General Appliance Experts

Last night my freezer started making a high pitched sound every couple of minutes. It had been making the sound for a few weeks, even after I vacuumed all the cat hair out of the front coils. Last night things started defrosting. In the morning it was bad. I called General Appliance Experts and they sent a very professional man within the 2 hour time frame they gave me, and the same day that I called. He knew exactly what the problem was: it could have been time to buy a new refrigerator or just a hundred dollar relay part plus labor. I lucked out this time. Now i know I need to either vacuum or use a compressor to blow out the dust every 6 months (4 months for me because I have 2 cats). He was quick, respectful and I got a 10% discount from their ad on their website.

Well,
I had a good experience with these guys. My GE fridge started having problems again. I had them come out and they gave me an estimate of 325.00. They came out the next day and installed a new circuit board and defrosted the freezer, lubed all the hinges, got the thing running good as new. They were courteous and conscientious, and quite knowledgable. They spent a good amount of time on this fridge.
It’s not the first time I’ve had someone come out to look at the thing. A year or two ago I had a different company come out and they weren’t nearly as thorough, so I have a basis for comparison. Perhaps it depends on your service person.

Do NOT let these people enter your home. They are not experts. They are incompetent and dishonest.
We had two problem appliances: a gas dryer that would not heat and a cook top downdraft fan that would not run. My wife was frantic about the dryer, and I work, so she called General Appliance Experts. She said it was odd that she called Concord but was transferred without warning to Berkeley. A repairman came out the next day. The Sears dryer was over 30 years old and this guy wanted to do $ 400 worth of repairs on it, all of which would still not repair it completely. He also gave us bid of $ 400 to fix the stove fan. When I heard about the dryer estimate, I was suspicious since new dryers cost about $ 450. Then, we got a call from the ‘Experts’ saying that the stove was old (it’s not) and that the fan motor that he diagnosed to be the problem would be another $ 150 for a total of $ 550. Incidentally, all of this was conveyed to us in incomprehensible Spanglish. So when the repairman came by on Saturday morning, I told him that I was going to call for additional bids and that he was not to proceed on either appliance. It was then that I found out that he had removed (without our consent) the old fan and brought it to his shop. It would take him several days to return it and I had to pay the $ 95 service charge to get the fan back.
Long story short: we got a new dryer at Sears (the delivery was a horror story) and are happy with it. The stove fan saga continued. I found at
that the fan motor was $ 165 and so I ordered one, assuming the ‘Experts’ diagnosis was correct. When the new motor arrived, I replaced the old with the new in about an hour, turned on the switch, and… and nothing.). (Switches incidentally are much more prone to failure than electric motors.) Call me paranoid, but this sure seems like ‘Let’s jack up these rich people for all we can.’ So I went back to
and ordered a new switch ($ 60) and installed it in 10 minutes with just a screwdriver. I turned the switch and the fan (which I had already removed from its housing) worked fine. So it was the switch after all, a 10 minute repair job and $ 60 in parts. But courtesy of the ‘Experts’, I now had to remove the new motor (so I could return it) and replace the old motor. I did it, but in contrast to 10 minutes to replace the switch, the job of removing and replacing, and then again removing and replacing a part that was perfectly fine, and returning the unnecessary replacement took several hours of my time.
Do NOT let these people enter your home. They are not experts. They are incompetent and dishonest.

The term «bait and switch» keeps running through my head.
I called General Appliance to repair a bad drum bearing on a Maytag commercial washer/​dryer. They estimated $ 400-​$ 600, but couldn’t give me a firm price over the phone. OK. So they send Johnny over to look at the unit. He does so, goes to his truck for 15 minutes to talk to the office, comes back and gives me a written quote of about $ 690. OK. Not too much higher than the phone estimate. So I sign the quote. Johnny tells me that he’ll be back the next day with help to collect the machine and bring it to the shop for repair, and that he’ll call me to schedule. He doesn’t call.
So I call the company. They tell me there’s a problem with the quote. The new price is about $ 950! The manager, John Leao, refuses to honor the original price. «It was only an estimate,» he tells me. «Not once I signed it», I replied. «It was a contract.» He tells me that this is a legal distinction. I explain to him that yes, it is, that I’ve practiced law since 1983 and that when I accepted their offer it became a contract. I mention the terms «bait and switch», «breach of contract», «unfair business practice» and a few other things I’ve learned about in 29 years of legal practice. I must be wrong about these things, because Mr. Leao is unfazed. «You’ll need to talk to the owner», he tells me. He wouldn’t give me the owner’s name, of course. And the owner hasn’t called.
I did a little research (Googling their phone numbers was the only way to do it) and found these guys all over the place (Kalamazoo, MI?!) under a variety of names. This wasn’t encouraging. On a public forum such as Unilocal I would never want to suggest that these guys are scammers, or, as Gessa C. suggests, «shady». I’m just describing my own experience here. I can only imagine what would have happened if they’d taken my machine to their shop, wherever that might be, and THEN raised the price for me to get it back.
The best thing I can say about this company, whatever name it goes by, is that it’s a complete waste of time. The worst I can say about them is best not committed to writing.
Look elsewhere.

If you value your time. Don’t call them. They claimed they never had my first appointment on record and so I rescheduled for the next day and they still didn’t show up. Tried to call their 3 phone numbers and they all just rang and rang. No answering machine, no messaging service. Their site says they are open till 9pm. B. S. This is all kinds of shady for a business. Very uncool. The other location in Concord has the same logo. Don’t be fooled.