William (Bill) Vaughn's Musings

My wife woke me from a sound sleep at 1AM when she discovered that the cold-water feed hose to the washer had burst. We cleaned up the water as best we could and called Sears as the washer was supposedly covered by a maintenance agreement. The washer (and dryer) were purchased at Sears in 2002 to replace machines purchased from Sears when we moved into the house many years earlier. All of these machines were under Sears Master Service maintenance agreements. Sears removed the old units and installed them--I assumed that they had replaced the water hoses that connect to the house--apparently they did not replace the cold water line (which ultimately failed).

• Tues Sept 15, 2008 1:10 AM: I called Sears maintenance and reached a young man who said that they could get someone out to the house by Tuesday of the next week (9/23). Since this was early in the morning on Tuesday, that meant we would be without the washer for at least a week. I asked to speak to a supervisor as the agent was unable to tell me how much Sears would pay for damage mitigation--but he did say "everything" would be paid for. I had trouble hearing the agent as there seemed to be a party going on in the background. He transferred me to a number that did not answer. At 1:50 AM I called back after the line did not answer and spoke to another agent. Same party going on. When I asked to be transferred to a supervisor, I was informed that all supervisors had gone for the day (clearly) and I should call back after 8 AM central time.
• Call 3: Wed Sept 16, 08:30 (PST): I called again and was told that no record of my call was made and now the first available appointment was on Thursday of the next week (9/25)--10 days from the initial incident. Again, I asked to speak to a supervisor and was ultimately connected (after several calls). This person could not move up the appointment nor could she say what damage costs would be paid or how to mitigate the damage. Eventually, I was transferred around and finally got the number of a claims agent. She (Marcella Griffin) told me to take pictures, get two estimates and send them to her via email. I began scheduling appointments with carpet companies. I was told that I could not repair the water line myself as it would "void the warranty". I moved all of the furniture and pulled the carpet and pad back and tried to dry it out with fans. We have no way to know how long the water had remained on the carpet (as we don't know when the water line burst) but we suspect it was wet for several hours. The underlying pad was wet for about 38” back from the wall.
• Thursday Sept 18. Not being able to get any change in the scheduled appointment, I drove to the local Sears store in Bellevue where we had purchased the washer (and dryer). I spoke to the manager of the appliance department who was able to schedule service the next day (imagine that). I expect that having done business with the store for 40+ years might have played a role.
• Friday Sept 19: A couple of carpet companies were able to send estimators--all of them wanted to replace all of the carpet in the room to the tune of about $1000 plus the down-time on my office. Thankfully, moisture tests indicated that the wall was not affected and it seems that most of the water spread into the office and on to the hallway floor outside the utility room. The flooring experts say we won’t know if there is damage to the hardwood floor for at least 10 days. The Sears repairman shows up very late in the day--his last call. He sold me two new hoses which he attaches to the washer. He connected the hot water line but says the blown hose is not the right type--clearly left over from the previous installation. He cannot remove the old cold-water hose as he said that "I'm not a plumber" and the connection was tight. After he left, I was able to remove the hose with little difficulty (I used two wrenches). I hooked up the cold water hose the repairman left attached to the washer and tried to wash a load of towels. After about 10 minutes I got a code "HF". I called Sears (national) again and was told that it was easy to fix the problem. I stepped through the recommended steps with the agent but I still got the error. I asked that the repairman come back out and figure out what's wrong and said "good bye" once she agreed to reschedule the agent for the next day, however, I did not hang up the phone. At this point the agent said to a nearby co-worker "What a jerk. He made me reschedule a repairman for a code HF". I suggested that she hang up the phone before cussing out the customers. I had a long conversation with her supervisor (after several more calls).
• Saturday Sept 20: Another Sears repairman came out and discovered that the problem was that the hoses had been connected backwards by the first repairman and that the machine was not properly balanced (the feet were not set correctly). The machine is finally working correctly.

The washer in question was purchased in 2002. It replaced another Sears washer which was on a Master Service Agreement. It was installed by Sears and has had regular annual maintenance as well as several service calls over the years. The service tech says that the hose that failed was not the one that would have been purchased with the washer as evidenced by the fact that it’s black rubber. Be that as it may, we trusted Sears to install the right hoses and maintain them (or at least warn us that the wrong hose was attached when they visited). Any hoses that were connected to the current machine or the one the preceded it were included with the machine(s) and installed by Sears. I also suspect that because of the way that the washing machine vibrates on the wooden floor (the house is pier-and-beam construction) that the hose was subjected to some degree of tension or tugging as the machine ran. The last service tech did discover that the feet were not properly adjusted which would contribute to this excessive vibration—enough to toss a bottle of fabric softener to the floor (with messy results).

Since all of this took place Sears turned in a claim to Whirlpool (the washer manufacturer) who denied the claim--understandably so. They have not returned my phone calls since. The problem, in my opinion, is with Sears. Clearly, the machines were neither installed nor maintained correctly. At no time were we told that the hoses needed attention. I ended up reinstalling the carpet myself.

At this point I will say that I am seriously disappointed in how we as good Sears customers for over 40 years have been treated. We are getting estimates to replace Sears as our home appliance maintenance provider.Sears has lost a loyal customer. I expect they won't miss us as they go into Chapter 11 because of this kind of service.