The black hole of Sears

Yes folks... it's that time again.

Our Sears Kenmore water heater has once again blown an element. That's three times in the 9 years we've been here.

And this wouldn't be such a horrible ordeal, if you could simply drive down to Home Depot or Lowes and pick up a replacement part... but guess what... Sears uses a proprietary thread to stop that from happening.

To make things worse... Sears no longer stocks these parts locally. The closest heater element is... or so I am told... in Toronto or Ottawa (and that's a lie, see update below). You'll have to forgive my skepticism here, as the Sears parts people were unable, despite having the model of this Kenmore branded appliance, able to locate a part number.

So now I get to call the 800 number and do another interminable dance with some miserable minion who gets minimum wage to deal with unhappy people all day.

This oughta be fun.

Moral of the story... deal with Sears at peril of your sanity.

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UPDATE: Why am I surprised?

Just got off the phone with Sears after checking their parts website which claims to have an inventory of 7 million items. Unfortunately... just like the parts depot, it didn't even recognise the model number of my water heater.

And... as expected... dealing with their call center was just another complete fuck-around.

I am told that not one of their parts depots in Ontario carries this item. Robo-Tele-Serf claims that this heater element must be ordered from the manufacturer, sent to a central warehouse and then shipped to the Belleville parts outlet.

That was gonna take 6 days. Without hot water.

I can overnight shit to Uzbekistan... but Sears needs a week to get this part to the backwater of Belleville, Ontario? Seriously?

Oh yeah... here's the best part... it was gonna cost 62 bucks plus tax & whatever... double the cost of the most expensive replacement heater element I saw on my rounds of Canadian Tire, Lowes & Home Depot.

Kudos to the clueless bimbo who... in the middle of my rant about their miserable service... asked me if I wanted to participate in a customer satisfaction survey.

Anyway... I'm gonna have to go buy a water heater... any recommendations from handy readers will be appreciated.