Tried that $89 furnace tune up from a mailer and honestly it was not a scam
Got one of those mailers back in October offering an $89 furnace tune up and figured it was bait to sell me a new system, but my old unit was making a weird noise so I called anyway. The tech showed up on time, pulled out the blower, and showed me a cracked igniter plus a dirty flame sensor, then charged me $89 and did not push anything else. He said my 2011 furnace has a few good seasons left and to just change the filter every 2 months, which is way different from the $6,800 replacement quote I got down in Aurora a while back. Has anyone else used one of those coupon mailers and actually had it go fine, or did I just get lucky with this one company?
Getting a straight answer out of a tech is half the battle, and it sounds like this guy actually earned his $89 instead of using it as a sales pitch. That part about the cracked igniter and dirty flame sensor is real stuff too, those are cheap fixes that a shady company will blow way out of proportion to scare you into a whole new unit. The filter tip alone saves you money, so keep that company's number handy and skip the $6,800 quote places.