After being quoted a diagnosis fee of $80, which would then be applied to the flat repair fee of $150 (plus parts), the technician arrived on time. But then it got uncomfortable. He spent the first half hour blaming me and the plumbing for the issue. Then I convinced him to keep looking and he found something in the drain pipe that he removed. It was still not the problem. He told me that diagnosing my machine had now made him late for the rest of his appointments and he quickly diagnosed it as the drain motor, and that the office would get back to me with the part cost and schedule the repair. Well I have spent 2 days trying to get this information from the 'office' while trying to make myself heard over extremely loud background noise. When I finally asked for the parts information they then told me it would be $170 to repair, which is more than the quoted amount. They also told me the part is not available in Calgary (although I am not convinced they looked very hard) and that it would have to be ordered from Korea. I believe that this is the old bait and switch situation where they quote a low diagnosis and repair fee, but they up the charge when they diagnose it. I have no confidence that it is even diagnosed correctly. I expressed my concerns to the office and their customer service was lacking. I asked to escalate my concerns to a supervisor and they told me OK, will get them to call you later. I have still not heard from them...a week later.
Furthermore, the tech/owner did not even do a diagnostic on the machine, a process that can easily be found online. Instead he made me sit with him while he ran full cycles. And he wondered why he was behind schedule...
And subsequently, I have had another appliance tech come in who did run a diagnostic and fixed the problem without any major repair, but just by running the diagnostic was able to fix it.