A&E Factory Service Awful & Egregious? Internet

After about eighteen months of moderate use, the tub bearings in our front-loading Maytag washer failed. As the machine was partially under warranty, we contacted Maytag and they scheduled an appointment with A&E Factory Service.

Although, the initial appointment was almost two weeks from the time we reported the problem, the technician, who is local and works out of a truck, was courteous and appeared to be component. Since the parts were under warranty, we had to wait for them to be shipped. This took about a week.

The tech was scheduled to return a day or so after the parts arrived. But, the evening before we received an automated voice message saying we should call and reschedule, After a lengthy hold, we were given a new appointment, a delay of over a week.

We waited all day for the tech to arrive. At 4:30 in the afternoon we called A & E and were told that he was in- route At 5:30 we called again, and were told that the appointment had been rescheduled, for nineteen days later. Again no explanation was given.

Following this my wife made numerous calls to A&E, Maytag, Whirlpool (owns Maytag). We also called Sears (the only factory authorized service number in our local directory) only to find that all of their service is done by A&E. The A & E people were particularly un- helpful, one was

Finally, we obtained the name of another authorized service co. Unfortunately, they are a two hour drive away, and we will have to pay extra for their travel time. At this point, it looks like this "Warranty Repair" will cost us well over half the original cost of the machine.

It turns out (per wikipedia) that A&E factory service is a Joint-Venture of Sears and Whirpool. In layman's terms, they own this dog, None of the Maytag/Whirlpool, Sears or A&E people we talked to knew this, or maybe they just were not willing or allowed to admit it.

If you are unfortunate enough to need warranty repair on a Maytag, Whirlpool or Kenmore home appliance, insist that they give you an alternative to A&E. Better yet, just take the thing to the recycler, and look for a brand that doesn't use A & E.