Carrier Secondary Heat Exchanger cracked at barely 8 years old

[HUP]

We own a High efficiency Carrier furnace that has just recently turned 8 years old. The furnace is a model under the class action lawsuit which now offers a 20 year warranty on cracked secondary heat exchangers. I'm pretty sure there must be a crack in the exchanger.

After finding out our ac wasn't working like it should be, we shut it off and opened the top face of the furnace. Inside we found water sitting in the plastic drip tray and rust dust everywhere. No large chunks, YET!.. though the secondary heat exchanger is coated in rust at the bottom, so much rust I can't see if it's cracked. I'm not touching it! We syphoned the water out, ran the furnace a few days later and voila, air was now heavily escaping from the secondary heat exchanger area. Since then I have turned it off out of fear of toxic fumes. Our furnace has destroyed our livingroom ceiling drywall, where the secondary heat exchanger has picked up water and passed it through the vents? I believe the water sitting in the drip tray acted as a seal for the heat exchanger, which is why there were no signs of air flowing from the heat exchanger previously!? Just a guess. It really could explain our protruding living room ceiling, along the vents!

My question.. could there be anything else leaking air from the secondary heat exchanger area?

Why Carrier expects people to pay $700-900 worth of replacement repairs if it is covered under the extended warranty is beyond me. They state they only cover up to 4 hours labour to replace the exchanger. Meanwhile, all of their vendors claim it takes longer to be replaced and the above costs will be out of our pockets.


Thanks!

[The Builder]

If the heat exchanger is bad, get a new unit, or have someone throughly check the unit out so they can actually see whats going on