Just came back home after making an advance payment of Rs. 500 at Vasanth & Co to buy Carrier 1.5 ton Superia Inverter AC.
Reasoning in deciding the AC brand(In no particular order):
1. There are truck loads of marketing bull about every brand all over the internet and any amount of reading will only make you feel lost in the bull.
2. Also there are good and bad experiences written by users for every brand, so again they are useless.
3. On one hand, I used to think most companies such as LG, Samsung, Whirlpool, etc. have international reputation so they must be good, on the other I read most sell ACs with components from China to survive in the pricing war.
4. Some even say most of the brands all use same components with just different outer designs. Couple of weeks back I bought a LG washing machine and Bosch has a carbon copy of the same model.
5. Most of the brands have eerily similar features.
6. I live less than 500m from sea and do not want to take chance with aluminium condensers, and that rules out LG, Samsung, etc all primarily use aluminium condensers and evaporators.
6a. LG, Samsung, Whirlpool, etc sell many products such as ACs, washing machines, phones, etc. But for Carrier, Daikin, General, etc selling ACs is the only source of bread and butter for them.
7. General is very expensive. It does not have a history like Carrier. I do not like paying for brand names unnecessarily and Point No. 1 & 2 for General.
8. Did not consider Indian brands such as Voltas, Bluestar, etc. I'm very finicky about reliability and I'm not sure whether these brands are up there with the segment leaders.
9. Ruled out Mitsubishi, Trane, etc. as the sales is low and After Sales will be a big problem in the long run. If GM can vanish, imagine about these brands.
10. So that left me with Daikin and Carrier.
11. A Carrier is running on its 12th year in my home, in over-loaded conditions. When I purchased it, I was disappointed with its finesse, a lot of materials looked crude and I wondered how long it will last. It's on its 12th year now with very minimal maintenance. Had a part change of 500rs. once and a gas refill once. Nothing else apart from regular cleaning. It runs all day across the year and on summers close to 20 hours each day. It also tries to cool a over-sized room(for its capacity). Been a very satisfying purchase so far.
12. Wanted to try Daikin as I already owned Carrier(and the lack of finesse of it still in memory). Made a call today to a Daikin dealer and I was quoted 46k for 1.5 ton Inverter.
13. Carrier being the pioneers of Air Conditioner systems and my good experience with the brand kept lingering as I started to make a casual visit to Vasanth & Co.
14. A guy pounced on me as I put my head into the showroom and I told him I need Carrier 1.5 ton Inverter. He mentioned there is some offer running and muttered some details along with the price.
I do not like negotiation and haggling so I retorted "give me the best price" and his manager intervened with the following:
- Carrier 1.5 Ton Superia inverter 4i (4 Star) (
http://carriermideaindia.com/Superia-4i.aspx)
- Free installation, Stabilizer and AC Stands.
- Rs. 45,000 for all
Having researched about the prices online, it sounded a good deal.
He said today is the last day for this offer and requested me to pay a token advance If I'm interested to buy. Daikin crossed my mind and I checked with him about Daikin and he said they don't sell Daikin. That's it. I didn't want to extend the brain storming anymore and ended it by paying a token advance of Rs. 500.
Hope this helps!
P.S: A lot of how the AC works depends on the quality of installation, so tell the installer beforehand that you need quality install.