If it has a lifetime warranty they WILL do it!
Take it from me, buddy, if your machine has a 25 year warranty or a lifetime on the tub, K/A WIll have to honor it for you. Just be warned..
They will insist on a service man coming to the house to see the unit. Check the warranty wording and see if it covers rusting or only leaks.
He will come from Sears or A&E or the local authorized servicer and check it out and then look on his laptop and then confirm the non availablility of the tank.Then he will give you a receipt and you than call KitchenAId Customer service back and then it Begins!
THEY WILL DO EVERYTHING THEY CAN TO ROB YOU OF $150.00 TO EXCHANGE OUT THE MACHINE!
I had that happen to me and I insisted that they not charge me the exchange fee as it was thier fault for not carrying parts to cover their service obligation and reminded them that as a Hobart employee, I could attest to the fact that when it they were owned by Hobart, Hobart would never have the balls to ask a "valued" customer to pay for a replacement machine.Hobart still won't ask for a dime even if they exchange a commercial machine out.
The woman on the phone then asked me if I wanted to pay $75.00 and I repeated what I had just said and she capitulated and said they would ship it to me free of charge. Only catch was to have their repair agent install it.
For most guys, that would be fine but I wasn't about to let anyone install my machine for me. As it turned out, they told me who the company would be and I pass their place a few times a week so I stopped in and saw my machine sitting there a few days later and eventually spoke to the owner who told me that they didn't install in my area on Saturdays so I asked if he would mind if I picked up the machine and installed it myself and he said no problem as long as I left the old one outside the garage so they could pick it up. He even said I could strip what I wanted off of it as long as the tank and serial number was intact.
He agreed; I picked it up and as of yet the brand new Kitchenaid machine is still in the box for 2 reasons..
1, my KDS18 runs perfectly,and my wife doesnt want to give up the loading pattern
2: from all the horror stories I have read here and seen on the Kitchenaid forum, seems like the newer machines dont claen like the old ones. They take a long time to finsih a cycle and oftentimes, poor results.
If anyone thinks otherwise, please let me know.
Good luck to you but if it is a legitimate warranty issue, you will get yourself a new machine.
If you can't get anywhere with them, I have a KDS19 tank which is the same as yours and is already setup to accept the hot air blower! Has the same heating element in it as yours so you would have a new tank to put your mechanicals into. Hey, I might as well offer you the whole machine so you will have lots of spare parts. I don't think I will invest in getting a timer for it which is all that was wrong with it.
