CW Furnace Repair Pricing

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Bob Buchanan

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Joined
Mar 3, 2005
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Location
Philadelphia, PA
There is a Camping World in Rocklin, CA that has been close whenever in NCal - which is where I am most of the time. So when in need of repair or whatever I sometimes use them. Have had good experiences and bad. My latest I thought was worthy of a post here.

My furnace was intermittent - then stopped altogether. I did all the usual stuff such as checking for wasps nests and blowing the dust out of the blower - plus took the plug from the main board and cleaned the leads. I didn't want to pull the unit so drove over to CW to see what kind of charges they had on trouble shooting and repair.

They quoted $75 trouble shooting if they didn't have to take the unit out, and $125 if they did have to take it out. So I figured my worst scenario was $125 plus parts. Their hourly rate here is $125/hour. So perhaps another 1/2 hour to fix it. Wrong. They wrote up a service order for $208.00. And it only read, Trouble Shoot.

They wanted $75 to trouble shoot just taking the front plate off. If they then needed to remove the unit, that was an "additional" $125. "Then" they would begin fixing it at the rate of $125/hour plus parts. With a smile approaching laughter, my comment was something like, "You gotta be kidding".  :)

Normally, I would drive into Sacramento just off the freeway on El Camino and have the work done at AAA RV Appliance Repair. They have been handling my RV appliances while in the area for the past  15 years. But CW was only 5 miles away vs. the 25 to 30 or so to AAA.

I made an appointment for the following day, drove the 30 miles and found a different scenario. The repair guy trouble shot the unit from the outside within 10 minutes - and within the next 1/2 hour had the unit out, on his bench for testing, and was explaining to me what the problem was. Seems the igniter was bad.

My total bill was 1.5 hours labor at $96/hour plus $32 for a new igniter and a few dollars more for the gasket for the plate over the igniter housing. Or, probably about half of what it would have cost through CW. Of course, I did spend some extra money on gas to get into Sacto.
 
CW was honest in this case, They gave you a written estimate, you rejected it (Good for you) and drove down the road to someone more efficient.

Yes, they charge more, they have to, they are not as good at it and thus it takes longer plus they have to cover their costs when you come back and say "Still not working" cause they set the ignition points 4 times as far apart as they should be.... Oh, that was the installers in my parent's house that did that. mine was only 2x.

 
I have learned, mostly from experiences like the above, that you NEVER trust Camping World to do anything on your coach except maybe, an oil change.
 
What a difference a few miles makes! We had excellent success with work done at CW in Anderson over the course of several weeks while staying in Red Bluff, and a friend blew the brake lines off his fifth wheel a mile from the Sacramento store and they loaned him tools and helped him fix it so he could over the pass to Reno before it snowed.

Not all Camping Worlds are created equal, obviously! Sorry you had a poor experience; mine have all been far more successful.

I would not hesitate for a minute to express your concerns to corporate - the new guys wants to change the image; give him a hand.
 

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