" wrote in message
...
On Sep 3, 9:55 pm, HVAC Guy wrote:
I'm re-posting this to alt.hvac
Dan Lanciani wrote:
I'm wondering if anyone has had any luck getting service under this
class action settlement. I have a 350MAV060120 AAKA furnace. . .
stuff snipped about Carrier demanding increasingly unreasonable amounts of
work to file claim
So much for Carriers claim to fame for quality , reliability, and
safety. May as well go with Goodman for a whole lot less money and
send your customer out for a nice dinner for the business.
Carrier's playing with fire. As soon as someone dies from a defective
furnace that Carrier is clearly trying to elude repairing, the vampire army
of product liability lawyers will swarm them looking for blood, the Feds
will force a product safety recall and Carrier will likely join the list of
companies that slid under the waves and vanished. By trying to avoid
honoring their settlement they seem to be telegraphing the real size and
extent of the problem. They've been selling these suckers since 1984 or so,
which means there are a lot of them out there. One site says Michigan alone
has 250,000 units in place. A recall of that size has the potential to be a
real company killer. It sounds like they at first thought the problem was
manageable but once they claims started rolling in, they realized the true
scope of the issue and knew they had to put the brakes on. Making it hard to
file a claim is an age old practice that I am sure BP is looking into right
now.
Another site says: "All three complaints allege that in the mid-1980s
Carrier stopped using stainless steel secondary heat exchangers in favor of
cheaper polypropylene-laminated mild steel. Carrier switched to the cheaper
product despite the fact that the industry standard was (and still is) to
use stainless steel parts to prevent corrosion. Plaintiffs allege that the
polypropylene separates from the steel and degrades due to the high
temperatures in the furnace, exposing the underlying mild steel to acidic
condensate. In some cases the corrosion proceeds to the point of actually
perforating the outside wall of the heat exchanger."
http://www.tousley.com/press/20061010.htm
The Carrier cock-up reminds me of an article about Dell computers trying to
foist off their purchase of millions of bad capacitors on consumers, telling
them that "they were doing too many complex calculations" and that's what
caused their machines to fail.
http://www.zdnet.com/blog/projectfai...f-deceit/10165
Dell employees went out of their way to conceal these problems. In one
e-mail exchange between Dell customer support employees concerning computers
at the Simpson Thacher & Bartlett law firm, a Dell worker states, "We need
to avoid all language indicating the boards were bad or had 'issues' per our
discussion this morning." In other documents about how to handle questions
around the faulty OptiPlex systems, Dell salespeople were told, "Don't bring
this to customer's attention proactively" and "Emphasize uncertainty."
In reality, they had shipped thousands of machines with defective components
that would have leaked anyway, no matter what calculations they did or
didn't do. Sales reps and techs were given "lie sheets" that made sure they
admitted no responsibility ever. Ironically, the law firm that represented
them is suing them, too. You guessed it: they bought some of the defective
Dells, too and wanted *their* money back. You know you're in trouble when
your lawyer sues you!
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/29/te...gy/29dell.html
It's no surprise. If people are never liable for anything they do, which
should corporations behave any differently? When I called Samsung to report
that both my DVD recorders had failed within days of each other, the first
thing out of the tech's mouth was "we have no reports of failure on this
particular model." I figure if that's the first thing out of their mouths,
it's a big lie. I'll bet Samsung bought a busload of the bad capacitors,
same as Dell, and were looking to blame their customers. What a bad
strategy. I've been looking at 3D TV's and "DamnDung" has some nice
offerings, but they are on the "not ever again in a million years" list, so
I will look elsewhere. Same with Dell, Philips and Citibank.
Although I don't own one, I've been reading up on the Carrier issue and it's
pretty scary. Here's how one site summed it up:
Heat exchangers in many high-efficiency furnaces are made of stainless
steel but one company is being accused of using a cheaper grade metal and
misleading consumers. A class action lawsuit has been filed in Ontario
against Carrier and Bryant high-efficiency condensing furnaces. It's
alleged there are defective heat exchangers in 32 models made since 1984.
The lawsuit claims the exchangers are made of inferior metal and corrode
prematurely.
http://www.canada.com/globaltv/calga...e-033e3313765c
I am not surprised they are playing the "paper the claimant to death" route,
requiring 17 pages of documentation to file a claim. If there is a forced
recall that goes back to items sold 25 years ago, it most likely mean
bankruptcy for Carrier. They probably feel that if that's the worst
outcome, they have nothing to lose by screwing people around like that Monty
Python skit about the princess:
King Otto: Oh, very well. Before I can give my permission, young man, I
must set you a task, which, if you succeed, will prove you worthy of my
daughter's hand.
Prince Charming: (Michael Palin) Yes, sir, I accept.
King Otto: Good. At nine o'clock tomorrow morning, armed only with your
sword, you must go to the highest tower in the castle, and jump out of the
window.
I am sure that if Carrier could get away with asking claimants to first jump
off the roof before submitting a claim, they would. I'd be selling any
Carrier-related stock I owned right now. The things that they are doing now
seem pretty indicative of a company that's CTD (circling the drain). It
seems like a bad idea to start using new, untested materials on something as
critical and potentially lethal as a heat exchanger and a worse idea to try
to palm that bad mistake on their customers.
One legal website had a very interesting take on all this:
"Many times, a cracked heat exchanger will be a suspected cause of
emission problems. The mistaken belief is that exhaust gases will migrate
through the cracks into the heated distribution air, which is distributed
throughout the home via the ductwork. However, since cracks in the heat
exchanger normally occur in areas of positive pressure, the exchanger is at
most a minor contributor to the emission problem. This is because cracks can
allow air to blow against the burners, reducing the efficiency of combustion
and leading to a higher level of carbon monoxide in the exhaust gases." --
GAS APPLIANCE MANUFACTURERS ASS'N, RESULTS OF GAMA REVIEW OF RESIDENTIAL GAS
APPLIANCE STANDARDS (1976)
Source:
http://www.mmmpalaw.com/CM/Articles/articles29.asp
So, is the Carrier heat exchanger problem a potential source of multiple
deaths or "no big thing?"
All things considered, I'd rather NOT have holes in my heat exchanger.
We've got 3 CO detectors in the house, since they are prone to failure, and
might even add another one after reading about all the ways CO can enter a
home. When I had my water heater replaced, the tech failed to reconnect the
vent to the chimney properly. Luckily, I noticed it by inspection, but
that's when I went out and bought two detectors, one for the basement, one
for the bedroom. I've since added a third in the kitchen area (gas stove),
just to be safe. All three cost a bit over $100, but once again, I asked
myself how much I would pay for CO protection *after* a disaster and $100
didn't seem like very much at all to help prevent it. We have at least half
a dozen CO deaths (often many more) in the DC area, and while some of them
are due to utter stupidity (running kerosene heaters indoors), others are
caused by defective or improperly installed furnaces and water heaters.
--
Bobby G.