Sub-Zero Sub-Zero charged me for the repair of a product that was inherently defective; they should be correcting their defects at their own cost, not mine!

Having taught the management of service for twenty years at a major university, I have some knowledge regarding service recovery when a company creates a problem for its customers. The 42" Sub-Zero refrigerator that was installed in my (then) new kitchen just a week over 2 years ago immediately proved to have a malfunctioning door flap. Within a very short time, I had the company that sold me the Sub-Zero come out to try to fix it. The "fix" didn't really work. A few months later, Clarke Appliance which is an authorized dealer came out and "repaired" the Sub-Zero with a new flap. That proved not to work correctly as well. I called Clarke again asking about replacing the flap again, because our friends who also bought a Sub-Zero, I learned, had exactly the same problem with their door flap and had it replaced twice.

This clearly suggests that the door flap has been defective from the start (mine, my friends' flap, and obviously others as well). However, I was just charged nearly $100 by Clarke, based on Sub-Zero's policies, for this replacement of Sub-Zero's DEFECTIVE door flap.

When I pay Sub-Zero's extremely high price for their product, I would assume that (1) the product is less likely to be defective than a less expensive competitor and (2) that they would certainly not make me pay for the repair of a product defect that was inherent in the product from the day it was installed. Neither of these has turned out to be true. From a service recovery perspective, Sub-Zero's customer service response is totally inadequate. They created the problem either through poor product design or poor manufacturing. They ought to solve the problem at their expense, not mine.