I had purchased a Friedrich Breeze DIY a couple of years earlier and it did not last all that long so I figured that I would get a name brand professionally installed unit that would conceivably last the rest of the time I planned to own the house (~10 year time frame) so that I would be able to pay a single large amount and be done with it, i.e. worrying about my shop temperature at any time of the year. I got three quotes, one for a Samsung, one for a Trane/Mitsu and one for a Daikin. I chose the Daikin because it was about $1500 less than the others and figured it was a good, name brand.
I ended up buying the 4 ton outdoor unit (I don't remember the nomenclature on the original one any longer, but it could handle up to 8 indoor units with enough branch boxes) and two 2 ton indoor units, the FTXS series.
The installer took several days to put it in and set it up, and it worked right out of the box for less than two weeks. It started throwing codes left and right. The installer didn't understand what was wrong with it, and so over the course of the next 4 months where my brand new two-zone MS was completely broken, I ended up pursuing BBB action and got an attorney involved with the installer, made contact with the manufacturer, and eventually the manufacturer's rep (they brought out several people, a salesman, a couple of regional customer service tech types, etc but not one of them knew anything more about their system other than to ask the installer to take a few readings on their gauges). My thought going into that meeting was that some grizzled old HVAC tech that worked directly for Daikin NA would take one look at it, say to the installer, "here's where you should have been looking, do this and that and it'll be fine" but no one did anything like that. After another month or so, the factory salesman agreed to replace the outdoor unit that needed the branch box with their brand new 5MXS48TVJU unit. It doesn't need a branch box and can handle 5 indoor units. They kept the indoor units unchanged.
After they installed the new unit, which I think they agreed to in order to make me go away rather than troubleshoot their own product, it worked for a while (maybe the rest of the summer, I stopped recording faults when the new unit was installed). It started failing on me again in the winter, less than a year after original installation, giving me similar codes to what it had been doing the first time (the codes are A5 and UH; they are burned into my memory from seeing them so much - A5 is a high temperature reading and UH is a "system error" with no other description). Sometimes I'll get the A5 upstairs and the UH downstairs and other times it is reversed. Sometimes, even now, the upstairs unit will blow cold (and I mean COLD - I currently have it set for 74 degrees on that zone and I would be shocked if it is above 65 degrees - and it is almost 100 degrees in TX right now) and I cannot get cooling out of the downstairs unit, except at certain times of the day. Four weeks ago, it was exactly the opposite (too much cold downstairs, nothing upstairs) for about a week. I didn't change a darn thing. Every time I walk out to the shop and open the door I wonder what I am about to get- ice cold or super warm with a blinking error light on the unit.
I called the installer last week to get them to come and look at it again because it had thrown codes 4 times in a 24 hour period without any cooling on either head, and wouldn't you know it the thing started blowing cold, at least upstairs, and hasn't quit yet (though it is MUCH too cold for what I've set it to). So I called off the warranty request until it dies again. It is just very temperamental, the installer and factory reps don't seem to care about it or me, and I wanted something I could "set and forget" and it has been my highest time **** item on my property, save perhaps the pool, since I bought it.
