They're after me. The appliances are after me. It's total anarchy.

First a part on our 21 year old range broke and I can't justify repairing it.

Next, grease showed up during in two wash loads, so I mention that to the salesmen while looking at ranges. He says the seal of transmission is likely leaking, so the 20 year old washer now needs to be replaced as well.

Then my wife asks if I notice the brown stuff leaking down the back of the refrigerator. No. Yep, now in addition to the other two, we need to replace the 24 year old frig.

None of this would be problem if I thought for a second we could get stuff equally as good. Clearly these old ones owe us nothing. So I started researching for replacements. Sadly it's becoming clear they don't make stuff to last like they used to. The reliability rating are not all that good for any of them. In general there's a range of 8% to 18% major problems for all these applicances with side-by-side frig's the worst of the lot.

About the only thing we've decided is to try a front load washer this time. At least the 26 year old Kenmore dryer is working - at least today.

 

You got your money's worth Dave, no question. Maybe you can stimulate the economy with these purchases. It'll probably work better than the governments version. In all seriousness, it's bad business to make appliances that last too long.

 

I understand where you are coming from.

In my previous house, we had a water heater that gave out after 25 years. I had replaced the elements one time but felt that since it was so old, why not go ahead and get a new one. after all, it should last a long long time. Not so. It crapped out 8 months after the warranty expired.

The retailers try to push the extended warranty when you buy it hoping that if you don't, the product will explode when the factory warranty runs out.

Ahh how I wish for the good old days.

 

I think you will like the new washer. Front loaders use less water and the spin cycle will get your clothes a lot dryer so that they don't need so much drying time -- and the cloth lasts longer because less lint is produced in drying.

 

Don't complain. The motherboard on our Kenmore wall oven failed after only 14 1/2 years. The charleton repairman who advertised as being a Kenmore authorized repair service (but actually wasn't) took a $300 deposit (in addition to the $118 service call charge)for the replacement part. Two weeks later, after we called him, he told us that the board isn't available anymore. That was 2 months ago. We still haven't gotten our $300 deposit back yet. We have a court date of December 18th. The kicker is that even if we win (I can't imagine losing, but you never know) we still have to collect the money. If after six weeks after the court date he hasn't paid we can freeze whatever assets the company has, if it has any.
We replaced the wall oven and I think the $300 is probably lost. So, we've now paid about $1,700 for what probably should have been a $300 repair and we have to spend a day in court.

You got 26 years out of your appliances. If you buy new ones, pay a reasonable price, get them delivered as promised, and they work consider yourself ahead of the game.

 

Ok being the optimist I see an advantage.
buying 4 appliances at once will give you a bargaining leverage to get a better discount than if you were buying them singly.

given the market conditions, you should be able to do fairly well on pricing.
Christmas is also a very good time to be buying appliances since most pople are focused on other Christmas spending.

 

best buy has apliances on sale on black friday,

 

We went though "appliance hell" several years ago. Washer, dishwasher, and not long after that the dryer. Guess when you bought them around the same time, they break around the same time.

Enjoy the shopping trip, Dave.

 

It must be an epidemic. We bought new frontloaders yesterday. New laptop last week. Timing chain coming up. I'm doing my part to spur the economy. 20% Kenmore sale coming Black Friday; we got an equal deal at Home Depot on something we wanted.

 

[QUOTE=Lainey,Nov 23 2008, 06:59 PM] We went though "appliance hell" several years ago. Washer, dishwasher, and not long after that the dryer. Guess when you bought them around the same time, they break around the same time.

Enjoy the shopping trip, Dave.