Donkers Hometown Appliances — Local services in Austin

Last Saturday (August 26th) our dryer ran all night and the heating element went out on top of it not wanting to shut off. Unfortunately when we found this out, it was Sunday and no businesses were open except department stores. Rightfully so, they are entitled to have lives, that’s not what was upsetting. I work until 5pm at Mayo Clinic (opposite side of town) and we are down a vehicle at the moment in the shop as our engine blew up 🙃. I had my mother drive me to Donker’s so we could pick out a dryer and set up delivery. We were there for maybe 10 minutes as we knew they were trying to close. And I thanked the younger lady at the desk and the owner profusely for staying open. They wrote up the bill of sale, included the extra hardware adaptor needed for LP and said they would overnight the parts to get it installed ASAP. Awesome! I was so appreciative and I paid for the dryer in CASH. It was a little more than I wanted to spend for kind of a sub par dryer ($900), but it was needed and again, I wanted to support local. We get a call the next day and they said everything was in and they would send it out for delivery the following day; we set up a time and my husband took off work. The delivery men arrived and come to find out, the wrong adapter was ordered, so they had to return to the shop. Okay, no big deal. Mistakes were made; nobody is perfect. Last Wednesday, the owner called us and is overnighting the correct part but with the holiday, he’s not sure when it will come; the part was also more than what was originally charged, but he was gonna eat it. I’ve been having a slough of bad luck lately and appreciated the gesture. No big deal on the holiday, it is what it is. Please let us know when it is in, so we can set up a time to be available for delivery as my husband is taking off work to be available for install. Yesterday at 5:15pm we finally called to see if the part had come in and the woman who messed up our order originally answered the phone and says, ‘idk I got here at 12pm. I haven’t looked at the deliveries’. Okay, well that was over 5 hours ago and we’ve been without a dryer for over a week…yup, it’s here, we will see what the schedule looks like tomorrow and set up delivery as we are closing now. Okay. So today, I’m at work and missed a phone call from Donkers. Called back and the same lady that messed up our adapter and couldn’t be bothered to look when the new part came in answers and said, yeah there was another person that answered first, so we sent the delivery truck to Adams as it was first answer first serve. Okay, so if we knew we were in delivery competition with another customer, I could have left another phone number to contact as my husband and I work…now we don’t know if our dryer will be delivered today and we had to make arrangements to have someone available to let them in the house as we can’t just leave work and my husband runs a territory sometimes being hours away. Upon explaining this and stating that we were a little upset with the customer service (understandably at this point as we are 1.5 weeks without a dryer and getting a lot of attitude for things that were done incorrectly on their end), the lady has the audacity to say: ‘well, do you want your dryer delivered today or not?’ Seriously?! I work in customer service at Mayo and I work in a restaurant. I would never have spoke to a customer like that. I think we’ve been really patient and understanding, but they lost any future business today and if I don’t get my dryer, I will be getting a CASH refund and going elsewhere. I will keep everyone posted. I had really hoped to have had a better experience than this. Everyone raves about them. I am not impressed and I’m kind of embarrassed I let them treat me the way they did. Sorry for the novel. Like I said, we’ve had a slough of bad luck and this didn’t help it any. I hope others have better experiences than we did. It’s raining today and I have wet clothes I’m about to line dry inside my house. ...

DO NOT BUY THE CROSLEY BRAND WASHER!! I purchased all new appliances from them when I bought by house (August of 22) Service was great they delivered them however I don't think I got a single wash on the washing machine before it would sit on wash and never spin or drain. I called and they took care of it under warranty. Everything was good with the new one until a month ago and the same issue started occurring again. I called down and because the unit only has a one year warranty there was no warranty on it. (I did not have them come look at it due to the cost just to look at it) The rough estimate to repair was dang near the cost of the washer. I try to support small businesses and I really wanted to give them the benefit of a doubt however the customer service felt poor and that I was a problem they just wanted to get rid of as soon as possible. They also said they were going to email the manufacturer however I never heard back. If I had to guess they have been having issues with these washers...

First off I have to say that I am surprised by the negative reviews for speed queen you can find on the internet! So glad I didn’t listen! The washer was pricier than other brands, but rock solid so far. And yes, it can be noisy when the pump kicks in.... it’s a washer! It’s gonna be a little noisy. That being said, my last 2 washers were much noisier, and didn’t self balance the way this one does. So there’s my pitch for the machine, now for the store... they were all wonderful and so knowledgeable about their products. The sales gal told me so much about the everyday function, and the delivery guys told me more about the practical setup and made me realize I actually caused my last machine’s failure!! The other store didn’t give me any real helpful information, but did try to get me to upscale my purchase by a few hundred dollars. The delivery/service/guys even made 2 trips to help me make sure it was setup correctly and hoses were how they needed to be. 10 stars...