On Feb 17, 10:52*am, "Donna Ohl, Grady Volunteer Coordinator"
wrote:
On Sun, 17 Feb 2008 05:44:55 -0800 (PST), wrote:
I don't know why you continue to dismiss a 12 year warranty on the
water heater as useless. * You seem to be saying that because that is
about the typical life of a water heater, that the warranty is of no
value. *Yet you value a 1 year warranty on labor? *

Hi Trader,

Thanks for keeping up on this. Maybe I'm wrong on the warrantee but I took
logic in college and the warrantee seems like a useless marketing tool to
me when I read through what I have to do in order to "make good" on it.

It's hard for me to write this reply because I feel the warranty is only an
advertising gimmick which, to me, is only useful for the first year, mainly
because I'm never going to take the water heater apart and bring it to the
store to obtain the "free" replacement after the first year

You don't have to take the water heater anywhere. As I said, when my
State had the thermocouple fail, all I did was call State up. They
looked it up on their database, determined it was under warranty, and
I had a replacement on my doorstep in 2 days. No charge, no sending
parts back.

Now, I don't know exactly how they handle the case where you have a
leaking water heater. Perhaps they have a local rep or dealer take a
look at it. But I'm sure they don't want you shipping the water
heater back to them.




- and - the
alternative is to pay as much for the labor as the entire water heater cost
in the first place - so the "free" replacement costs just as much as the
original parts if I have a plumber come to me to inspect, diagnose, and
replace it.

If the water heater fails, then you need a new one, don't you?
Without the warranty, you're out not only the labor, but also the cost
of buying a new water heater, which is ~$400.


The warrantee seems absolutely useless to me, after the first
year given those realistic concerns.

It fails in year seven. With a 10 year warranty, you get a either
free parts or a new tank. Without it, you get zippos and the labor is
the same.




Worse than that, I read the entire text of the Sears "12-year limited
warranty" which intimates Sears will replace parts that are defective and
the water heater itself *only* if it develops a leak (no other replacement
is warranted).

Well, what did you expect? That sounds perfectly reasonable to me.
If the thermocouple, valve, burner assembly, etc go, you get those
parts. If the tank goes, you get a whole new unit.




installing it yourself, there is no labor anyway,
so why is that even an issue?

This is the ENTIRE issue! If I have to remove the entire water heater in
order to bring it to the store just to see if they'll warrant the parts or
the leaking tank, that's absolutely crazy!

Who said you have to bring it to the store?



Do people really remove their
water heater, truck it in the back of their car to the store, have someone
at the store look at it and decide whether or not to replace the parts,
then, if they decide not to, you truck it back home and re-install it? Or,
if they decide to replace the parts, they hand you the new parts and you
truck the whole drippy thing back home to re-install it? I think not.

If you read my previous post, I told you exactly how State handled my
warranty claim.



If I need to make good on the warrantee, the only way I'll ever do it is to
call a Sears plumber at 800-469-4663 who will likely charge me as much for
the visit as the thing cost in the first place. Sure, I'll get a new water
heater - and it will cost me exactly what it cost when I bought it
considering I MUST use their labor. I have no choice this second time
around.

Does anything in the warranty say you have to use a Sears plumber?
My State warranty had no reqt as to who had to make the repair. I
made the repair myself and State had no problem simply supplying the
parts.


My whole point is the automobile analogy you provided is exactly opposite
of reality! You can easily DRIVE the car to the dealership to get a part
diagnosed and fixed but to drive your water heater to the Sears store would
be ludicrous (for me).

I didn't drive mine anywhere.




Do you see why the automobile analogy doesn't apply for a water heater?
Bringing the water heater to the dealer isn't an option.
To bring the dealer to the water heater costs as much as the water heater.
It's that simple to me.

Even if it were true that you had to bring the water heater back to
where you bought it, your statement still wouldn't be true. Let's
see. Water heater is spewing water from a shot tank. It's under
warranty. Either way it has to be removed. Once it's out, under your
scenario, you could take it back to where you bought it and get a new
one for free. How does it cost $400 to take it back? Or you could
go buy a new one for $400 and then do what with the old one? Many
places you have to take it somewhere anyway to get rid of it. If
you're getting a new one, it seems you could certainly take the old
one back to the store. But I don't think this is a realistic
scenario. They aren't going to expect you to drag the old one to
them and they don't want it.




Donna