Wenzel Heating & Air Conditioning

We recently moved into a house that Wenzel’s installed a new Furnace and A/​C unit in about three years ago.
We thought they’d be the best people to go with since they did the installation, they would have a better idea of what was wrong and perhaps give us a deal on fixing it.
After spending 99 dollars to have a tech come out and tell us the coil was bad and needed to be replaced, we scheduled them to come out the following week to do the repair. The guy I spoke to on the phone told us that he’d work with us to get us a deal on the repairs since we called them (the original installers of the equipment.) The part was covered under warranty, but the labor wasn’t. They wanted to charge us a 55 dollar fee to use a blow-​torch, and another 10 dollars for a 2″ PVC pipe coupler, plus 40 dollars a pound for the Puron refrigerant. This was in ADDITION to the almost 600 dollars in labor they wanted to charge.
They also tacked on an ADDITIONAL 99 dollar service call fee to come out a second day for the install. When all was said and done, the estimated bill was close to 900 dollars to fix something that was covered under a «service bulletin» or basically a recalled part.
The fact they wanted to charge us another 99 service call to come back out and install the part after charging 99 dollars to come out and find the problem was the deal breaker for us.
We called two other places for quotes, and went with the place that charged less for coolant. He said since the part was under a service bulletin that the labor was included, and all I’d need to pay for was the Puron (at 30 dollars a pound by the way!) bringing my total to 180 dollars.
Needless to say, we went with the other guys. They were here sooner than Wenzel’s could have been here too.
I’m not sure if they were trying to scam us by having us pay for the labor and then charging Bryant for it too on the back-​end under the warranty or what, but they came across as dishonest and the type of place that chooses to nickel and dime you at every chance they get. When I called to cancel the appointment they guy on the phone didn’t even bother to ask why… Kind of makes me think they’re used to having customers call and cancel after getting a better quote somewhere else.
I’d never recommend this company to anyone… Even my worst enemy.
UPDATE 5.23.15
I also posted this review on their Facebook page, but they apparently contacted Facebook who then took the review down. Apparently they don’t want people reading reviews. I’d hesitate to work with any company that «cleans up» unfavorable reviews.
They also posted a reply to this review that makes it sound like they had no idea they could cover labor under a warranty, but both of the other «Bryant authorized repair» places I contacted did. They make it sound like the other places were wrong and they were doing things the right way. They also failed to mention why they charge such ridiculous fees for things.
And no — The guy out at the house clearly stated that it was 99 dollars to come back out on the day of the repair and that’s a trip charge you assess every time you visit. He also wanted to charge us 100 dollars to get the part early by going directly to the warehouse. This part acquisition fee was something he said he could do «on his way home» because he passed the warehouse to and from work. Why would you charge someone 100 dollars to spend 5 min of their time getting something for a customer, when it is of no extra hassle? Three words: Nickel and Dime.
UPDATE 5.26.15
They’re now having friends and family or friends of the family add either fake, or overly positive reviews to their Facebook page to offset the negative review that I gave them. The three people that have all magically decided to show up and write reviews of a company that did work for them (not sure if they actually did or not…) several months ago or even years ago are all either friends on Facebook, or friends of the family that runs the business. Why did they wait until now to write such positive reviews?

I called Wenzel to come check out why my AC was not working back in April. The service guy told me the contactor needed to be replaced and replaced it with a commercial grade, 3 phase contactor (on a residential unit). After this was done, the AC stopped working within month. I had Stafford Home Service come out because it was not cooling anymore. They thought maybe the refrigerant needed to be recharged and questioned why Wenzel did not do this when they were out. A week later, I had to call them back out because it still was not cooling. Come to find out, the contactor that Wenzel put on caused the AC to blow since it was too powerful. Wenzel has refused to do anything for the additional $ 500 I have had to spend on top of the $ 279 I paid them because someone else had to fix it. I would not recommend doing business with this company. Horrible customer service. The guys at Stafford were very nice however so if you need an HVAC company, I would recommend going through them.