Modern Appliances. Don't make them like they used to.

[Winger Ed.]

I beat the system on a pressure cooker!

About 15 years ago, we needed a pressure cooker for something and got a electric one made by/for Cook's Essentials.
The last time I used it was a couple years ago. I got it out yesterday, fired it up, and it wouldn't build pressure.

I thought it had died of old age, and shopped for a new one.
The reviews for them are covered with people changing the seal/gasket in only a few years.
So,,,, I looked for a replacement gasket.
They're available for all the new ones, but not the older stuff unless it's just by coincidence they'll fit.
Naturally, the new gasket for mine is not available anywhere.

After scratching my bald head,,,, I thought I'd try limbering the old one back up.
I rubbed it with silicone lubricant, and surprise! it softened back up.
I washed it real well, put it back on, and the thing works again.

I feel like I beat the system!

[Winger Ed.]

And the economy as a whole. If everyone in the US lived like I do, the global economy would collapse overnight.

If majorly expensive products lasted as long as the old ones--
The entire economy and work force would shrink by nothing less than 30%
when the public only bought 1/4 to 1/3 of what is produced and sold now.
Not just the factories would be hit-- the entire towns around them.

[Siskiwit]

Maytag is made by three different manufacturers I hear

[Sig]

Just had the compressor replaced in our 2 year old LG refrigerator. I think the original was bad from day one. It was very noisy. I can barely hear the new one. Warranty covered all parts & labor. Downside was we had to go 8 days waiting for it to be repaired. The 30+ year old Sanyo non-frost-free fridge in the basement was was a Godsend.

[Shawlerbrook]

Yep ! Couldn’t agree more.

[winelover]

Appliances are like riflescopes. You get what you pay for. Built a new house ten years ago. All new appliances. Only a few appliances haven't had to be replaced. Those that lasted are high end.........SubZero refrigerator and a DCS dual fuel stove. Clothes washer was replaced with a commercial Speed Queen. Buy once, cry once.

Winelover

[Wag]

It's called "planned obsolescence." When it breaks, they get to sell you a new one.

Definitely, Samsung is the worst of them.

I got lucky and had an LG refrigerator last me 15 years. I let it go with the house I sold and while there is a part of me that thinks I should have taken it with me, I just have this sneaky feeling that I would have replaced it anyway.

And the list goes on and on.........

--Wag--

[William Yanda]

I was thinking about that last night. Our current washing machine is high tech. Water saving features, mandated by regulation, incorporate sensitive boards that are subject to failure, specific to the machine and obsolete before the rest of the machine wears out.

[pmer]

LG microwave 6 months old died after running for 15 minutes cooking Captain Ken's Baked beans and 5 minutes for baked potatoes. From watching videos I think its transformer went out. LG tried to locate service for my area but couldn't and is now sending a check for the purchase price. It took 6-8 weeks to get to this point. But from watching those videos I think the previous microwave just needed a diode.

But either way I'm on number 4 in about 15 years or so.

[Froogal]

Couple Whirlpool plants near me. Talking to some of the employees, it seems that these products are designed to crap out in 5-6 years. Couldn't get a reliable name for a refrigerator but everyone said Speed Queen if you want a good washing machine. Allegedly, Samsung is the very worst, don't know for sure, never owned one

Our Samsung dishwasher was good for 7 years, and then the electronics crapped out. It won't even start now, and never did do as good a job of getting the dishes clean as we would have liked. We made the decision to NOT replace it.

[bedbugbilly]

For years, we had FE appliances - stoves, refrigerator, etc. - starting in married housing at school when we first got married - never had issues. When we sold the house on the farm and moved to town, we bought a new GE stove, dishwasher and above stove microwave - that was 5 years ago. Now bear in mind that we are only here 6 months out of the year, there are only two of us - so the dishwasher gets used maybe 3 times a week - the stove (oven) once a week and the stove top the same - my wife likes to use a counter top air fryer.

From the get go, we had issues with the stove - repairman came out and some wires inside were never connected - he said they were having "union issues" at the factory. OK - after that all the burners worked. Since then, we have had repairman out four times as the oven wasn't heating up evenly nor correctly. Of course, it was after the warranty had expired. The last time, about six weeks ago, we were so fed up we figured we would get a new stove as he said it had a motherboard issue - a new one would be around $439.

THEN, all of a sudden, the dishwasher would not start - repairman out and after much checking, the motherboard was kaput - this time, he said it would be $415 for a new motherboard. My response was simple . . . screw GE. He said that GE had been bought out by a Chinese company about 5 years ago and everything had turned to chew manure. Evidently, the Chinese company owns about 4 or 5 other brand names as well.

Last week we had about as basic of a stove delivered that we could find - an LG - we'll see how that works out. We found a Bosch dishwasher p the lowest basic model the make - it was cheaper that the GE dishwasher but it is twice the appliance tat the GE was as far as quality, noise and operation - my wife loves it and our plumber tom us that he loves Bosch as they are so good and he has one himself.

Hard to believe that we had a GE stove for probably 30 years or more and never had an issue - we buy a new one when we moved into a condo - it gets very little use in the actual 2 1/2 years we have been here (physically) and it takes a nosedive - really?

I'm a firm believer in "Buy American" whenever possible . . . hmm . . . I thought I live in America . . . I'm starting to wonder if we aren't just a new suburb of Peking . . . I'll end it with that or this thread will end up in the Pit.

[MrWolf]

When I bought this place almost six years ago there was no washer and dryer. Everything was so expensive and I had gone through the Whirlpool Duets in my old house. Boards kept going in them. I wanted something bare bones basic that just washed clothes and wasn't trying to get a date with Alexa or whatever those things are. I bought a bare bones Amanda washer and dryer. Work great. Only issue was the washer was not working right after a few months. Turns out I had a lot of excavating done near our well and sediment had cloggedthe filter. They fixed it free on a service call and recommended I put an inline filter in. No issues since then.

[Winger Ed.]

You have to dig around to find them, but semi-commercial washers & driers for things like an apartment laundry room are out there.
They have more simple and less sophisticated controls that are more heavy duty and seem to last longer than the fancy ones.

That's what I replaced ours with when the fancy 4-5 year old Sam Sung ones threw in the towel.
The circuit board to fix the washer was only $300.oo. but I set it at the curb anyway.

But you do have to be careful with the washer.
It's very important to remember and put the discharge hose into the drain outlet.

[country gent]

Planned obsolescence isnt the only issue it also the designing and building so that the average person cant fix it. Security screws, odd fasteners, restricting parts to dealers only sales or repair techs.

[Winger Ed.]

building so that the average person cant fix it.

In the 70s, a life long friend worked as a mechanic at a Oldsmobile dealership.
He told me then that GM had started a serious effort to do just that.
The real money for a car dealership is in the service bays--- not the showroom.

They started aggressively designing cars to get the repair work out of people's driveways, and away from small time
gas station mechanics. One of the methods was requiring special tools that the costs of were higher than giraffe lips.

Then came all the electronics you needed a expensive diagnostic machine for.
Either that, or you'd spend a fortune changing out good components until the car ran right again.

[nicholst55]

Last December we bought an LG washer and dryer. Three days later, the washer died, so we returned both and bought Maytag. The Maytag dryer quit four months later. After a warranty repair (which was very poorly handled), we now receive offers to extend the warranties of both appliances at least once a week. Color me not favorably impressed.

[Alstep]

We've got a GE refrigerator made in 1942 that came out of my father-in-law's house when he died. Still working and never had a service call!

[Moleman-]

Moved into this house 12 years ago with all new appliances. Only the smaller than our family sized fridge has been untouched. It has lived out in the garage the past 5 years though. It's replacement needed a new compressor at 3 years old. 3rd microwave so far. Oven needed a new buss bar and all 4 stove burner switches replaced. Washer/dryer new pumps, sensors, valves, ignitors ect until the trans went out on the washer. "it's never the trans, it's the drive ratchets that go bad" is what all the videos said. So I took the trans apart. The drive shaft in it was machined wrong so that only about half of the splines length engauged with the hub that spun the tub. Those splines were sheared off, so new trans time. New trans was about 2/3 the price of a new washer. New washer goes through door locks every other year, on 2nd pump and for some reason they put a strainer basket on the pump that you can't access without taking off the cabinet which involves about 30 self tapper screws. So I cut a hole in the side of the cabinet so that when it clogs up with dog hair every 4-5 months it's easy to clean. 3rd dish washer. Original one was replaced when the mother board was almost as much as a new one, after getting several new parts. Current one has had the upper rack track, door seal, spray bars, and pump replaced so far. The kenmore tech said $579.85 to replace the pump. Gave him his $80 show up fee and ordered the $74 OEM pump with 2 day delivery. Took 15 minutes to put in. I would like a time machine to go back to 1965-1970 and buy a washer/dryer and the exact model of Hobart dishwasher we had in our first house that was built in 1960. That thing looked old 30 years later when we bought it, but always worked, got the dishes clean and DRY.

On the other hand, when my grandparents passed and we went to help clean out the house before it was sold, I noticed the old appliances they had when I was a kid were still there and working. Fridge from the 70's (the one it replaced was still working out in the garage also) , oven and stove from the 60's, freezers from the 40's-50's.

[Handloader109]

Moved here 6 years ago. Added a fridge by frigidaire and washe and dryer by maytag. So far no issue with fridge, but washer is starting to hammer when agitating. Guess I'll be repairing or replacing it soon. Bought a new whirlpool dishwasher in 2019. Upper rack broke at 13 months. Took 4 months to get the new metal adjusting system shipped. And just that was a third of the price of the whole thing.... funny, I've got two small fridges that won't die... one is from about 1990, and the other is about a 2000 model my company discarded

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[Winger Ed.]

, we now receive offers to extend the warranties of both appliances at least once a week.

We got a new GE refrigerator about 3 years ago, after the large, but mid-priced, 4 year old Sam Sung committed suicide.
We still get warranty extension letters about once a month from GE.

We moved out of the city, sold the weekender house, and retired here 5 years ago.
A few weeks ago, the third dead refrigerator had to be disposed of.
We have a private contractor trash pick up that uses those big blue hampers they dump with a
lift machine on the trash truck.

To get rid of a refrigerator or air conditioner, it's a $40.oo fee to come inspect that it doesn't have freon in it.
I found that out when I called to have a dead frig. picked up.
I'm not paying for that.
I asked the lady if it'd be OK if I promised to cut the lines and catch the freon with a shop vac.
She said they had to come look at it anyway.
So, to beat the system, I've had to cut them up into bite size pieces and put the pieces in the trash can a few at a time.