Talk of The Villages Florida - I really need advice on kitchen appliance brands. What's in a name these days?

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Quote:

Originally Posted by Boomer (Post 239197)

I started this thread two months ago when my Maytag dishwasher offended me. At that time, I had forgotten all about the fact that my Maytag clothes washer had offended me, also. It used to rip up our clothes on the "Normal" cycle. I have been avoiding that cycle for so long that I had blocked that part from my memory. (I think we might be the ones who started that ripped-up clothes look that some teenagers seem to like.)

I really appreciated all the posts here about your appliance experiences.

And I know nothing is like it used to be. (Sigh....I know I'm not.) But I sure wish somebody would make appliances to last.

But anyway, I thought I would find this old thread and let you know how things turned out.

In the end of all the reading and shopping and asking and comparing and not really being convinced that one was better than the other, we finally bought Electrolux this past weekend. Lots of bells and whistles to go wrong on those things, I know. But we kept coming back to them.

So it's appliance Christmas presents at our house this year, it looks like. These things sure aren't easy to wrap, and fitting them under the tree is really hard. :shrug:

Boomer

Hey Boomer,
My less-than-year-old Maytag Quiet Series 400 dishwasher is starting to offend me too. Sometimes, it just won't turn on. I called Maytag and was told to unplug it for a few minutes and plug it back in. That worked, but now I have to do that every time I use it. Imagine having to reboot your dishwasher. Did Bill Gates buy Maytag?

a dissertation on my kitchen - when I should be doing other stuff this morning

Quote:

Originally Posted by Pturner (Post 239256)

Ohhhhh, Pturner,

Be really careful. The door latch mechanism might be plotting against you, if there was no redesign since the 300 Series.

My offensive dishwasher, that started this whole thread -- and more, is a Maytag Quiet Series 300. My daughter Boomette has one, too, and the latch is behaving badly. Also in this thread there are other mentions of that same series of Maytag.

Bosch almost won the replacement dishwasher competition. But then the $150 latch repair somehow morphed into an, "Oh what the heck, might as well redo the kitchen."

The kitchen in our perfect-size-for-geezers ranch style house, that we downsized to 6 years ago, is a small kitchen, only 12X12. It was trapped in an older design and the space dictated by the old cabinets left room only for a too-small refrigerator.

And so, suddenly, I am picking out cabinets for Mr. Boomer to install and we find ourselves shopping for a stove and refrigerator, too. (The Amana refrigerator that is too small, but still works fine, will get a new home in the basement.)

So away we went on our appliances recon mission. (Ain't retirement grand. We could dedicate entire mornings to looking for appliances and then go out to lunch.)

Electrolux won because all the appliances hit the features we liked. And also it won on appearance, which is a personal choice I know. That French door refrigerator sure looked purdy to me. I hope it lives up to its looks.

One of the things I was after was the Electrolux stove which has two ovens in the stove with the smaller one on the bottom. It is an actual oven and not a warming drawer. I think the top temp is 400 degrees, might be 450 - it's not here yet. Because the kitchen is small, a stove like this can help a lot. No room for a wall-oven. We also have an OTR (Over-the-Range) microwave due to space limitations.

So that is how Electrolux won. All of the appliances worked together best for redoing the whole kitchen. There is also some attention to detail on the look of them that lured us into thinking maybe the insides had been given attention to detail, too. But who knows? Only time will tell on that one. And Electrolux pricing is annoying, to say the least. Marketing strategy? They do a little smoke and mirrors rebating if you can catch it just right. But that is pretty much it. For two months, I walked away from Electrolux, but kept coming back to it.

And now a little more digressing about kitchen stuff.....Somewhere here there is a thread where somebody is asking about how they can repaint those cream colored cabinets that are in a lot of the homes on the historic side of TV. Welllll, I wanted to leap into that thread and say, "STOP! Embrace your light cabinets! They are in again! Guess what I just ordered!"

We stayed on the historic side recently (which I like for a lot of reasons) and I know the cabinets. Only now the finish is called things like "Biscotti with Cocoa Glaze."

And that, for anybody who read this far, is the latest episode in the continuing saga of the broken Maytag dishwasher latch.

Boomer

Quote:

Originally Posted by Boomer (Post 231328)

Our Maytag dishwasher is 5 years old. The latch mechanism just bit the dust. The part costs $150.00. And, yes, I know that�s a lot cheaper than a new dishwasher. And we don�t have to try to find the Maytag repairman because Mr. Boomer knows how to fix stuff. But this is about the big picture aggravation factor in the world of today�s kitchen appliances. Are these things now designed to fail?

Maytag must have designed this latch to break, sooner rather than later. The part of the latch mechanism that broke was held together by some tiny plastic nubs that broke off. What�s up with that? The latch. Used constantly. Little plastic beads under stress every time that door was opened and closed. Surely that was designed to fail. And fail it did. A hundred and fifty bucks worth.

As a kid I learned to cook on a Chambers range that had been in the kitchen for as long as I could remember and was there long after I had left the nest. My parents� Kenmore washer and dryer, bought in 1967, lasted more than 40 years.

When Mr. B. and I were first married, somebody gave us their old dishwasher. It was a Kitchen-Aid that we rolled to the sink and hooked up to the faucet. It was 25 years old when we got it and when we moved we gave it away to someone else. It might still be out there rolling along. That made us loyal to Kitchen-Aid through three more houses, but then Kitchen-Aid dishwashers were suddenly no longer what they had always been. They just didn't seem the same. So we tried Maytag this time. Never again.

My history with kitchen appliances has been long one. And I have tried to get things that I thought would last. I realize that I can no longer expect 25 or 40 years. I am realistic about our world now. But 5 years and then the obvious design to fail starts kicking in???

I think most big appliances now are made by one company or the other. South Korea. Mexico. Cranking them out and slapping different brand names on them. It is a maze to me.

I have been noticing Electrolux everywhere lately. (I thought it was a sweeper.) Their big marketing campaign is that they have been in Europe forever. I guess that is supposed to mean something to me as a consumer, but that�s not what I care about. I just want something that is well made and will not aggravate me along the way with just plain bad engineering. Or purposely bad engineering.

Electrolux also likes to market like Saturn. The price is the price so they say. My guess is there will be some kind of deals built in somewhere. They are significantly more expensive than other appliances. Could that be part of the marketing concept, too? Or are they really that much better? (And btw, I think Electrolux and Frigidaire are now connected. Geez. No wonder I am confused.)

And you know what else I miss. I miss the little appliance store with the people who stood behind what they sold and knew their products. Now it's those big box stores full of whippersnappers who know nothing about washing machines because their moms are still doing their laundry. And all they want to do is sell you an extended warranty anyway.

Well, thanks for listening to my trials and tribulations in the world of kitchen appliances. And I really would like your opinions on what brands you like and have found to be dependable. And does anybody know anything about Electrolux? All I want is to get what I pay for. Is that even possible these days?

Dishwater Hands Boomer

We recently replaced our 20 year old Whirlpool dishwasher this past summer up north. I think we had 1 service call for the pump. After researching on the web and reading Consumer Reports we decided on a Bosch. It is extremely quiet and very energy efficient, but with a new product who knows the long term repair record. We found a good deal at Lowes this summer with free installation. The point I wanted to make was the comments made by the installer about Electrolux installations. He said that there is quite a bit of assembly out of box required. That isn't saying it is a poor product.

I think all appliances just don't last like they used to. Many are now made overseas or are foreign companies. I agree with the demise of Maytag products since they were bought out. We have 2 sets of Maytag washers and dryers from the mid 90s up north. Even though new models are more efficient, I think we'll keep them until they do need repair.
Maybe extended warranties might be feasible on these products considering their unreliability.

and now, a dissertation on extended warranties

Quote:

Originally Posted by mitchbr47 (Post 239276)

Hi Mitch,

I think you and I must have been writing in this thread and going to press at about the same time this morning. We really liked that Bosch dishwasher, too. Had we been buying just the dishwasher, that is the one we would have picked. But then the project grew and the appliances matching thing kicked in.

And the bells and whistles on the Electrolux do make us wonder. Ironically, the thing that went wrong with the Maytag was not in the electronics, it was in the latch design that was put together with little plastic beads, guaranteed to wear out.

One of the difficulties of being on the front end of the baby boom is remembering quality in appliances.

And about those extended warranties, I agree with the point you make......

Even though I am opposed to the concept and it really ticks me off to feel like I have to do it, the extended warranties entered in this time around.

Those things make me feel like I have been had, but it is just the way it is now because everybody's warranty is only one year and then you are on your own, trying to find repair.

And I have to suspect that those extended warranties, which may have started as a piece of the action, are now driving the bus and the consumer is under it.

We have never bought extended warranies before, but this time we did. I think they have contributed to the downfall in quality because everybody gets by with the short warranty now, no matter which manufacturer it is; therefore, "Why bother with building in quality?" may be a philosophy in the industry.

Also, those extended warranties are not in addition to the one-year. Those warranties absorb the one year. And so the 5-year is not 6 years. It is 5 years total. And you just have to hope your contact stays in business.

We weighed all the options and at the point of having just bought all that stuff for the whole kitchen and knowing that we trusted none of it really, we bit, for the first time ever, and bought the extended warranty. Had it been a lesser cost involved overall, we would not have bought the warranty. Of course, the evil Maytag dishwasher took 6 years to reveal the latch issue.

So I have no illusions that Electrolux will be any better than anything else. It appears to be well-designed. The fit and finish worked for us. But who knows??? We probably won't really know.....for 6 years.

Boomer

The Ghosts of Kitchens Past!

Boomer, I thorougly enjoyed your kitchen saga, especially the parts about Mr. Boomer, your daughter Boomette-- too cute!--, your astute take on manufacturers substituting extended warranties for quality products-- too :censored:-- and the "Biscotti with Cocoa Glaze" marketing name for cream-colored cabinets.

Hope you get many years hassle-free enjoyment from your new Christmas kitchen.

p.s., I'll keep you posted if my Maytag latch bites the dust.:doh:

Quote:

Originally Posted by Pturner (Post 239297)

There is even more to the story of the cream colored cabinets I chose. I was trying to go as light as possible for my kitchen, but it turns out those are kinda hot right now. I had no idea I was so hip. All I wanted to do was get a lighter look. (The floor is hardwood, and I was after contrast, too.)

And also, over in a corner of one of the places we looked, I saw what sure looked like an avocado green front-load washer. It was a little lighter than avocado. The salesperson told me the color is called "Chai" and don't you just love it.......now, if only I could find somebody to give me just the right kind of shag haircut I had back then, I would be all set for fitting into the 21st Century...... I wonder what the shag haircut is called these days..... Maybe it is out there somewhere.......But I digress.....and really have to stop passing by this computer and looking in at TOTV today.

Boomer

We had our Amana refrigerator for 6 years and the compressor went out. Appliance repairman said it would costabout $600 parts and labor to repair....UGH! You are right-things arent made last any longer.
We purchased an LG french door freezer on the bottom 25cu.ft. that cost $1100. It better last a LONG time! There is 7 year waranty on the compressor.
I didn't know much about LG brand, so i went to Expedia and found they are the 3rd largest maker of appliance behind Whirlpool and Electrolux. LG is a South Korean company which is a merger of a Asain company called 'Lucky' and Goldstar. Remember the Goldstar electronics from the 60's and 70's? LG big into electronics, my cell phone is an LG. I guess just about everything is circuit board comuter chip electronics now.
And i agree about the friendly home-town hardware store is no longer to be found. I got this Fridge from Home Depot with free delivery and they removed the broken-down Amana for free too.