheaper than the "list" price they would sell me at) and replacing it myself? The original is 14 years old.

What to do?

Thanks!

[Dr. Spa]

You paid someone to fix it...It isn't fixed. They owe you your money BACK. ANY small claims court judge will agree.