Got refund from Lowe's!
We purchased a Whirlpool 30gallon water heater with the flame lock model in November of 2007 from Lowes. As many people have reported, the pilot light would not stay on. My husband first went to our local small business plumbing supply store to get a replacement part. The owner told him that he hears about this problem at least once a week! My husband researched the model number and found many complaints about customers dealing with both Lowes and Whirlpool.
So, we decided to attempt returning the faulty water heater back to Lowe’s and request our money back $348. At first, the customer service manager told us that the standard procedure to correct the problem is for us to work directly with the manufacturer. We told her that we researched the repair on-line, were shocked to find the many customer complaints and that we did not want to spend the time and energy in repairing it. We printed the first 5 pages of the water heater complaints from the Consumer Affairs site and showed them to her, pointing out the 182 total pages with the most recent complaints on 3/3/2009. We told her that we were very surprised that Lowe’s continued to sell an inferior quality water heater, even after a class action suit. She picked up the phone and talked to another manager. They both agreed they had not heard about this issue before, but agreed to refund the money. Lowe’s returned our money! Way to go Lowe’s.
I hope that others can benefit from our experience and can get their money back. As some of the writers said, when a water heater goes out, one does not make the time to research because it really is an emergency to get hot water running in the home. So, don’t buy one from Lowe’s!