kitchenconnection.orgOur $58K dream kitchen turned into a stressful nig...
Our $58K dream kitchen turned into a stressful nightmare. When it commenced we were told we would be without a kitchen for 21 days and all works would be completed in 42 days. Well this turned out to be 70 days without a kitchen and 181 days until it was finally completed.
SO DON'T USE THIS COMPANY - WORKMANSHIP, QUALITY CONTROL, AND CUSTOMER
SERVICE ARE NOT GOOD.
When you visit the show room you choose the finishes for your kitchen. A designer then, in your home, designs and prices your kitchen. Then comes the sales pressure to sign the contract and pay a 5% deposit on the spot to go ahead with the kitchen. There is no cooling off period or time to consider your purchase.
We also found them very aggressive when it came time to pay the remaining amount of the contract before the kitchen was delivered. They continued the chase us for the balance even after we had paid it.
The reason they are called Kitchen Connection, (KC), is because they sell you a kitchen and then they connect you to the suppliers and tradespersons that make and install the kitchen. After they supply the kitchen they don’t have much involvement in the process. There is no project management, no foreman on site, there is no one checking that installation is going according to plan, so it's up to you to check the quality of the job and to instruct tradespersons if you think things are not right.
There is no quality control on the items delivered as we had many damaged pieces delivered.
Our Customer Service Manager was less than helpful and he never visited the site during the whole 181 days of our nightmare. Our dealings with him were by phone and email and sending pictures of damaged items.
What were our problems;
1. The Island Cabinetry was not centred correctly on the tiled floor despite requesting this to be done.
2. The benchtop had a small flaw on it which the supplier said we must have made so they would not fix it. After giving them a poor review they have now referred the matter to Caesarstone who to their credit are going to repair it. Like we said above KC do not assist you in these matters.
3. The doors & drawers appear to be moving over time as they are slowly starting to not sit flush. They are all adjustable but you need to know how to do it.
4. The cornice was ripped out without ascertaining that it was easily replaceable. It was not readily available so it had to be made, (at our cost). This caused delays.
5. But the biggest issue was that damaged cabinetry kept being delivered to site and being rejected by the installer. Although the installer did instal the original cabinetry which had 14 panels/doors/draws with obvious damage!
About every month or so they sent replacement pieces and as a rough estimate about half of the replacements were damaged. It has taken five additional deliveries to get all but one piece replaced.
One large panel on the front of our Island cabinetry still has two dents in it. They are only visible if you look sideways at the panel. The supplier has sent 7 replacement panels and everyone has had dents/damage on it. Now they are saying that because the dents are not visible from 1.5 meters looking straight at them that the panel complies with Industry Standards?? And therefor they will not replace it.
So our new kitchen has a dented panel on the front of our Island Bench.
KC do not check anything that is delivered to you. They expect the supplier to do that and obviously in our case they have no quality control either.
SO DON'T BUY A KITCHEN FROM KC! THEY DON'T STAND BEHIND THE PRODUCTS THEY SELL YOU OR CHECK QUALITY CONTROL. THEY BLAME THE SUPPLIERS/TRADIES.
