I have been running this machine for nearly 2 years without complaints. However, it broke down last week and we registered a complaint. And after two days of delay, the engineer came and identified that timer device has to be replaced and we asked him to get it fixed.
Now the engineer begins to say that I also need to buy the water filter device, the power cutout and descale power packets and only then the machine would work.
We are not naive or dumb. I know that the elite machine already has the same filter device built in. Power cutout is good to have but not the reason why the machine wouldnt work.
And for descale packets we already had 3 packets with us and we asked him use that.
The engineer got very annoyed and said that we need 7 packets to clean. 7 packets at one go? We asked him to fix the timer.run with whatever packets we have, and will call him if we need more.
Now he said without 7 packets, the machine wont work.And we insisted that he use only 3. He grudingly left, saying without 7.the water may not drain and left us to try. and he left asking us to call if need the descal.
After about an hour.there was strong acidic smell and the water wasnt draining. I realised that this engineer is playing dirty tricks, manually drained the water. It was so strongly acid fumes that I had to quickly wash my hands because it was getting’burning sensation’ and ran few empty cycles to clear up.and draining the water manually. I later put my hand under the machine beneath the drain pump and found the cable had been pulled out intentionally. I fixed that. And everything was working fine.
We have an infant at home, had we not refused his advice, with such a high concentration of descaler(it is probably sulfumic descaler or borax based.both are dangerous in higher concentrations) it would have seriously affected our child health. Thats just not acceptable.
This is not an isolated case, earlier this month at my brothers residence, the engineer forced them to buy the same filter, power cutout, 10 packets of descal all to replace a worn out belt - costing Rs. 500, but at a total cost of over Rs. 4500
This is day light robbery by not one service agency.but multiple agencies. For someone who believed IFB a trusted company, I no longer trust IFB anymore. I dont think my next washing machine or whatever appliance, will be ever be IFB again.