When I bought a Yard Machines lawn mower from Home Depot last year, I paid for a 2-year repair/replacement plan. I'm pretty sure the plan was presented to me with language like "If it stops working, you just bring it back and we'll replace it." I've had some bad luck with lawn equipment, and the price wasn't high, so it seemed like a good deal.
This year, the mower won't start. So I try to get Home Depot to repair or replace it. Home Depot's response is that the product is covered by a manufacturer's warranty, so I must get service from the manufacturer. The website helpfully tells me that I can contact the manufacturer by calling "$MFR_PHONE$". (That's verbatim.)
So Home Depot's repair/replacement plan was literally worthless. Lesson learned.
I contact the Yard Machines warranty service. They say that their warranty doesn't cover the engine. The engine is covered by the engine's manufacturer (Briggs & Stratton).
Yard Machines provides a warranty that doesn't cover the engine? Isn't a lawn mower just an engine attached to a blade and wheels? It's as if a warranty for a computer didn't cover any of the electronics.
So I go to the Briggs & Stratton website. It says I can get warranty service by an Authorized Briggs & Stratton Dealer in my area. I enter my zip code. Results: No dealers found.
And so now I have to wonder how many more hours I want to spend trying to get this thing fixed. Probably easier to either hire a lawn-mowing service, figure out how to fix it myself, or buy a new mower. But not from Home Depot.
To sum up, here are recent additions to my Shit List:
- Home Depot
- Yard Machines
- Briggs & Stratton