Complaint Review: Rheem Sales Company Inc. - Montgomery Alabama

The Colorado Attorney General

1300 Broadway, 7th Floor, Denver, CO 80203

Consumer Fraud depart.

To whom it may concern:

A little about myself. I’m a senior citizen 78 years old on a fixed budget. Last July I bought a 40 gallon gas water heater from one of the box stores for $539.00. I believe the associate was fairly new to that store or department because he mentioned he didn’t work in plumbing. I mentioned that the gas heater would be going into a manufactured home but it would be in an outside installation with its own outside door.  The associate suggested a couple of different models one was the model XG40T06EC36U1. This unit was a little cheaper than the one suggested for manufactured homes. The associate felt it would work for my application since it wasn’t going into a closet inside the home. So I bought that one which is manufactured by Rheem Sales Company 1241 Carwood Court, Montgomery, AL. 36117. Their toll free number is 1-866-279-4566.

A few months later I needed a service call. On the water tank they say in big letters “DO NOT RETURN THIS WATER HEATER TO THE PLACE OF PURCHASE”.  I called their number and they arranged for a plumber to come out to my place since it has a warrantee. The company who came to my place is called Bonded Repair from Denver, CO. Their number is 303-777-3354. The person that came out was a man by the name of Mike.

The company had pre sent me a new Honeywell Gas valve and a Honeywell Pilot Assembly Replacement which he installed. I watched the installation. Before he installed the new gas valve he opened up the valve and made an adjustment. I asked him what he was doing. He said, “These Honeywell Valves have a minor problem that causes them to fail on a regular basis. The manufacture knows about this problem but to date has not solved the problem. So I modify the valve by making this hole a little bigger. Solves the problem he said.”

Since that service call I have replaced myself another Honeywell Gas Valve and two Honeywell Pilot Assembly Replacements.

A week ago the water heater again shut down and would not re-light. I called the company and told them I had 5 blinking red lights and they felt that the Honeywell Pilot Assembly kit would need to be replaced. After thinking about it I called them back and asked them to replace the whole unit since it was under warrantee. They said they would and called Bonded Repair and sent out Mike their service man today. He was supposed to come with two people so he could take out the tank and we would go to the store and get another one.

He came by himself and said he could not replace the unit even though he had a work order from Rheem to replace it. I offered to help him lift it out of where it is installed. He said no and that he wanted to look at the unit. He took a bunch of photos and sent them to someone by the name of Tony Bell at Rheem. Long story short Tony Bell voided my warranty. He said I didn’t have the right unit for my application. Because of Mr. Bell voiding my warrantee which meant Mike the plumber would not  even replace the part so at lease we would have hot water.

So here I am no hot water and they claim on their water tank “DO NOT RETURN THIS WATER HEATER TO THE PLACE OF PURCHASE” Call Us. They claim it is the stores responsibility to replace it.I paid a helper to install it.

I personally think that Rheem may be commenting a fraud on the consumers by selling water heaters with the problem Honeywell Valve. It went out on me and Mike the plumber replaced it with a new valve but modified it while installing it.  Again I repeat he said that he does that all the time so they will last longer. He said he is still waiting for the factory to correct this problem.

Rheem claims their big on customer support but they dropped me like a lead ball. They offered no solution to help me out with their defective product. It would have been nice if Rheem honored the one year labor warrantee and replaced it with the unit they felt I should have. I was willing to pay the cost difference out of my pocket which was about $65.00.

I checked on www.ripoffreport.com that many other people have had trouble with Rheem not honoring their warrantee. There were 50 complaints I read. Many people complained of bad gas valves and bad thermo-couplers. I’m adding this letter to the report.

Sincerely,

Jan Gaudina

729 Oriole Drive

Lafayette, Colorado 80026

COPIES: Federal Trade Commission, Efiled

www.ripoffreport.com

Home Depot product review on this Rheem model I bought.

Attorneys: Riggs, Abney, Neal, Turpen, Orbison & Lewis, PC

50 South Steele Street, Suite 600

Denver CO 80209-2811