Complaint Review: American Woodmark

On November 20, 2004, my husband and I went to Lowes to have them design a kitchen for us. Based on our budget of $5,000 for a 10 x 10 kitchen, the cabinet company called American Woodmark was recommended to us. We placed our order. Production and delivery time was quoted at approx. 3 weeks. On December 23rd we were notified by a trucking company that they wanted to set up delivery of the new cabinets. We asked they be delivered on December 27thth.

On Dec 26th my husband and I gutted out kitchen to the studs and began quickly rewiring it, re-routed plumbing and put the walls back up. We painted and then prepared to hang our new cabinets. As we began opening the boxes we were horrified as to what we were seeing. The quality of the cabinets was terrible. We had ordered them to have a maple finish with a mocha glaze rubbed into the seams. What we got were cabinets that had gouges in the doors and frames, broken cabinets where the wood was completely split and it was unusable, doors that had poor sanding done to them and when they stained over that part it highlighted the poor craftsmanship of the door. There were also several "chatter marks" from the planer they used to smooth the door where there were actual dents in the door that you could feel when you ran your hand over it. There were fingerprints in the stain where someone grabbed the door when it was wet and left a mark on it. How could anyone in their right mind send this crap out?

We notified Lowes who immediately began handling the problem. We reordered the cabinets. American Woodmark had their sales rep come over and view the cabinets. Everyone at Lowes agreed they were awful. American Woodmark called us and apologized and said our replacement order would be "walked through their quality control system" carefully. In the meantime, we would now have to wait another 3 weeks and had no kitchen - no running water- NOTHING! Our old cabinets were gone and we were doing what dishes we did have in our bathtub. I was cooking on a barbeque and a side-burner in 25 degree weather outside so I could feed my family.

On January 27th the 2nd set of cabinets arrived. They were worse than the first batch!!!!!!!!! We notified Lowes and they began dealing with the vendor. After having enough of the run around from the vendors non-response - I called the company directly and demanded a return phone call within 48 hours from the head of production. The company is headquartered in the East but our cabinets were being manufactured in the west in Kingman, AZ and being trucked to us in Spokane, WA. I then called the head of the kitchen design team at Lowes in North Carolina. She was fantastic and jumped in on the problem. She got American Woodmark to call me and tell me what they were going to do. However, when the VP of Sales/Marketing for Am. Woodmark called, he pledged they would make us a 3rd kitchen but wasn't sure if we would be pleased. He kept ending every sentence with, "I'm not sure we can please you or... I'm not confident you will be happy." I told him I wasn't that big of a risk taker if they were going to use the same people to make the cabinets, the same lousy equipment and the same bad quality control procedures. I informed him we would take our money elsewhere.

Now we are another 5 weeks out and Lowes has put us with the Kraftmaid line. We demanded that American Woodmark now pay the cost of an installer to install our cabinets since they pissed away my husbands vacation for this project. They agreed. They also "gave" us all the cabinets they had sent. The only thing we can do with them is sell them to someone who doesn't mind nicks, dents and poor quality or have a bon fire with them. Thanks for the thought anyway. I would like to have seen an American Woodmark executive hang this crap in their house or have their wife do dishes in a bathtub for 6 weeks or longer.

Through this entire thing Lowes has been remarkable sticking up for us. None of this is their fault. I seriously doubt after this they will be recommending American Woodmark to their customers until that company cleans up their act. Also, Am. Woodmark actually tried to blame Lowes for their problems. They couldn't back up their claim so then they turned to blame the trucking company for the problem. Maybe if they had wrapped the cabinets in protective bubble-wrap that would have saved some of the damage but how do you explain poor craftsmanship. GET A LIFE! Judge for yourself - if you are a risk taker than use American Woodmark. If not - don't even consider them. It is now February 14th and I won't get delivery of my other cabinets until March 10th. And this was supposed to be a happy experience. NOT!

M
Otis Orchards, Washington
U.S.A.