West Coast Vinyl / WCV Windows review: Terrible experience 11

West Coast Vinyl did my windows and one sliding door. They did a great job. The contract says right in it that the customer has to maintain the caulk. Two people? Yeah, how many should it take? They are replacing your windows, not building your entire house. And using saws...um, yeah, what would you rather them do, use a chisel. This is the age of technology, electronics should be used. If you are having problems, why don’t you call them and ask who can help you instead of spreading gossip.

Here is a fact... 52 complaints in the past 36 months filed regarding West Coast Vinyl with the Tacoma BBB. Yikes! That should be a wake-up call. They seem to operate by going door to door through neighborhoods soliciting business. They stopped by our house yesterday and from what I could see were basically hiring guys off the street to go around and solicit for them. The guy that rang our bell was from 30 miles away and said he had no money and was down on his luck. WCV hired him the day before he came to our house and loaded him into a van with a bunch of others and set them loose on our neighborhood. That's a fact.

I suppose this door-to-door approach works for them? It seems to for the magazine subscription folks, and LDS?

As for me, I wouldn't buy anything for some guy that shows up at my door. Sounds pretty shady to me...

I plan to order my windows from Lowe's or Home Depot.

That's my two-cents.

I had one of their apparently temporary/labor-ready workers come to my door three months ago. The young man who came up to my door used MY CELLPHONE to set up the appointment (should have been a red flag) and said they'd be out the next day to give us an estimate. No one ever showed up. One of their salespeople called us two days ago (three months late!) and set up a time to come over and give us an estimate (we should have said 'no'). They came over, spent over 2 hours here, were completely inappropriate, rude and even yelled at us when we kept telling them we wanted to get different estimates before we decided on a company. We eventually had to basically kick them out because they were so ridiculous and rude. I agree with all these people that you must NOT buy their windows. They are obviously unethical and although the windows themselves may be of high quality, it doesn't matter much if their workers can't install them correctly. And their guarantee means nothing apparently, which is one of their major selling points, as is the 60 day window during which you can get bids from other companies and if they beat WCV prices they'll match it, plus 5%. It sounds like that was probably a lie as well. Please do yourself a favor and pick a different company. Look at their numerous BBB reports and also check out /link removed/ for even MORE complaints.

Some People never amaze me West Coast Vinyl, Inc. is a great company and 52 resolved complaints in 3 yrs. out of 6800 customers is awsome! Do your math next time before you speak your stupidity! That is less than 1/2 of 1%!

Wcv has the best customer service in the business. When they installed my 11 windows and door, I had a great experiance. The installer decided after installing my first window, that it needed trim. He simply asked me wich kind I would prefer, and they trimmed every window and my sliding glass door FOR FREE. The salseman tried to sell me trim, I didnt think it was important. It was like 2000 extra. It was my bad, and they fixed it. Id like to see any other company do that. And the fact they hire circumstantially unfortunate people makes them bad ? To do somthing positive with there lives is not a bad thing .

There are facts and there are opinions. I'd rather know the facts about a company before making a decision about them. Fact: West Coast Vinyl Inc has been a Better Business Bureau Accredited business since January 1977. This means it supports BBB's services to the public and meets its' BBB Accreditation standards. Fact: West Coast Vinyl has an A+ rating with the BBB.

Of course there will be complaints about this company. If you Google anything you'll find a lot more negative than positive. Does that mean that it's bad? No. It only means that those few who have a bad experience will go out of their way to tell the world. No company is perfect. As long as companies continue to be run by human beings they will continue to make mistakes. However, mistakes are few and far between with companies such as WCV.

People will also tend to stretch the truth to make their experience seem worse than it really is. I'm not saying people shouldn't research a company before working with them, because they absolutely should. I'm only saying to do the right kind of research. Just because a couple people weren't pleased and chose to slander WCV does not mean what they are accused of is true. If you are going to listen to these kind of people, then you have an obligation to also look at the other side, which is the facts.

Below is a list of issues I"m sending to West Coast on a $25, 000 job. 23 windows, one patio slider.
All facts. I like my new windows and 3 people were fired due to incompetence. I think they mean well but have some marginal employees.

Problems:

• (4) large windows were mis-measured and required re-manufacture
• (1) upstairs window, SH had the obscured glass in the wrong position and had to be re-manufactured.
• My requirements for (2) SH windows were not captured or communicated to the factory that I wanted the sliding portion to be only 18” as these were picture windows. This resulted in remanufacture for the 3rd time for these (2) windows.
• During installation all the debris from trimming the second story windows was left on the roof. When I commented on this the debris was just shoved into the first story gutters which I had to clean out.
• During installation a lot of siding was cracked and split with any attempt to repair this damage.
• The windows were installed with little or no effort to clean them, especially on the outside. The last crew did try as I was there to assist them.
• All the narrow windows (6 – 17” wide) had balance springs for larger windows and would shoot up on their own. All were subsequently changed for the correct ones.
• The side light next to my front door was to be made from a Door Company and I was told by Mike E. that it would fit my 17”x72” window. Only after it was completed did I find out that in-fact it was ~4” too narrow and ~5” too short required additional framing to install with subsequent finish work by me. As this would have looked very odd in comparison to all my other windows I refused this product.
• When this same side light was installed it was made from double pane glass and not triple pane like all my other windows. I told the crew to just leave it as at this point I didn’t want to invite any more problems.
• Finally, the screen for the Patio door was not square and sat crooked in the door frame. This was subsequently re-manufactured and will be installed this Friday July 30.
• In all (8) windows had to be re-made and one screen.

Mike_767, I am sorry that you have had issues like that. Sadly, what you experienced was a sad case of burnt out employees running through the motions. Although not an excuse, but I am sure that you have experience other instances where a few burnt out, stressed out folks ruin an otherwise decent experience.

For truth in advertising, I myself am in sales for WCV. My name is Shannon, and I work from the Tacoma office. Please allow me to publish for all some of the end results of your particular job.

We recently had a transition in our measure department, where we lost the services of our measure tech that had been doing all of our measures for many years. As we tried to replace him, several of the new hire candidates didn't pass muster. We now have a fully certified measure tech, so that problems with mismeasures will be lessened. That doesn't always mean they are perfect, but it has and will continue to minimize the wrong size issue.

Previously, our in house job detail documentation was not very in depth. We have transitioned over to a full service model(putting customer service first with 7am to 7pm live service coverage). One of the things that we learned is that somewhere the communication between the sales staff and the installation/manufacture departments was somewhat lacking. We have instituted a new system of collection and reporting stray details that in the past may have been missed.

The side light is one of the many reasons we have discontinued any entry door/sidelight work. We just did not seem to be able to get the custom sizes that we required, and every time we would order something from , there would be errors.

Lastly, it sounds like you had one of our "lost soul" crews. With the recession, we finally had the breathing room to clear out some of the installers that would be hit or miss. Very unfortunately it seems that you suffered through one them. Allow me to say clearly, that crew has be unequivocally removed from our payroll.

I am greatly interested in how the job sits today. If you would be kind enough to either post here, or you can email me at skaiser2213@gmail.com about the current state of affairs with your project.

Not only do they have burnt out employees, they want the guys in the field to install something for them that does not fit and most of the time the installer will. There also is several reasons you get bad installs is because how the installers do not get paid when they say that they are going to pay them or they just do not pay them at all, yes that is when you can get real sloppy installs.

I myself am a new sales person for west coast vinyl and from what I've heard about all the negatives is how a business grows and changes to figure out the perfect system so that all our costumers are satisfied! I'm not new to the window business I myself worked for milgard windows and doors and what I've learned WCV states facts not lies! I know alot about the quality of WCV's window products and from an experienced window builder, WCV tops them all from the tinyest and simplest details! In all that said without mistakes how can a company improve business and customer satisfaction! If u can name one business that ever started and NEVER made mistakes! your lying because there is no such business out there! Mistakes is what makes a growing business successful, so that we can fix our mistakes and satisfy you as a costumer! My name is Brandon A. And in conclusion not one business is perfect! MISTAKES IS OK and even if WCV made a mistake they will gladly fix the mistake and learn from it so that next time around it will not happen again! The best windows, The best quality, The best service, The best employees! THAT'S WEST COAST VINYL! Thanks and check out WWW.WESTCOASTVINYL.COM

Did you know that WCV uses contractors to install your windows, this was related to us when the contractor used his phone in our house and we heard it all, remember that when they said that these windows are sealed double pain, go look at your windows, do you have dirt between the glass panes, on the insulation piece? If you do the windows are not saving you the money that they should, as per the information related to buyer. I have had done research on these type of windows and no dirt should get in between the glass so there is something really wrong as all my 12 windows have this situation. Now comes the time to see if Brandon @ WCV tells the truth about standing behind their windows and all. Lynard