Nicole R. on BirdEye 9 months ago
06/08/2020, 14:23 PM
On 5/29/2020, our AC stopped blowing cold air. Mountain View Heating got great reviews. I contacted them and they were able to send a technician out that afternoon which was amazing. However, I was required to pay the $129 diagnostic fee up front before the tech even arrived due to COVID-19. I thought this was unusual, but these are unusual times.
The tech was here for approximately 30 minutes and diagnosed that my AC had a bad TXV. I had previously looked at the manual for my AC/Furnace, made by Lennox, which is their “signature series” and carries a 10 year warranty. My house was built in 2013. Since it was Friday after 5pm, Mountain View Heating had to contact Lennox on Monday for pricing of the part. I told the technician about the warranty my Lennox system had, and I asked him to make sure whomever ordered the part check to see if it was covered under that warranty. He assured me that would be the case.
On 5/1/2020, I received a call from Mountain view heating quoting $561 for the repair which I was told included the replacement part and approximately 3 hours of labor. I asked again if the part was covered under warranty since my Lennox system had a 10-year warranty. I was told that would have been checked when the part was ordered by the serial number of my system. I was not really given an answer if the part was covered under warranty but based on the response, it seemed inferred. Since I already had to pay the diagnostic fee and did not want to pay another company to do the diagnosis to get another quote, I agreed to have Mountain View Heating complete the repair. I was required to pay the $561 up front, over the phone, again for the repair and before they ordered any parts.
On 5/4/2020, A different technician arrived and completed the work in less than 45 minutes which included testing of the system before he left. Both the technicians were efficient and professional. Since I had paid a total of almost $700 for just over an hour of total work and a part that should cost about $100, I decided to call mountain view heating to see if they would refund some of the money I had paid up front. That only seems fair to me when I was told on the phone it would be approximately 3 hours of labor for the repair and it didn’t even take 1/3rd of that time.
I called and spoke with Margie, who was nice. She said Mountain View heating would not be refunding any of my money because their pricing was based on “industry standard”.
I called back to ask how much the TXVactually cost and how much their labor cost per hour.I was told the 3 hours that was mentioned was only an approximation of time that the repair would take to complete and it had nothing to do with the cost of labor as they have the “industry standard” pricing and some technicians complete things quicker than others. I was told they do not have a “per hour” labor rate.
I asked how much the part cost and I was told the part was replaced by Lennox under warranty. I was very confused at this since I had already asked two people to make sure this was checked on and I was basically disregarded by the second person. This woman then advised me that normally Lennox would not cover the warranty if the home owner had not been under a service contract with an HVAC company but they were able to work it out with Lennox since they are a premier dealer. Mountain View Heating benefited from my Lennox warranty and not me.
So, I confirmed once again that I was charged $561 for less than an hour of repair work and a part that Mountain View Heating got for free from the manufacturer.
It seems to me that Mountain View Heating is taking advantage of our unprecedented time during this pandemic by charging customers before the work is done without the customer being able to evaluate the process first.