Screw Maytag and Sherwin Williams

[unklbob]

I used to manage retail businesses in both paint and appliance sales, and one thing that I learned was that when dealing with the public, only about 40% of people who had problems with your product took the time to complain, and of that percentage, only about 5% were scammers or unreasonable. So in order to keep the business of the remaining

95% of the customers who complained in good faith, I ate the loss on the scammers and those who complained in bad faith.

I recently dealt with the corporations mentioned above, and had no success, despite attempts at going up the chain of command. I purchased a Maytag Atlantis washer, and determined after the warranty had expired that the unit was defective as delivered. Without going into all the details, I'll just say that talking to repairman I found out that there were significant problems with the unit's transmission, and after I paid over $200 to have the transmission replaced, I am now suffering from the same problem as before--of course the repair warranty has expired.

In the case of the paint, I purchased three gallons of SW's top end interior paint, and got very poor coverage despite careful prep. I went through the chain of command from sales associate to store manager to district manager and received no followthrough despite what I felt was a reasonable beef.

At a point, I guess its not worth my time to continue dealing with these people over relatively small sums of money, but I have to wonder why they think its worth a short term gain to walk my business for the rest of my life when its pretty certain that I will buy more appliances and paint in the future?

Stupid business decisions on their part.

[JoeSpareBedroom]

Am I the only person in America who's heard of paint brands like Devoe and Martin-Senour? You bought the wrong paint. Hopefully, your car will take you to the right store next time.

[Anonymous]

It's like the crappy restaurant on the interstate.

They have lousy, overpriced food, and poor service. Do they care if you don't come back ? NO ! There'll be a thousand different cars tomorrow.

[Lawrence]

Paint coverage is extremely variable and depends on what technique is used or lack of. SW fudges a bit on coverage numbers because the other companies do so. All of them do it.

I never look at those coverage numbers, just use my experience. I go to SW because they have knowlegable folk working there. Never have I had a problem with their paint.

[Toller]

In most cases that is good practice.

If your warranty has expired, then your warranty has expired. I don't understand how they have wronged you.

Hard to say about this one; paint never covers as well as we would like. I have never complained about it; not sure how the store should react to it.

[DAC]

In addition, we've used about 75 gallons of interior paint in the past month...and in one room we had to sub in their "top of the line" and it didn't cover as well as cashmere. Colors, wall condition, roll vs spray, roller nap length all have a piece of the equation. With out additional details, nothing can be offered.

[JoeSpareBedroom]

Have you ever tried Devoe or Martin-Senour paints? Based on my experience, they cover BETTER than I expect them to.

[Doug Miller]

Good paint, or low expectations? :-)

[JoeSpareBedroom]

Amazing paint. But, I've never seen it at the big home improvement stores, so I guess not many people run across it unless they go to a hardware or paint specialty store.

[Oren]

I first have to figure out which end of the painting implement caused the failure :-/

-- Oren

"The voices in my head may not be real, but they have some good ideas!"

[runsrealfast]

Maybe not. Maybe to them your individual case only costs them low dollar amounts not fix. They may figure that your only one consumer and not worth their trouble (right or wrong that might be how they see it).

John

[Norminn]

clipped

How old was the washer when you determined the tran was bad? Write a letter to the CEO at Maytag and explain the problem. Then tell him you will never buy Maytag (or kenmore or whatever it really is now); be sure to mention the repairman's experience.

I've only used SW once and it was superb. How bad was the coverage - covered how much area compared to what the label claimed? Dark color? Covering dark color?

[deke]

You are getting wise in your old age.

No, it is not worth it to 'win' in either of those situations. You have made several people unhappy and they didn't deserve your ranting.

Find a way to appease your soul such as sending a complaint to the consumer complaint web site, and then let it go.

[Larry and a Cat named Dub]

[unklbob]

The original point of my complaint was that both my claims were legit, and given my experience in those industries, the only conclusion a manager or customer service rep could make was a) this guy has a legitimate gripe, or b) he's lying and trying to scam us.

In the Maytag case, from the point of delivery the unit never fully spun out the clothes at the end of the cycle--they ended up almost dripping wet. I called the service line during the warranty period and was told that this was a "clothes saving feature" and in tandem with the dryer, the clothes should come out fine, which they did, although it took them a long time to dry. When the unit failed completely after the portion of the warranty that covered labor expired, I called a local repair guy who told me that given my story the transmission was defective from the get go. Indeed, the new tranny that was installed completely spun out the clothes, at least for the first month, then it began to fail. (And no, I am not overloading the unit!!)

As for the SW paint, we purchased three gallons of their "Super Paint", cleaned the walls with a trisodium phosphate dilution, LET IT COMPLETELY DRY, then applied a coat of Zinnser "Bulls-Eye" primer. In two of the rooms the paint coverage was perfect--we applied it with a medium nap roller, which was appropriate for type of texture on the wall. In the third room we applied it exactly like the other two, and after one coat we could see streaks. We ended up putting two coats plus touch-ups on the room and couldn't completely cover all four walls in a small child's bedroom. When I went back I told the guy my story and asked for a replacement gallon at half price since I only got half the coverage I expected. I suggested that perhaps there was an issue with the tint or the base, since the other two gallons covered perfectly.

My point about both of these incidences is that despite going up the chain in both companies, I got *no* response from individuals whose jobs rely on my satisfaction.

I would add, that I had a bad experience with Sears, that given the circumstances was essentially my fault. Nevertheless, the manager of the department that I was dealing with completely handled my problem to my satisfaction, and I'll keep shopping there. Both Lowe's and Depot have also handled by problems with alacrity. I am not a chronic complainer, I just have owned several homes over the course of my life and I have bought a lot of home improvement supplies.

[Art]

A few years ago the appliance manufacturers dropped their customer complaint arbitration process and since then appliances and the handling of complaints have gone down in quality. Unfortunately, the only government entity that seems to have any interest in consumer affairs these days is the attorney general office in NY. They have been doing the job of the SEC, banking, and other federal agencies that have been asleep at the wheel since the 1980's. Throw your Maytag washer away as we did with our Maytag dishwasher. It is junk.