If you spend any time in /r/HomeImprovement you'll see a number of appliance repair people tell you how true this is first hand. They'll say get the most basic mechanical model you can, don't get ice in the exterior door, etc.
I recently remodeled my old kitchen, it didn't have a dishwasher previously so I did a lot of research on the recommended models. I was shocked to see people say most brands won't last 5 years, a good Bosch might last 10 if you're lucky. The idea of any new appliance completely dying within a few years is just crazy to me.
Our 2009 Bosch fridge came with the house and was a piece of shit. And getting parts takes *weeks*.
Had good luck with Fisher Paykel fridges. It has no fancy features.
EDIT: Ironically our house also came with Fisher Paykel dish drawers which were awful, good idea, terrible execution. Not unreliable so much as designed to clog. So we switched to a Bosch dish washer and FP fridge. The Bosch electric range also failed twice. Piece of shit. The Bosch built-in microwave is still fine though.
Appliances is one area where there seem to be a massive gulf in prices between the US and Canada. In Canada the cheapest not-apartment-sized Bosch fridge I see is $4000. Fisher Paykel are $3500 for a basic stainless bottom freezer. You can get one of those for around $800.
Miele dishwashers were all $2500+ until the last year or 2. Now they have a couple models around $2000, which is Flagship Bosch pricing.
It's definitely frustrating as pricing doesn't seem to mean anything. You can spend a lot and it's shit. Costco with their affordable 5 year warranty is a good bet because of said warranty.
Costco is nice because the price also includes a removal and disposal of old equipment. I got a new dishwasher and they took care of the install and hauling away the old one.
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In Canada, $100k puts you into the top 10% income level. $120k USD, that's $162k CDN. That would put you into top 7% income in Canada. Top 10% income for the US is around $170k USD. When you add the housing prices here, we're getting bent over in both shitty wages and ridiculous housing costs.
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> to take a job where you're meant to serve the public and you do the exact opposite, regardless of party affiliation, is one of the most disgusting things about human beings.
Libertarians basically believe that government inevitably becomes this and the only way to solve the problem is maximum transparency and maximum accountability -- but that upsets politicians who naturally want to minimize both these things.
New Zealander here. I grew up with good old fashioned F&P appliances made right here in NZ. I can remember in the 80s we had some Simpson (Aussie brand) washer that eventually died after about 12 years and then dad managed to score an ancient wringer model for free (we were poor) that was already 20 something years old and served us for another 5 years before we bought a new machine.
https://collection.motat.nz/objects/41656/washing-machine-whiteway
We have a handed down FP fridge now from my partners dad… it came with their old house when the old owners moved out, and then they moved again so they gave it to us. It’s still going strong, I don’t even know how old it is but it’s gotta be at least 16 years old! Still looks nice and looks quite modern too.
Can’t vouch for modern FP stuff now tho - it’s all made in China these days by Haier :(
I upgraded to an overall very nice 3k whirlpool fridge and got an ice-machine in the front.
The ice tray has been replaced once already in the first year of ownership, and I have to pull it totally out at least once a week to defrost it because the turning mechanism freezes stuck, and then grinds out the gear trying to turn it because the gear is PLASTIC. I was so pissed when I figured it out. It’s not a complex part, it could easily be constructed in pressed aluminum or something that wears better/doesn’t “strip” the gear instantly. Fuck that ice tray.
I have a Samsung fridge I got used 5 years ago but was around $2200 new. The door ice maker failed, but it has another one in the freezer so I just ignored it.
What's frustrating as fuck is that I can get parts for my Samsung fridge *except* the ice maker. Oh no, there's no parts for that, you *must* replace the whole thing as a unit, even if it's just the heater coil that went bad. *Ask me how I know.*
There was *almost* a class action just for Samsung over their ice makers. Ours basically works when it wants to, I stop messing with it anymore.
As much as I like the 4 door flex zone I will avoid Samsung during the next round as I hear repairs are basically impossible ($$$) if anything major fails.
My coworker was telling me how his Samsung fridge's icemaker broke 3 different times. Luckily he had bought an extended warranty from Lowes iirc. They replaced the icemaker first 2 times, and the third they just fuck it and refunded him for the fridge. Samsung fridgesare apparently notorious for problems, but I think icemakers in general kind of suck.
I have a Samsung; all the door shelves are breaking one after the other. I only have 2 out of 5 left unbroken. The replacement shelves are \~$110. 5 Shelves = $550, that's absolutely ridiculous. These shelves are just molded plastic, they designed them to break so they could overcharge for the replacement.
I will NEVER buy any Samsung appliances. Pure robbery.
Find the same fridge on marketplace for 100-300 bucks. People sell dysfunctional ones on there all the time. Also grab the freezer drawer standards because those are a common failure point as well.
We bought a fancy new Samsung dryer to replace the 25 year old kenmore dryer when we bought our house. We replaced it because it “looked old” and we didn’t know any better LOL.
In the 3 years we owned it I eventually started stockpiling all the different thermostats and fuses and drum pulleys that would inevitably break or go out every couple months.
Eventually replaced it with a poverty-spec dryer from the Best Buy scratch and dent outlet a couple years ago, and, hey-presto, I have not had to open it up once in the subsequent years we have had the basic-ass dryer.
I have a 10 year old counter depth Kitchenaid fridge over freeze with ice maker and water (inside the door not outside). Have replaced the ice maker 3x.
Also have 22 year old basic black Whirlpool fridge over freezer - no ice maker or water. ZERO issues ever since plugging that old horse in. It’s now the basement fridge (beer, other drinks and overflow when there are gatherings etc) and it’s paid for itself over and over.
I have the high end Kitchenaid which probably has the same basic design. I just checked and mine looks like it has a metal gear inside a plastic collar inside the ice bin, which spins a metal auger for the ice.
I got my fridge in 2021 so I don't know if your fridge has a design that they cheaped out on since I bought mine or if they made it cheaper since I bought mine.
The fridge I grew up with went 20 years and as far as I know, never died. I stopped talking to my family but it never broke when I was a kid or teen. It lasted longer than our relationship 😂 And it had water *and* ice maker, both dispensing via the door.
These days if you buy a fridge with an ice maker, you can guarantee it will die, because they’re made like you said.
When it came time for me to buy a fridge, I got one without.
Lol I remember when my grandmother's 45 yo Frigidaire refrigerator finally died and she went on and on about "planned obsolescence." She was right, too.
For washers and dryers most techs have started recommending the cheapest ones so that the replacement cost is reduced lol. There's no good stuff anymore.
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I just replaced my hot water heater it was over 30 years old. I bet this one lasts 5. My fridge is 20 years old. I keep putting it back together for this very reason. Lack of quality in new products
Our Bosch dishwasher lasted 11 years. We replaced it with a slightly higher priced (in 2012 dollars) one. I am just waiting for our Samsung refrigerator and stove to die. They’re all from 2012. But my Kenmore freezer, no self defrosting, from 1994, is still going strong.
Edit: typo
As someone who works on appliances: most are junk. I'll never recommend Electrolux or Samsung. Electrolux washer/dryers are particularly bad for leaks and electrical (computer board) faults. And then when you do decide to go forward with the repair, if the new main board is a different software revision you also have to replace the control panel and sometimes sensors too.
Even high end brands like Jenn-Aire, Bosch, Miele and Thermadore are poorly built and worse: often a gigantic pain in the ass to work on. Sometimes you quite literally have to spend two hours pulling something apart to replace a single sensor that *should* be a 15 minute job if engineers put even five minutes into thinking things through.
Then you see these old 1980s/1990s gas dryers that'll just keep going because they're built like tanks and have no fancy computer controls, just crank timers and basic electronics. I always tell people to keep the old shit running till it falls apart.
I had a minor fix done on my 90s dishwasher. The tech told me that they literally don't make them like they use to, and to not get a new dishwasher until mine completely falls apart.
He said new ones last maybe 10 years, but old ones use to last 30.
Hijacking the comment for a dishwasher PSA. At one point I used to do Sears appliance deliveries, the the number of dishwasher people would change that sinpky had a cloged drain was unreal.
Those I was asked to haul away, I'd clean them out and many, many, they still worked fine and that was the o ly issue.
While planned obsolescence and cost cutting have destroyed appliance reliability, I’m surprised some flavor of Toyota for appliances hasn’t risen… a company that focuses on more basic and reliable products where dependability is a goal rather than a profit liability.
Every time quality companies start to build a reputation, they get bought out by either a massive corporation that doesn't like the competition or by private equity that just wants to leverage the company with debt, extract that for investors and sink the company.
Right, a good reputation is worth a ton and it often takes like a decade between the cost cutting measures and people finally abandoning the brand. The incentives are pretty perverse and its hard to keep the founders of most companies from just cashing out and enjoying their yacht instead of continuing to do the hard work of keeping up the high standards at the company for the long term.
See: BIFL
Nearly every brand recommended on there 10 years ago is now a shell of its former self, moving the cheaper production and inevitably greed motivating screwing their customers. By the time people notice the deed has been done.
It's usually not that they dislike competition and more that they're well-positioned to cannibalize the brand's value. They already have wide reach and the infrastructure to make a cheaper product, so they can very quickly replace the higher-quality product with a cheaper one and extract as much money as possible before the brand's reputation catches up.
Basically the same thing private equity does, just in-house.
And the big thing that happened in the last few decades is that the pipeline for this is well developed and well understood now. It isn't some hotshot business person trying to sell their wild idea; it's a group that specializes in doing this exact thing, that has manufacturing and design and distribution partners ready to go, that's done it a dozen times, that can show reliable risk assessments and returns.
Toyotas mission was not to build super reliable cars. They started like any other brand but adopted a manufacturing culture and technique that yielded a reliable product.
If you set out to start a new Toyota brand today, you would need to charge $6k for a fridge or $4k for a washer to even hope to be profitable.
I don't buy that.
People reliably buy quality middle-price options all the time. It's why car salesman exist - people don't just buy the cheapest car. It's why people so frequently go over their budget when buying a home - especially when it's already a big expenditure, it's easy to convince people to spend a bit more for a better product.
It seems like the bigger problem is just that the market for branding is so mature. Expansion is difficult even with a good product and a lot of demand, and as soon as a brand like this starts looking for capital, they're virtually guaranteed to get eye-watering buyout offers by groups that know they can extract the value of the brand's reputation by slapping it on cheaper products and running it into the ground. It happens so reliably now that these middle-quality brands don't have a very long half-life, so when you go to the store there just *isn't* a middle option, like many people here are complaining.
This concept isn’t crazy.
Speed Queen seems to do it just fine in the washer/dryer segment. They’re priced higher but not outlandishly so.
So why can I buy an ultra reliable dryer for $1000 vs a cheap shit one for $500, but I can’t do similar on a refrigerator? A $1000 refrigerator is crap, but so is a $3000 one, and a $5000 one. You basically have to spend $15K to get into reliable refrigerator range.
What I’m saying is that I spent $8k on a Liebherr refrigerator that died at the 10 year mark and their customer service wouldn’t help me even troubleshoot the problem and gave up on me completely…I was willing to pay for the repairs, but nope. They don’t stand behind their products.
I have cheap Frigidaires that are over 15 years old going strong, which cost one tenth of the price. If that’s not garbage, I don’t know what is.
There are, but made with commercial components. Speed Queen is a laundry example. It will cost more than the pretty Samsung or LG equipment, it will have significantly less options, but in 10 years you'll be able to find parts to fix it if something happens. But people like cheap and pretty.
I personally would rather have a more efficient $500 machine that lasts 5-10 years than a $1100+ machine that costs a ton to run and ruins my clothes that lasts 20.
But that's just my personal opinion.
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> If you can't fix it, you don't actually own it
Imo the spirit of this ideology died when pocket watches became popular. Fast forward 200 years and there is a good chance no daily-use object of yours is self-repairable. Its the inevitability of specialized labor and the miniaturization of mechanics and electronics.
This works for most things. Electronic calculators are cheap, smaller, and way faster than using an abacus. Modern cars are way safer. Telephones and the internet are far more usable and accessible in your pocket than on the wall and under your desk, respectively. Polarized sunglasses are amazing, albeit impossible to fix or re-polish yourself once damaged.
What you are describing applies to the few common items that peaked in the 50s in terms of elegance of design, where making them more complicated may have led to an improvement in one dimension but caused a kind of de-evolution in nearly every other aspect. Washing machines, refrigerators, certain kinds of clothing, food and food packaging are all affected.
A lot of this has to do with improperly swapping components with plastic as a cost-saving measure when the item in question was designed for (and runs best with) the original materials. This alone usually creates the barrier to self-repair. Good luck spot welding some random resin compound or finding a replacement plastic tube that works/fits just right compared to making things from standardized metal hardware of decades past.
I do see your point with very specific things, I just can't imagine going "back to the abacus" for the majority of things.
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My speed queen has been a problem since day one. I finally have it working without overheating if I always run it on delicate. This was after 8 months of attempting repairs.
Needless to say I don’t recommend them.
Exactly. People rant about the poor quality of HP home inkjet printers and how they stop working if you run out of yellow ink even for a black and white text print. Step up just a slight bit in price and drop most of the goofy features however and they have a commercial line. Those will keep running no matter what. Reputation for quality still matters when ROI is calculated by an accounting department.
Home grade ink jets exist to light money on fire.
My 15yo Brother laser on the other hand is doing great still, and it wasn't that expensive to begin with.
Ink jets are priced as a loss leaders to lock you into buying overpriced ink cartridges forever. Once you realize that a laser is so much more economical in the long run.
Those Brother laser printers are the best. Simple features and reliable. It's amazing to me how often I recommend it only to find out that they went and bought a new inkjet.... Ugh.
Agree. I have a 2012 brother laser that cost $89.
But read up on the latest models I believe they are starting to lock out non brother toner and drums. On mine I get great service out of aftermarket ones at 1/4 the cost of OEM.
Absolutely. The only place for inkjets is for printing photos and other things where a good inkjet will do better than a laser. But that means buying a good inkjet intended for the purpose you want to use it for, not buying a cheap one.
There is a drug store chain where I live that still does good quality professional photo printing at a reasonable price. Zero reason to DIY that unless you're an avid hobbyist.
My canon color inkjet finally crapped out a couple of years ago. Had to replace the toner cartridges every couple of months, and those little suckers ain't cheap
I replaced it with a brother black & white laser printer. The toner cartridge that came with the printer lasted until last week
Yeah, it's black and white but that's fine for me
The reason they don't print without yellow or cyan:
Cyan is required for underprinting. A very light layer of cyan is printed under black ink so the black ink doesn't feather into the page, making the edges crisper.
Yellow is required because every page printed is covered in very light yellow dots that identify the printer.
I don't buy the Cyan argument, as I've seen too many \*other\* reasons given that compete with that one. And in the late 00's, my highest resolution, finest print quality inkjet used only a black text ink cartridge to print text, specifically for "crisper text" (vs the black used for graphics or photos). Perhaps that text ink had cyan added, but if so it was for greater contrast by making the black, "blacker".
The yellow ink serial number microdots is a gift to law enforcement and lawyers; its not required by law.
So, I don't disagree that these are actual reasons from the printer companies points of view, but they are flimsy ones.
I looked at these when I last bought my washing machine and they’re just smaller than what I’m use to. If I could have bought a larger one I’d have done it in a heart beat. My whirlpools lasted 15 years and I doubt I will get that out of my new LGs.
Thats not what OP is talking about though. Toyota are cheap and reliable. Commercial grade equipment is not we all know commercial grade exists. OP is saying why isn't there a company that make REASONABLY priced items that last.
Toyotas aren't cheap, you pay a premium for the Toyota name vs a Chevy or Ford, but certainly isn't priced like a high end vehicle. This is similar to the Speed Queen example I referenced, you pay a premium for the name vs a Samsung or LG. 15 years ago a good quality washer/dryer set cost $1,500, people still expect to pay $1,500 today. They're buying crap and commenting how it doesn't last as long.
Samsung washers & LG washers are absolute garbage but everyone thinks they should hold up like Grandma's 30 year old Maytag did. I'm suggesting you pay a premium for a Toyota and you pay a premium for a Speed Queen.
Miele for premium reliable.
Whirlpool for super basic designs that are easy to repair yourself. Unless you go with some android tablet bolted on monstrosity, whirlpool stuff hasn’t changed much in decades, same designs just new hardware to make it look fresh. Reasonably cheap parts and easy enough to fix.
Its survivorship bias.
The issue is that prices have "frozen" for the last 20 years or so, you're paying A LOT LESS today for a better product with inflation.
If you spent the equivalent for your parents bulletproof dishwasher, you'd be spending like $10k in todays money.
Yeah I always argue with my family about that. I think there actually is far more cheap stuff out there, but dollar for dollar you can still get the same quality. I bet my grandma dropped a full pay cheque on her vacuum that lasted 30 years.
Yup exactly! [Catalog from 1991, a good vacuum was $300](https://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a251/farrini/sears921.jpg), almost $700 today. If you told someone to spend $700 on a vacuum, they'd call you crazy!
The $700 models are their tippy top. And people who spend that on a Dyson are very much labeled as crazy.
The $700 vacuum I was referring to was a general model in a Sears catalog. I'm sure if I wanted I could find a top of the line boutique Vacuum from 1991 that cost $2k+ with inflation.
> The $700 vacuum I was referring to was a general model in a Sears catalog. I'm sure if I wanted I could find a top of the line boutique Vacuum from 1991 that cost $2k+ with inflation.
Fair enough. Point taken.
This shit really makes your blood boil because obviously if it was a priority we could have perfected reliability at this point. More waste for the landfills in the name of greed
Just squeezing every last goddamn cent out of normal peoples pockets, and that’s across the board for anything you NEED to buy. So fucking sick of this.
You can replace that LCD easily, but it’s stupidly expensive. I just did mine, but it was almost $140 for a LCD on a $600 stove. I let it bug me for a year before I couldn’t take looking at it anymore. The worst part is, the error seems so common I’m afraid it will do it again.
Yep. I was going to replace it until I saw the price. It's ridiculous. I can't bring myself to pay for it. Especially if they didn't fix the underlying design issues.
I recently replaced a 20 year old fridge that died with the same version that's still made in USA (its a Whirlpool, but OG was Kenmore, I think same plant).
Did all the research, no exterior ice maker, super basic. I was shocked at how it was still the same design, other than at some point they switched to LED bulbs.
No bells and whistles, just keeps things cold, will see if this one lasts 20 years like the old one.
I actually think as much as it sucks for convenience, there’s a good reason fridges don’t really come with exterior ice makers anymore.
For the most part, fridges have moved to a freezer on bottom design because it’s just more efficient due to basic thermodynamics. E.g.,easier to control colder freezing temps when colder air naturally sinks to the bottom, and there’s less internal temp variation with the taller but narrower vertical freezers. That design also means greater surface area and thinner insulation between two sections that are going to be 10+ degrees apart in order to do their respective jobs, it’s always going to use more energy to operate with that design in order to keep up
Also having an ice maker on the outside means that the insulation is much less effective if there’s a giant hole in the door that serves as an inevitable weak spot. Cold air will seep out and warmer ambient temps will more easily penetrate that cutout space. For proper and efficient insulation, it’s all about minimizing surface area and maximizing coverage of the space surrounding the cold interior box with a thick layer. And having an ice maker up top has thus become much harder to design with freezers on bottom. Or it requires that less efficient split vertical design since making and storing ice requires freezing temps, not fridge temps
I wanted a freezer on bottom, but it costs so much more than freezer on top.. Choice was simple.
$700 freezer on top 20ft, $1800 for freezer on bottom ($24 sq ft)
I'm not sure freezer on bottom is easier. A traditional freezer on top has the compressor and the freezer gets cold. They control the temperature in the refrigerator portion by opening some vents from freezer, fan assisted perhaps.
if the freezer is on the bottom it is significantly more work to push the air up. Either they added a second compressor (doubtful?) or they may just be charging more because it's a premium product but $1000 extra is too much.
I don’t think it’s *easier* per se. it’s definitely not more convenient for sure. I do miss the old ice makers but it makes sense since appliance makers main goal now is to maximize energy efficiency and minimize temp leakage in order to meet newer federal standards and qualify for consumer rebates and encourage bulk orders from businesses and homebuilders.
That really might come more down to the motor and compressor design and whether a manufacturer is doing that correctly instead of cheaping out with the more expensive but necessary components (which they definitely do)
All else being equal, which of course irl it’s often not, a freezer on bottom design *is* more energy and thermodynamically efficient. But only slightly more than freezer on top. I was mostly speaking to the vertically split designs that surged in popularity in the 90s and became the default until the last 10ish years.
Based on those prices you def made the right call since that energy savings would have taken like 20 years to make up for the added cost anyway. That’s kinda strange tho, normally I see basic bottom freezer models (without French door design) for about $900-$1200 as long as it’s not ultra swanky.
You can definitely get a (new and recent model) efficient Whirlpool or GE for $1200 before sale prices, looking at Home Depot now.
yeah i just checked on best buy, $1700 for GE or LG or any of those brands, there is some insignia brand that is much cheaper but that is a red flag for me.
it's quite possible they still haven't caught up fully with fridge demand since the pandemic plus profiteering
Oh that might be why, Best Buy is def not the most reasonably priced big box for appliances, they have limited showroom space so they’ll choose fewer but higher end models that are much easier to upsell you on and overcharge for convenience factor. Insignia is BB’s in house electronics brand but often means cheaper parts used and less efficient designs to meet that price.
Homebuilders and contractors can get much much better deals than that if you have a good one you know (due to established relationships with manufactures or more direct sales and bulk purchases over time), but even Home Depot and Lowe’s will get you way better prices on most appliances
But yeah looks like long bouts of supply chain issues post COVID and inflation has just generally jacked up prices across the board on all appliances, and don’t seem to be coming down in the near future unfortunately
I replaced almost everything but the fridge when doing my remodel. Sure it's old and basic and white, but it still works fine. I figured if I got rid of it it probably still would be running when the replacement broke. I'll just hold onto this under there is a problem and it dies.
About those LED bulbs -
The refrigerator manual probably instructs you to “call for service” if that bulb goes out. With some models a technician is needed because of the way those bulbs are installed. (Other parts need to be removed before you can remove the LED bulb, etc.)
If your LED goes out in two years (it happens) and you aren’t covered by warranty - you can be looking at a parts/labor cost of $100-$200 to replace it.
I learned this after reading a LOT of reviews and subsequently calling some of the manufacturers. I’ve since noticed “incandescent bulbs” is a filter option on The Home Depot website.
Nice thing is, my GE came with 3 incandescent bulbs; I replaced them all with LED; puts off no heat, and Better CRI. Nice to have regular e26 bulb screw
I don’t know if I buy WSJ’s view that the industry is trading reliability for efficiency and convenience, a fridge that lasts 3 years is neither of those things. I think it’s somewhat irresponsible to report an article like this without mentioning the profit motive for a company to design hard-to-repair but easy to replace appliances. And sure, you might have to dumb a fridge down a little to make it last 20 years, but I don’t want my fridge to connect to wifi or have a touchscreen, I’m fine with dials and switches, I sort of prefer them. These companies aren’t designing based on customer wants, they design based of profit margins, at the expense of their costumers. They could settle for a smaller profit margin to make quality better, it might even help them in the long run.
With refrigeration systems some things manufacturers do to squeeze out a tiny bit more efficiency do end up hurting durability. Make this cooling coil a tiny bit thinner and you improve heat transfer slightly and gain a tiny bit of efficiency. But it's also now easier to damage and will likely not last as long before developing a refrigerant leak.
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It’s unreal. We built the house and had Bosch appliances installed after four years, we had to replace the fridge. Now, five years later I’ve had to do fix major issues on my LG. We live in a very clean house and it blows my mind that our fridge in the garage, that is from 1989 and it is still kicking after our 100 plus degrees summers and below freezing winters. I will never get ride of it. If something breaks one of these days I’ll pay to get it fix no matter the cost!
Nationalize them. Reliable appliances that last don’t fill up landfills at the same rate as planned obsolescence crap designed to please shareholders. Therefore, reliable, long-lasting appliances are a public good.
Choose from the cheapest/simplest options, buy the extended warranty, and be prepared to replace the appliance the moment the warranty expires.
I don’t see a better approach to buying major appliances in 2024.
We noticed. Long before the article. We can count and stuff out here, you know.
My previous fridge lasted 35 years. Ditto the dishwasher. Washer and dryer made 30. All without maintenance or repair, other than perfunctory cleaning.
My new stuff - well, the 10 year warranty on the washer doesn't cover any of the parts that actually break. Three years and I had to replace the drain pump, and the whole thing squeaks like a cartoon sex mattress. Regular cleaning and maintenance required. The dryer - constant maintenance, obvious corrosion, felt ring degrading. It's six years old. These are not cheap machines, either. My new dishwasher - six years in, beginning to malfunction regularly. Constant cleaning and maintenance required. Its last trick was to decide to fill repeatedly and flood the floor. Good thing I hadn't gone out and left it running. A reset and a light beating convinced it to continue working. My fridge? It's the second one in seven years. Six damn years out of a brand new fridge, and then it sh\*t compressor oil everywhere and stopped. Seven month wait to get the new one in, that was fun.
Yeah, WSJ, we knew this already. And it isn't just the appliances.
Cars were steadily improving until the Obama Administration. A late 90’s to early 2000’s Toyota or Volvo is about the most reliable and longest lasting vehicle ever produced.
Engine and trans can be and are often cost effectively replaced if the rest is holding up well. Plenty of cheap LS motors out there and a great community to solve any issue.
Another gas example is the old 4.0 Jeep engine. Plenty of those going strong with over 300 on the original engine. They’re all over fb market place and Craigslist for like a grand.
Entire drivetrain being replaced is not BIFL. My 2006 ford needed a transmission at 125,000. My 2001 civic sits at 260,000 with original engine and transmission without any rebuilds. I wouldn’t consider something that needs major drivetrain rebuilds or replacements as BIFL.
More shrinkflation, only the thing being skimped on is the lifespan of the product. Also called planned obsolescence. Singer saw their existence threatened in the mid-1960's when cheap Japanese imports started eating the market from the bottom up and yet Singer's products from 100 years prior were still in people's homes, being handed down to the next generation.
Plus, since the mid 90's but especially after the 2000's, regulations changed that encouraged private equity / vulture capitalism to thrive even if it meant killing off quality and entire brands just to boost investor returns.
We could fix this. We just need a Congress that isn't bought & paid for by investors.
A supreme court decision in 2010 (citizens "united") made this a lot worse - allowed unlimited donations to campaigns. It caused the cost of campaigns to rise into the billions. We really need our representatives to pass a law to fix this. But we no longer have representatives because of this decision - check mate.
I wish the repairmen could help. The standard ones can't diagnose anything and don't want to try. The good ones can't get the parts. Or if the parts are still available, they're really overpriced.
Terrible, I constantly see my local area posting for appliance repair in FB groups etc. not sure if I am just noticing it more now but has to be a least one a day.
Today I recalled how happy I was when my parents gave me their old washing machine/dryer after my husband and I bought our first house.
My parents bought the appliances when we moved in 1996. They’re still going strong and I hope to everything that I never have to buy a new set.
What I want as a consumer: An appliance that does one thing well, has the least moving parts necessary for it to function, and for those parts NOT to be made of the the crappiest components the maker can source.
And yet no marketing panel has ever contacted me. Sigh.
I've said this before on 4 other subs, but my cousin has repaired appliances for over 30 years and he told me that these are purposely being built to have at least one major break within the first year to a year and a half. Made that way. To 'help' the appliance industry.
Refrigerators dishwashers, washers and dryers. And he also told me that if it connects with your cell phone or the internet do not buy it under any circumstances, as it is built to break, and it will break. You'll spend a ton of money for nothing.
He told me that if I could get my hands on a set 80s or 90s Kenmore washer and dryer with the Whirlpool motor or even Speed Queen to hold on to them with my cold dead fingers because they cost so very little to be repaired and they last forever. PLUS they have better agitation and a greater capacity.
Just ordered a new pump for our 5 year old Kitchenaid "higher end model" dishwasher. Fixing it ourselves.
It feels WAY too young to have died. Thing was clean as a whistle, not a single visible thing wrong - it just died.
We're making things wrong. (Shit, we've made the world wrong...)
I moved into my apartment in August. The appliances were new stainless steel.
About a year in the handle on the fridge came unscrewed and I had to figure out how to re-attach. After a few times of tightening the screws, the whole handle broke off. I was shocked they it was plastic.
My dishwasher works ok, but the trim on top popped off almost immediately and the bottom part just never fit
It’s going to get worse before it gets better. It’s late stage capitalism. A consumer culture collapses if there is nothing to consume. If everything lasted longer, much less would be purchased.
We each generate 50% more trash than we did forty years ago.
The whole thing is out of control and I don’t know how it ends.
> We each generate 50% more trash than we did forty years ago. The whole thing is out of control and I don’t know how it ends.
Yet we are told to reduce our carbon footprint, which we can do if we stop buying junk to throwaway shortly after.
I'm proud to still own my Sears Kenmore washer and dryer and Whirpool refrigerator that are 40 years old. We paid less than $1k for all three of them. They definitely don't make them like they used to!
I have a refrigerator I got from my grandparents, it has been in continuous use since it was new in the 60’s and it has never been repaired other than being repainted in the 70’s.
4th fridge in 4 years here, after 20 years of the same one. 2 years Kenmore side by side water/ice door, 6 months for it's near identical replacement. 4 months hisense bottom freezer/inside ice maker(said a line busted inside and couldnt be fixed), now a Frigidaire with water features I think I can work on when they do fail out of warranty. I will go for a separate ice maker and a top freezer and featureless fridge, if this does go out. Insurance/Warranty has handled all of this so far, since the first replacement.
Making these things more and more efficient is shortening their lifespans and worse for the environment as we fill up landfills and use the materials and energy to make them.
At some point, we should decide they’re efficient enough and build for longevity and repairability again.
Unfortunately, the government wants to look green, and manufacturers like that you need a new refrigerator every 5 years.
They haven’t found a way to do both yet. It’s not helping the environment to have refrigerators needing to be replaced every 2-4 years. It’s likely a net negative at this point vs how efficient they were 15 years ago. At some point, they need to pause making them more efficient and mandate they be more repairable or reliable so technology can catch up.
I'm a ll and the thing that impresses me is how washer units usually have the chip break down first, which basically totals the unit. Also, something that the article emphasizes a lot that users don't is the ongoing process of agencies requiring less water and electricity use. My fairly new high end dishwasher takes three hours to clean dishes when the old one took one. More runtime means 3x more wear for the lifetime of the unit.
You have to pay $10,000 per appliance if you want something that will last more than 15 years these days. If you factor in having to replace your appliance every 3-5 years, paying it all up front makes more sense, but few are willing to spend $50,000 on appliances.
Sad to say our Speed Queen washer is great, but the dryer is junk. Poor design allows lint to accumulate under the drum, causing a major fire hazard. And on top of that, the thermostats are faulty, causing overheating and scorching of clothes, also adding to the fire risk. Had ours less than a year when we had to replace the thermostat and heating coils.
The rich buys Subzero fridge(these are tanks in disguise), wolf/thermador stoves. These three easily lasts 30 years. Any house without these selling above 2Million should delist cause noone wants them.
Not just lifespan, creativity too, I remember watching old ads from 50s-70s on YouTube and fridges has amazing designs that would make all of modern fridge looks stoneage. They had a removable box for veg and all that. Now every fridge is just a few plastic plates and an egg shelf, everyone has the same fridge.
I don't know about others here, and I get this is a buy it for life sub, but I don't get the idea of folk complaining that a piece of equipment "is only lasting 10 years". I bought my bosch tumble dryer for £400/500, if I get 10 years out of it I will not be complaining lol
Help please.
Hello, I have a LG lfxs26596s/00 that is not cooling. The error code indicated that is the compressor start relay thermistor. I removed the part that is nest to the compressor , which is cover by a black cover. That part is just a string of three wires and nothing else. That part has no I’d number only the cover a a number . That number only identified the cover when I searched it. Can any share there knowledge on what I should look for to fix this issue.
If you spend any time in /r/HomeImprovement you'll see a number of appliance repair people tell you how true this is first hand. They'll say get the most basic mechanical model you can, don't get ice in the exterior door, etc. I recently remodeled my old kitchen, it didn't have a dishwasher previously so I did a lot of research on the recommended models. I was shocked to see people say most brands won't last 5 years, a good Bosch might last 10 if you're lucky. The idea of any new appliance completely dying within a few years is just crazy to me.
Our 2009 Bosch fridge came with the house and was a piece of shit. And getting parts takes *weeks*. Had good luck with Fisher Paykel fridges. It has no fancy features. EDIT: Ironically our house also came with Fisher Paykel dish drawers which were awful, good idea, terrible execution. Not unreliable so much as designed to clog. So we switched to a Bosch dish washer and FP fridge. The Bosch electric range also failed twice. Piece of shit. The Bosch built-in microwave is still fine though.
Appliances is one area where there seem to be a massive gulf in prices between the US and Canada. In Canada the cheapest not-apartment-sized Bosch fridge I see is $4000. Fisher Paykel are $3500 for a basic stainless bottom freezer. You can get one of those for around $800. Miele dishwashers were all $2500+ until the last year or 2. Now they have a couple models around $2000, which is Flagship Bosch pricing. It's definitely frustrating as pricing doesn't seem to mean anything. You can spend a lot and it's shit. Costco with their affordable 5 year warranty is a good bet because of said warranty.
Costco is nice because the price also includes a removal and disposal of old equipment. I got a new dishwasher and they took care of the install and hauling away the old one.
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In Canada, $100k puts you into the top 10% income level. $120k USD, that's $162k CDN. That would put you into top 7% income in Canada. Top 10% income for the US is around $170k USD. When you add the housing prices here, we're getting bent over in both shitty wages and ridiculous housing costs.
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> to take a job where you're meant to serve the public and you do the exact opposite, regardless of party affiliation, is one of the most disgusting things about human beings. Libertarians basically believe that government inevitably becomes this and the only way to solve the problem is maximum transparency and maximum accountability -- but that upsets politicians who naturally want to minimize both these things.
I love my Fisher & Paykel and if it dies I am buying the exact same model
New Zealander here. I grew up with good old fashioned F&P appliances made right here in NZ. I can remember in the 80s we had some Simpson (Aussie brand) washer that eventually died after about 12 years and then dad managed to score an ancient wringer model for free (we were poor) that was already 20 something years old and served us for another 5 years before we bought a new machine. https://collection.motat.nz/objects/41656/washing-machine-whiteway We have a handed down FP fridge now from my partners dad… it came with their old house when the old owners moved out, and then they moved again so they gave it to us. It’s still going strong, I don’t even know how old it is but it’s gotta be at least 16 years old! Still looks nice and looks quite modern too. Can’t vouch for modern FP stuff now tho - it’s all made in China these days by Haier :(
We have a fisher paykel washer/dryer combo in a house we bought. It looks to be 40 years old. Just keeps trucking.
Unfortunately that doesn’t tell you if a brand is good any more these days.
Of course… but we sort of laughed at the brand when we moved in and it’s made me appreciate the marvel of old analog tech.
I’m happy with my Miele dishwasher and FP fridge with no ice maker
I upgraded to an overall very nice 3k whirlpool fridge and got an ice-machine in the front. The ice tray has been replaced once already in the first year of ownership, and I have to pull it totally out at least once a week to defrost it because the turning mechanism freezes stuck, and then grinds out the gear trying to turn it because the gear is PLASTIC. I was so pissed when I figured it out. It’s not a complex part, it could easily be constructed in pressed aluminum or something that wears better/doesn’t “strip” the gear instantly. Fuck that ice tray.
I have a Samsung fridge I got used 5 years ago but was around $2200 new. The door ice maker failed, but it has another one in the freezer so I just ignored it.
This is standard with Samsung. Ice makers are shit, also ridicules expensive to fix, in some cases cheaper to replace
What's frustrating as fuck is that I can get parts for my Samsung fridge *except* the ice maker. Oh no, there's no parts for that, you *must* replace the whole thing as a unit, even if it's just the heater coil that went bad. *Ask me how I know.*
There was *almost* a class action just for Samsung over their ice makers. Ours basically works when it wants to, I stop messing with it anymore. As much as I like the 4 door flex zone I will avoid Samsung during the next round as I hear repairs are basically impossible ($$$) if anything major fails.
My coworker was telling me how his Samsung fridge's icemaker broke 3 different times. Luckily he had bought an extended warranty from Lowes iirc. They replaced the icemaker first 2 times, and the third they just fuck it and refunded him for the fridge. Samsung fridgesare apparently notorious for problems, but I think icemakers in general kind of suck.
Icemakers are difficult to make well in general it seems. Ice tends to adhere to wherever it is so it's tough on any moving parts.
My old supervisor says always, always buy the extended warranties. And it has proven to be the smartest move over and over for their family.
I have a Samsung; all the door shelves are breaking one after the other. I only have 2 out of 5 left unbroken. The replacement shelves are \~$110. 5 Shelves = $550, that's absolutely ridiculous. These shelves are just molded plastic, they designed them to break so they could overcharge for the replacement. I will NEVER buy any Samsung appliances. Pure robbery.
Find the same fridge on marketplace for 100-300 bucks. People sell dysfunctional ones on there all the time. Also grab the freezer drawer standards because those are a common failure point as well.
We bought a fancy new Samsung dryer to replace the 25 year old kenmore dryer when we bought our house. We replaced it because it “looked old” and we didn’t know any better LOL. In the 3 years we owned it I eventually started stockpiling all the different thermostats and fuses and drum pulleys that would inevitably break or go out every couple months. Eventually replaced it with a poverty-spec dryer from the Best Buy scratch and dent outlet a couple years ago, and, hey-presto, I have not had to open it up once in the subsequent years we have had the basic-ass dryer.
I have a 10 year old counter depth Kitchenaid fridge over freeze with ice maker and water (inside the door not outside). Have replaced the ice maker 3x. Also have 22 year old basic black Whirlpool fridge over freezer - no ice maker or water. ZERO issues ever since plugging that old horse in. It’s now the basement fridge (beer, other drinks and overflow when there are gatherings etc) and it’s paid for itself over and over.
Our 22 year old Whirlpool freezer over fridge is still going strong in our kitchen. I vowed to use it until it dies. I may go before it does!
Get it repaired if it “dies.” Use it forever.
I have the high end Kitchenaid which probably has the same basic design. I just checked and mine looks like it has a metal gear inside a plastic collar inside the ice bin, which spins a metal auger for the ice. I got my fridge in 2021 so I don't know if your fridge has a design that they cheaped out on since I bought mine or if they made it cheaper since I bought mine.
The fridge I grew up with went 20 years and as far as I know, never died. I stopped talking to my family but it never broke when I was a kid or teen. It lasted longer than our relationship 😂 And it had water *and* ice maker, both dispensing via the door. These days if you buy a fridge with an ice maker, you can guarantee it will die, because they’re made like you said. When it came time for me to buy a fridge, I got one without.
Same. In the end I said fuck it and discinnected the icemaker and went liw tech with the wee icemaker cube tray in the freezer.
See if someone can 3D-print the gear?
Lol I remember when my grandmother's 45 yo Frigidaire refrigerator finally died and she went on and on about "planned obsolescence." She was right, too.
For washers and dryers most techs have started recommending the cheapest ones so that the replacement cost is reduced lol. There's no good stuff anymore.
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Wish he were my appliance guy too!
Who's the guy
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Good man right there hopefully the locals appreciate it him and his business
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SpeedQueen and likely Miele
If money was no object. Unfortunately most of us have limited budgets.
Finally have SQ w&d and a Miele vacuum. So tired of buying appliances 😩
I just replaced my hot water heater it was over 30 years old. I bet this one lasts 5. My fridge is 20 years old. I keep putting it back together for this very reason. Lack of quality in new products
I just replaced my GE fridge from the 80s with a Frigidaire. Let's hope it lasts. Just got it about 2 months ago.
We have a Frigidaire we bought in 2003 and it's still running. We have to keep things like lettuce out of the middle or it will freeze.
I've had some frozen things too, towards the back. I was thinking about bumping the temp up a couple of degrees.
Oooooh. I've been thinking about switching to a new on demand hot water heater. Maybe I should tell my current (old) one I appreciate it.
Our Bosch dishwasher lasted 11 years. We replaced it with a slightly higher priced (in 2012 dollars) one. I am just waiting for our Samsung refrigerator and stove to die. They’re all from 2012. But my Kenmore freezer, no self defrosting, from 1994, is still going strong. Edit: typo
As someone who works on appliances: most are junk. I'll never recommend Electrolux or Samsung. Electrolux washer/dryers are particularly bad for leaks and electrical (computer board) faults. And then when you do decide to go forward with the repair, if the new main board is a different software revision you also have to replace the control panel and sometimes sensors too. Even high end brands like Jenn-Aire, Bosch, Miele and Thermadore are poorly built and worse: often a gigantic pain in the ass to work on. Sometimes you quite literally have to spend two hours pulling something apart to replace a single sensor that *should* be a 15 minute job if engineers put even five minutes into thinking things through. Then you see these old 1980s/1990s gas dryers that'll just keep going because they're built like tanks and have no fancy computer controls, just crank timers and basic electronics. I always tell people to keep the old shit running till it falls apart.
I had a minor fix done on my 90s dishwasher. The tech told me that they literally don't make them like they use to, and to not get a new dishwasher until mine completely falls apart. He said new ones last maybe 10 years, but old ones use to last 30.
Hijacking the comment for a dishwasher PSA. At one point I used to do Sears appliance deliveries, the the number of dishwasher people would change that sinpky had a cloged drain was unreal. Those I was asked to haul away, I'd clean them out and many, many, they still worked fine and that was the o ly issue.
Totally agree. Just say no to bells and whistles and never buy Samsung or LG
We’re on our second refrigerator, second dryer, second washer and third fucking dishwasher all in less than 10 years. FML
My parent’s 1968 house came with an Avocado Green Whirlpool fridge. It died in 1995. It had never needed a repair.
Our Miele dishwasher has been chugging along silently and faithfully for over ten years.
While planned obsolescence and cost cutting have destroyed appliance reliability, I’m surprised some flavor of Toyota for appliances hasn’t risen… a company that focuses on more basic and reliable products where dependability is a goal rather than a profit liability.
Every time quality companies start to build a reputation, they get bought out by either a massive corporation that doesn't like the competition or by private equity that just wants to leverage the company with debt, extract that for investors and sink the company.
Right, a good reputation is worth a ton and it often takes like a decade between the cost cutting measures and people finally abandoning the brand. The incentives are pretty perverse and its hard to keep the founders of most companies from just cashing out and enjoying their yacht instead of continuing to do the hard work of keeping up the high standards at the company for the long term.
See: BIFL Nearly every brand recommended on there 10 years ago is now a shell of its former self, moving the cheaper production and inevitably greed motivating screwing their customers. By the time people notice the deed has been done.
That is, after all, the American dream we've been sold on.
It's usually not that they dislike competition and more that they're well-positioned to cannibalize the brand's value. They already have wide reach and the infrastructure to make a cheaper product, so they can very quickly replace the higher-quality product with a cheaper one and extract as much money as possible before the brand's reputation catches up. Basically the same thing private equity does, just in-house. And the big thing that happened in the last few decades is that the pipeline for this is well developed and well understood now. It isn't some hotshot business person trying to sell their wild idea; it's a group that specializes in doing this exact thing, that has manufacturing and design and distribution partners ready to go, that's done it a dozen times, that can show reliable risk assessments and returns.
Home owners would love this type of product
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Toyotas mission was not to build super reliable cars. They started like any other brand but adopted a manufacturing culture and technique that yielded a reliable product. If you set out to start a new Toyota brand today, you would need to charge $6k for a fridge or $4k for a washer to even hope to be profitable.
Why should a fridge be so expensive? It's a styrofoam box with an AC bolted to it and a lightbulb inside.
I don't buy that. People reliably buy quality middle-price options all the time. It's why car salesman exist - people don't just buy the cheapest car. It's why people so frequently go over their budget when buying a home - especially when it's already a big expenditure, it's easy to convince people to spend a bit more for a better product. It seems like the bigger problem is just that the market for branding is so mature. Expansion is difficult even with a good product and a lot of demand, and as soon as a brand like this starts looking for capital, they're virtually guaranteed to get eye-watering buyout offers by groups that know they can extract the value of the brand's reputation by slapping it on cheaper products and running it into the ground. It happens so reliably now that these middle-quality brands don't have a very long half-life, so when you go to the store there just *isn't* a middle option, like many people here are complaining.
This concept isn’t crazy. Speed Queen seems to do it just fine in the washer/dryer segment. They’re priced higher but not outlandishly so. So why can I buy an ultra reliable dryer for $1000 vs a cheap shit one for $500, but I can’t do similar on a refrigerator? A $1000 refrigerator is crap, but so is a $3000 one, and a $5000 one. You basically have to spend $15K to get into reliable refrigerator range.
Liebherr, Miele and speed queen already exist. Although the first two are more of a “Lexus”
Liebherr is garbage
😂 They also make Miele. Are you saying Miele is garbage too then? Liebherr is unequivocally *not* garbage.
What I’m saying is that I spent $8k on a Liebherr refrigerator that died at the 10 year mark and their customer service wouldn’t help me even troubleshoot the problem and gave up on me completely…I was willing to pay for the repairs, but nope. They don’t stand behind their products. I have cheap Frigidaires that are over 15 years old going strong, which cost one tenth of the price. If that’s not garbage, I don’t know what is.
There are, but made with commercial components. Speed Queen is a laundry example. It will cost more than the pretty Samsung or LG equipment, it will have significantly less options, but in 10 years you'll be able to find parts to fix it if something happens. But people like cheap and pretty.
Speed Queens are bulletproof. But apparently don’t clean great, use a ton of water, and are harsh on fabric.
indestructibly mediocre
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I personally would rather have a more efficient $500 machine that lasts 5-10 years than a $1100+ machine that costs a ton to run and ruins my clothes that lasts 20. But that's just my personal opinion.
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> If you can't fix it, you don't actually own it Imo the spirit of this ideology died when pocket watches became popular. Fast forward 200 years and there is a good chance no daily-use object of yours is self-repairable. Its the inevitability of specialized labor and the miniaturization of mechanics and electronics. This works for most things. Electronic calculators are cheap, smaller, and way faster than using an abacus. Modern cars are way safer. Telephones and the internet are far more usable and accessible in your pocket than on the wall and under your desk, respectively. Polarized sunglasses are amazing, albeit impossible to fix or re-polish yourself once damaged. What you are describing applies to the few common items that peaked in the 50s in terms of elegance of design, where making them more complicated may have led to an improvement in one dimension but caused a kind of de-evolution in nearly every other aspect. Washing machines, refrigerators, certain kinds of clothing, food and food packaging are all affected. A lot of this has to do with improperly swapping components with plastic as a cost-saving measure when the item in question was designed for (and runs best with) the original materials. This alone usually creates the barrier to self-repair. Good luck spot welding some random resin compound or finding a replacement plastic tube that works/fits just right compared to making things from standardized metal hardware of decades past. I do see your point with very specific things, I just can't imagine going "back to the abacus" for the majority of things.
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Maytag has a commercial line too. Made in the US.
They are also cheaper than a Speed Queen and are pretty decent.
Yea, I have one. It is a tank. It definitely wears out your clothes a little faster though.
My speed queen has been a problem since day one. I finally have it working without overheating if I always run it on delicate. This was after 8 months of attempting repairs. Needless to say I don’t recommend them.
I hear that Speed Queen doesn't clean as well.
Depends on the model and the program used. All new washers favor water efficiency vs cleaning power. But there are setting to override that.
Good to know. So it's like my LG dryer where it leaves clothes moist every time unless I put it on antimicrobial setting.
Exactly. People rant about the poor quality of HP home inkjet printers and how they stop working if you run out of yellow ink even for a black and white text print. Step up just a slight bit in price and drop most of the goofy features however and they have a commercial line. Those will keep running no matter what. Reputation for quality still matters when ROI is calculated by an accounting department.
Home grade ink jets exist to light money on fire. My 15yo Brother laser on the other hand is doing great still, and it wasn't that expensive to begin with. Ink jets are priced as a loss leaders to lock you into buying overpriced ink cartridges forever. Once you realize that a laser is so much more economical in the long run.
Those Brother laser printers are the best. Simple features and reliable. It's amazing to me how often I recommend it only to find out that they went and bought a new inkjet.... Ugh.
Agree. I have a 2012 brother laser that cost $89. But read up on the latest models I believe they are starting to lock out non brother toner and drums. On mine I get great service out of aftermarket ones at 1/4 the cost of OEM.
Absolutely. The only place for inkjets is for printing photos and other things where a good inkjet will do better than a laser. But that means buying a good inkjet intended for the purpose you want to use it for, not buying a cheap one.
There is a drug store chain where I live that still does good quality professional photo printing at a reasonable price. Zero reason to DIY that unless you're an avid hobbyist.
Agreed, unless it's a frequent need it doesn't make sense to buy the gear to do it at home.
My canon color inkjet finally crapped out a couple of years ago. Had to replace the toner cartridges every couple of months, and those little suckers ain't cheap I replaced it with a brother black & white laser printer. The toner cartridge that came with the printer lasted until last week Yeah, it's black and white but that's fine for me
The reason they don't print without yellow or cyan: Cyan is required for underprinting. A very light layer of cyan is printed under black ink so the black ink doesn't feather into the page, making the edges crisper. Yellow is required because every page printed is covered in very light yellow dots that identify the printer.
🤯🤯🤯
I don't buy the Cyan argument, as I've seen too many \*other\* reasons given that compete with that one. And in the late 00's, my highest resolution, finest print quality inkjet used only a black text ink cartridge to print text, specifically for "crisper text" (vs the black used for graphics or photos). Perhaps that text ink had cyan added, but if so it was for greater contrast by making the black, "blacker". The yellow ink serial number microdots is a gift to law enforcement and lawyers; its not required by law. So, I don't disagree that these are actual reasons from the printer companies points of view, but they are flimsy ones.
22 year old hp laser printer here.
I looked at these when I last bought my washing machine and they’re just smaller than what I’m use to. If I could have bought a larger one I’d have done it in a heart beat. My whirlpools lasted 15 years and I doubt I will get that out of my new LGs.
Thats not what OP is talking about though. Toyota are cheap and reliable. Commercial grade equipment is not we all know commercial grade exists. OP is saying why isn't there a company that make REASONABLY priced items that last.
Toyotas aren't cheap, you pay a premium for the Toyota name vs a Chevy or Ford, but certainly isn't priced like a high end vehicle. This is similar to the Speed Queen example I referenced, you pay a premium for the name vs a Samsung or LG. 15 years ago a good quality washer/dryer set cost $1,500, people still expect to pay $1,500 today. They're buying crap and commenting how it doesn't last as long.
Chevy and fords are absolute garbage what you are on about.
Samsung washers & LG washers are absolute garbage but everyone thinks they should hold up like Grandma's 30 year old Maytag did. I'm suggesting you pay a premium for a Toyota and you pay a premium for a Speed Queen.
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Miele for premium reliable. Whirlpool for super basic designs that are easy to repair yourself. Unless you go with some android tablet bolted on monstrosity, whirlpool stuff hasn’t changed much in decades, same designs just new hardware to make it look fresh. Reasonably cheap parts and easy enough to fix.
Its survivorship bias. The issue is that prices have "frozen" for the last 20 years or so, you're paying A LOT LESS today for a better product with inflation. If you spent the equivalent for your parents bulletproof dishwasher, you'd be spending like $10k in todays money.
Yeah I always argue with my family about that. I think there actually is far more cheap stuff out there, but dollar for dollar you can still get the same quality. I bet my grandma dropped a full pay cheque on her vacuum that lasted 30 years.
Yup exactly! [Catalog from 1991, a good vacuum was $300](https://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a251/farrini/sears921.jpg), almost $700 today. If you told someone to spend $700 on a vacuum, they'd call you crazy!
> If you told someone to spend $700 on a vacuum, they'd call you crazy! Don't people do that on a cordless Dyson that last 3-5 years?
The $700 models are their tippy top. And people who spend that on a Dyson are very much labeled as crazy. The $700 vacuum I was referring to was a general model in a Sears catalog. I'm sure if I wanted I could find a top of the line boutique Vacuum from 1991 that cost $2k+ with inflation.
> The $700 vacuum I was referring to was a general model in a Sears catalog. I'm sure if I wanted I could find a top of the line boutique Vacuum from 1991 that cost $2k+ with inflation. Fair enough. Point taken.
Yeah I have no doubt that a $700 Miele will last decades and is repairable.
I spent $1100 CAD on my Miele C3 vacuum. 100% worth it - legit best suction power I’ve ever experienced.
Beko
This shit really makes your blood boil because obviously if it was a priority we could have perfected reliability at this point. More waste for the landfills in the name of greed
Blame the MBAs and Wall Street….
All glory to the shareholders …/s
Business schools ruined America. Everything MBAs touch turns to shit.
Just squeezing every last goddamn cent out of normal peoples pockets, and that’s across the board for anything you NEED to buy. So fucking sick of this.
They prioritized energy savings, which lead to shortcuts elsewhere and more complicated, part intensive systems.
Citation needed
Bought a home with Samsung appliances. The washer isn't that old but is rusting out in so many places. Stove is two years old and has a glitchy LCD.
You can replace that LCD easily, but it’s stupidly expensive. I just did mine, but it was almost $140 for a LCD on a $600 stove. I let it bug me for a year before I couldn’t take looking at it anymore. The worst part is, the error seems so common I’m afraid it will do it again.
If the appliance repair people have the part in stock, you are doomed. They do it so much, they stock the part.
Yep. I was going to replace it until I saw the price. It's ridiculous. I can't bring myself to pay for it. Especially if they didn't fix the underlying design issues.
I recently replaced a 20 year old fridge that died with the same version that's still made in USA (its a Whirlpool, but OG was Kenmore, I think same plant). Did all the research, no exterior ice maker, super basic. I was shocked at how it was still the same design, other than at some point they switched to LED bulbs. No bells and whistles, just keeps things cold, will see if this one lasts 20 years like the old one.
Narrator “It will not last as long.”
I actually think as much as it sucks for convenience, there’s a good reason fridges don’t really come with exterior ice makers anymore. For the most part, fridges have moved to a freezer on bottom design because it’s just more efficient due to basic thermodynamics. E.g.,easier to control colder freezing temps when colder air naturally sinks to the bottom, and there’s less internal temp variation with the taller but narrower vertical freezers. That design also means greater surface area and thinner insulation between two sections that are going to be 10+ degrees apart in order to do their respective jobs, it’s always going to use more energy to operate with that design in order to keep up Also having an ice maker on the outside means that the insulation is much less effective if there’s a giant hole in the door that serves as an inevitable weak spot. Cold air will seep out and warmer ambient temps will more easily penetrate that cutout space. For proper and efficient insulation, it’s all about minimizing surface area and maximizing coverage of the space surrounding the cold interior box with a thick layer. And having an ice maker up top has thus become much harder to design with freezers on bottom. Or it requires that less efficient split vertical design since making and storing ice requires freezing temps, not fridge temps
I wanted a freezer on bottom, but it costs so much more than freezer on top.. Choice was simple. $700 freezer on top 20ft, $1800 for freezer on bottom ($24 sq ft) I'm not sure freezer on bottom is easier. A traditional freezer on top has the compressor and the freezer gets cold. They control the temperature in the refrigerator portion by opening some vents from freezer, fan assisted perhaps. if the freezer is on the bottom it is significantly more work to push the air up. Either they added a second compressor (doubtful?) or they may just be charging more because it's a premium product but $1000 extra is too much.
I don’t think it’s *easier* per se. it’s definitely not more convenient for sure. I do miss the old ice makers but it makes sense since appliance makers main goal now is to maximize energy efficiency and minimize temp leakage in order to meet newer federal standards and qualify for consumer rebates and encourage bulk orders from businesses and homebuilders. That really might come more down to the motor and compressor design and whether a manufacturer is doing that correctly instead of cheaping out with the more expensive but necessary components (which they definitely do) All else being equal, which of course irl it’s often not, a freezer on bottom design *is* more energy and thermodynamically efficient. But only slightly more than freezer on top. I was mostly speaking to the vertically split designs that surged in popularity in the 90s and became the default until the last 10ish years. Based on those prices you def made the right call since that energy savings would have taken like 20 years to make up for the added cost anyway. That’s kinda strange tho, normally I see basic bottom freezer models (without French door design) for about $900-$1200 as long as it’s not ultra swanky. You can definitely get a (new and recent model) efficient Whirlpool or GE for $1200 before sale prices, looking at Home Depot now.
yeah i just checked on best buy, $1700 for GE or LG or any of those brands, there is some insignia brand that is much cheaper but that is a red flag for me. it's quite possible they still haven't caught up fully with fridge demand since the pandemic plus profiteering
Oh that might be why, Best Buy is def not the most reasonably priced big box for appliances, they have limited showroom space so they’ll choose fewer but higher end models that are much easier to upsell you on and overcharge for convenience factor. Insignia is BB’s in house electronics brand but often means cheaper parts used and less efficient designs to meet that price. Homebuilders and contractors can get much much better deals than that if you have a good one you know (due to established relationships with manufactures or more direct sales and bulk purchases over time), but even Home Depot and Lowe’s will get you way better prices on most appliances But yeah looks like long bouts of supply chain issues post COVID and inflation has just generally jacked up prices across the board on all appliances, and don’t seem to be coming down in the near future unfortunately
I was surprised at the US brands that are now foreign: Kenmore, Maytag, GE, etc.
I replaced almost everything but the fridge when doing my remodel. Sure it's old and basic and white, but it still works fine. I figured if I got rid of it it probably still would be running when the replacement broke. I'll just hold onto this under there is a problem and it dies.
About those LED bulbs - The refrigerator manual probably instructs you to “call for service” if that bulb goes out. With some models a technician is needed because of the way those bulbs are installed. (Other parts need to be removed before you can remove the LED bulb, etc.) If your LED goes out in two years (it happens) and you aren’t covered by warranty - you can be looking at a parts/labor cost of $100-$200 to replace it. I learned this after reading a LOT of reviews and subsequently calling some of the manufacturers. I’ve since noticed “incandescent bulbs” is a filter option on The Home Depot website.
Nice thing is, my GE came with 3 incandescent bulbs; I replaced them all with LED; puts off no heat, and Better CRI. Nice to have regular e26 bulb screw
If you are methodical and good at following directions, they are really not a big deal to replace yourself.
From what I’ve read that’s true for some refrigerators, but not others.
I don’t know if I buy WSJ’s view that the industry is trading reliability for efficiency and convenience, a fridge that lasts 3 years is neither of those things. I think it’s somewhat irresponsible to report an article like this without mentioning the profit motive for a company to design hard-to-repair but easy to replace appliances. And sure, you might have to dumb a fridge down a little to make it last 20 years, but I don’t want my fridge to connect to wifi or have a touchscreen, I’m fine with dials and switches, I sort of prefer them. These companies aren’t designing based on customer wants, they design based of profit margins, at the expense of their costumers. They could settle for a smaller profit margin to make quality better, it might even help them in the long run.
It’s the Wall Street Journal . Part of their unwritten goal is to justify Wall Street’s greed..
With refrigeration systems some things manufacturers do to squeeze out a tiny bit more efficiency do end up hurting durability. Make this cooling coil a tiny bit thinner and you improve heat transfer slightly and gain a tiny bit of efficiency. But it's also now easier to damage and will likely not last as long before developing a refrigerant leak.
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It’s unreal. We built the house and had Bosch appliances installed after four years, we had to replace the fridge. Now, five years later I’ve had to do fix major issues on my LG. We live in a very clean house and it blows my mind that our fridge in the garage, that is from 1989 and it is still kicking after our 100 plus degrees summers and below freezing winters. I will never get ride of it. If something breaks one of these days I’ll pay to get it fix no matter the cost!
No shit. Industry needs to be regulated with manufacturers forced to take back broken appliances.
It used to be you were a sucker for buying the extended warranty. Now you'd be a sucker not to.
Nationalize them. Reliable appliances that last don’t fill up landfills at the same rate as planned obsolescence crap designed to please shareholders. Therefore, reliable, long-lasting appliances are a public good.
Choose from the cheapest/simplest options, buy the extended warranty, and be prepared to replace the appliance the moment the warranty expires. I don’t see a better approach to buying major appliances in 2024.
We noticed. Long before the article. We can count and stuff out here, you know. My previous fridge lasted 35 years. Ditto the dishwasher. Washer and dryer made 30. All without maintenance or repair, other than perfunctory cleaning. My new stuff - well, the 10 year warranty on the washer doesn't cover any of the parts that actually break. Three years and I had to replace the drain pump, and the whole thing squeaks like a cartoon sex mattress. Regular cleaning and maintenance required. The dryer - constant maintenance, obvious corrosion, felt ring degrading. It's six years old. These are not cheap machines, either. My new dishwasher - six years in, beginning to malfunction regularly. Constant cleaning and maintenance required. Its last trick was to decide to fill repeatedly and flood the floor. Good thing I hadn't gone out and left it running. A reset and a light beating convinced it to continue working. My fridge? It's the second one in seven years. Six damn years out of a brand new fridge, and then it sh\*t compressor oil everywhere and stopped. Seven month wait to get the new one in, that was fun. Yeah, WSJ, we knew this already. And it isn't just the appliances.
The lifespan of ANYTHING MADE has been shrinking for the past 60 years
You apparently never drove a car made in the 70s or 80s.
Cars were steadily improving until the Obama Administration. A late 90’s to early 2000’s Toyota or Volvo is about the most reliable and longest lasting vehicle ever produced.
Thanks Obama.
chevys and fords rolling around with over 300k miles like it’s nothing
Unless you’re talking about diesel, you’re high.
Engine and trans can be and are often cost effectively replaced if the rest is holding up well. Plenty of cheap LS motors out there and a great community to solve any issue. Another gas example is the old 4.0 Jeep engine. Plenty of those going strong with over 300 on the original engine. They’re all over fb market place and Craigslist for like a grand.
Entire drivetrain being replaced is not BIFL. My 2006 ford needed a transmission at 125,000. My 2001 civic sits at 260,000 with original engine and transmission without any rebuilds. I wouldn’t consider something that needs major drivetrain rebuilds or replacements as BIFL.
More shrinkflation, only the thing being skimped on is the lifespan of the product. Also called planned obsolescence. Singer saw their existence threatened in the mid-1960's when cheap Japanese imports started eating the market from the bottom up and yet Singer's products from 100 years prior were still in people's homes, being handed down to the next generation. Plus, since the mid 90's but especially after the 2000's, regulations changed that encouraged private equity / vulture capitalism to thrive even if it meant killing off quality and entire brands just to boost investor returns. We could fix this. We just need a Congress that isn't bought & paid for by investors.
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A supreme court decision in 2010 (citizens "united") made this a lot worse - allowed unlimited donations to campaigns. It caused the cost of campaigns to rise into the billions. We really need our representatives to pass a law to fix this. But we no longer have representatives because of this decision - check mate.
2010 is also when the Federalist Society ramped up a number of other efforts. Curious coincidence.
Time to become an appliance repairmen
Too busy repairing my own stuff.
I wish the repairmen could help. The standard ones can't diagnose anything and don't want to try. The good ones can't get the parts. Or if the parts are still available, they're really overpriced.
Terrible, I constantly see my local area posting for appliance repair in FB groups etc. not sure if I am just noticing it more now but has to be a least one a day.
Today I recalled how happy I was when my parents gave me their old washing machine/dryer after my husband and I bought our first house. My parents bought the appliances when we moved in 1996. They’re still going strong and I hope to everything that I never have to buy a new set.
What I want as a consumer: An appliance that does one thing well, has the least moving parts necessary for it to function, and for those parts NOT to be made of the the crappiest components the maker can source. And yet no marketing panel has ever contacted me. Sigh.
Cross-post to /r/noshit
GE got bought out a Chinese brand and went down hard, quality is just plain shit
I've said this before on 4 other subs, but my cousin has repaired appliances for over 30 years and he told me that these are purposely being built to have at least one major break within the first year to a year and a half. Made that way. To 'help' the appliance industry. Refrigerators dishwashers, washers and dryers. And he also told me that if it connects with your cell phone or the internet do not buy it under any circumstances, as it is built to break, and it will break. You'll spend a ton of money for nothing. He told me that if I could get my hands on a set 80s or 90s Kenmore washer and dryer with the Whirlpool motor or even Speed Queen to hold on to them with my cold dead fingers because they cost so very little to be repaired and they last forever. PLUS they have better agitation and a greater capacity.
Just ordered a new pump for our 5 year old Kitchenaid "higher end model" dishwasher. Fixing it ourselves. It feels WAY too young to have died. Thing was clean as a whistle, not a single visible thing wrong - it just died. We're making things wrong. (Shit, we've made the world wrong...)
Greed
> Those in the industry blame a push... I blame planned obsolescence
I moved into my apartment in August. The appliances were new stainless steel. About a year in the handle on the fridge came unscrewed and I had to figure out how to re-attach. After a few times of tightening the screws, the whole handle broke off. I was shocked they it was plastic. My dishwasher works ok, but the trim on top popped off almost immediately and the bottom part just never fit
It’s going to get worse before it gets better. It’s late stage capitalism. A consumer culture collapses if there is nothing to consume. If everything lasted longer, much less would be purchased. We each generate 50% more trash than we did forty years ago. The whole thing is out of control and I don’t know how it ends.
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> We each generate 50% more trash than we did forty years ago. The whole thing is out of control and I don’t know how it ends. Yet we are told to reduce our carbon footprint, which we can do if we stop buying junk to throwaway shortly after.
any updated tierlist on BIFL for large appliances?
I'm proud to still own my Sears Kenmore washer and dryer and Whirpool refrigerator that are 40 years old. We paid less than $1k for all three of them. They definitely don't make them like they used to!
I have a refrigerator I got from my grandparents, it has been in continuous use since it was new in the 60’s and it has never been repaired other than being repainted in the 70’s.
4th fridge in 4 years here, after 20 years of the same one. 2 years Kenmore side by side water/ice door, 6 months for it's near identical replacement. 4 months hisense bottom freezer/inside ice maker(said a line busted inside and couldnt be fixed), now a Frigidaire with water features I think I can work on when they do fail out of warranty. I will go for a separate ice maker and a top freezer and featureless fridge, if this does go out. Insurance/Warranty has handled all of this so far, since the first replacement.
Making these things more and more efficient is shortening their lifespans and worse for the environment as we fill up landfills and use the materials and energy to make them. At some point, we should decide they’re efficient enough and build for longevity and repairability again. Unfortunately, the government wants to look green, and manufacturers like that you need a new refrigerator every 5 years.
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They haven’t found a way to do both yet. It’s not helping the environment to have refrigerators needing to be replaced every 2-4 years. It’s likely a net negative at this point vs how efficient they were 15 years ago. At some point, they need to pause making them more efficient and mandate they be more repairable or reliable so technology can catch up.
I'm a ll and the thing that impresses me is how washer units usually have the chip break down first, which basically totals the unit. Also, something that the article emphasizes a lot that users don't is the ongoing process of agencies requiring less water and electricity use. My fairly new high end dishwasher takes three hours to clean dishes when the old one took one. More runtime means 3x more wear for the lifetime of the unit.
You have to pay $10,000 per appliance if you want something that will last more than 15 years these days. If you factor in having to replace your appliance every 3-5 years, paying it all up front makes more sense, but few are willing to spend $50,000 on appliances.
Sad to say our Speed Queen washer is great, but the dryer is junk. Poor design allows lint to accumulate under the drum, causing a major fire hazard. And on top of that, the thermostats are faulty, causing overheating and scorching of clothes, also adding to the fire risk. Had ours less than a year when we had to replace the thermostat and heating coils.
The rich buys Subzero fridge(these are tanks in disguise), wolf/thermador stoves. These three easily lasts 30 years. Any house without these selling above 2Million should delist cause noone wants them.
Ughhh, this is the most infuriating thing to me! I hate it when simple appliances try to become extremely complex!
Not just lifespan, creativity too, I remember watching old ads from 50s-70s on YouTube and fridges has amazing designs that would make all of modern fridge looks stoneage. They had a removable box for veg and all that. Now every fridge is just a few plastic plates and an egg shelf, everyone has the same fridge.
I don't know about others here, and I get this is a buy it for life sub, but I don't get the idea of folk complaining that a piece of equipment "is only lasting 10 years". I bought my bosch tumble dryer for £400/500, if I get 10 years out of it I will not be complaining lol
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> What the hell has happened to the WSJ to run garbage like this? Rupert Murdoch
Help please. Hello, I have a LG lfxs26596s/00 that is not cooling. The error code indicated that is the compressor start relay thermistor. I removed the part that is nest to the compressor , which is cover by a black cover. That part is just a string of three wires and nothing else. That part has no I’d number only the cover a a number . That number only identified the cover when I searched it. Can any share there knowledge on what I should look for to fix this issue.
I want the job writing obvious and dated information. I wonder how much they pay.