Ahh Sunday normally my day off, I look forward to sleeping in to 9am and enjoying a lazy morning.
Today was a little different, I woke up at 6am and thought damn it's friggin COLD in here.
I'll get up take a leak and turn the furnace up a few degrees and go back to bed for a few hours.
I stumble out of the bedroom down the hall and open the bathroom door, turn the light on and look back on the wall in the hallway at the thermostat.. 69 not too col...wait is that a 4? 64 Brrrrr hmm it's set to 70
I turn it off and back on I hear it doing all it's whines moans and groans only to hear it shut off a minute later.
I'm guessing the ignitor is out. Looks like my plans to sleep in late are gone, oh well 6am is sleeping in compared to my normal wake up call.
So I place a call to the service company, the one that happens to have it's number on the thermostat, and the one that spends lots of ad dollars on my local radio station. TRUSTED source for your service needs.
They answer and have a tech on his way to my house within 30 minutes.
He calls and informs me that the service call will be $99 with a $50 additional fee for emercency call.
I'm thinking $150 to prevent chattering teeth and cat cicles. Sounds like a good deal to me.
He's about 30 minutes away, shows up and is a very nice guy.
Sure enough he gets into it and it's the ignitor. He informs me that it's $211 part.
"Do you still want me to replace it.?"
The whole time telling me details about how if I would have had one of their 3 tier service plans this would have only cost me $60 for the call and part.
I'm thinking, no I want to pay $150 for you to come out here and leave and still sitting in the cold.
Oh did I mention we just got hit with a freak snow storm overnight.
I suspect the price for the part is high, but hey they have to make some money somewhere, I understand mark ups.
And I'm willing to pay $360 to enjoy the rest of my day off in warmth.
So he's gone and he left me with the failed ignitor as memento of my $211 driving away with him and his white van.
I'm looking over their brochure on their service plans reading about all the addon costs and what they do and don't do for $574 a year just to be a member.
I know that $211 is a bit high for that part, so a quick search reveals that the going rate for a Norton 41-412 or equivalent replacement is in the $30 range
Wait what? 700% markup? that's ridiculous.
And know the bill did not break down the $211 to be labor and the part. It stated the part was $211
Any consideration I had to do any further business with these people was just tossed out of the window,
They could have at least said the part was $75 and the labor to install the part was $125
Still ridiculous but I'd feel better about it. Instead I am left with the feeling that I was just overcharged 700% on a part that I could have changed out myself.
In fact I just ordered a spare ignitor that I will keep on hand.
And I will perform my own service call in the future.
Am I wrong to think that they are out of line to charge such an exorbitant mark up on such a common part to fail?
</rant>