It took me a while to write this review because I genuinely liked Sean, the owner/technician that came to fix my heater. My heater wasn't working and Sean was gracious enough to come to my RV to make the repairs. He was easy to talk to and I felt like he really knew what he was doing. He told me the service call would be $100 and the fee would go up with parts costs. After about 30 minutes, Sean said he suspected the mother board was bad, but due to the cost, he didn't have the equipment to diagnose it and he would have to go to Camping World to make the diagnosis. He said the mother board would cost about $200.
After about 45 minutes, Sean came back and said the mother board wasn't bad. After spending 4 more hours with no success, Sean said he would have to take the heater to his shop to diagnose it. Later that evening he called me and said it was the mother board after all and he would be back the next day to install it.
I was shocked when I got an invoice for $1200. He charged me 2 hours for diagnosis at $150 per hour and several hours of labor at $100 per hour, plus several parts (some of which I don't think we're necessary). He wanted payment prior to coming to install the heater.
I protested and He reduced the bill by $150. I reluctantly paid the invoice. Sean came back as promised and installed the heater, which is working fine.
I did research the price for a brand new heater, same model was $807 on Amazon and I could have it installed for an additional $150, making the total for a brand new heater $957.
Sean did not have the proper equipment to diagnose my problem. He relied on a third party, which made a bad diagnosis. He subsequently spent several hours trying to make the heater work when he didn't have the correct parts. He charged me for an improper diagnosis, then passed the cost of the additional labor due to his incompetence in diagnosis on to me. As much as I liked Sean on a personal level, I would strongly urge people to look for another repair service for RV repairs.
Follow up to the owner's response. I'd like to make it known that I was not abusive in any way as suggested. The exact verbiage of the text message is as follows: I just got the invoice. No way I'm paying that much. A brand new heater is $807 with $100 installation. $300 for diagnosis? It's not my fault you don't have the right diagnostic equipment and 4 hours is too much when you should have been able to complete it in 2 if you had the right diagnostic equipment. Please sharpen the pencil and work on that invoice.
I was expecting a repair bill of around $400-$450. I was never informed that the balance would be so much.
Furthermore, Sean didn't go above and beyond. He stated he had to take components to Camping World because he didn't want to shorten $1200 on the diagnostic equipment. That's s cost of doing business, not above and beyond.
And in the end, he earned $800 for 5 hours of labor, assuming the part was $200. 4 hours of which didn't need to be spent, had he been able to properly diagnose the issue.
As a small business owner, you should be held accountable. And if you want to compete with the big names, like Camping World, you need to provide the same quality of service at a reasonable price. I would gladly pay more to a locally owned small business 10-15% for good service. Not hundreds more.
Lesson learned. read more
