I have blogged about a lot of things but I never thought that I would blog about appliances. I guess that I was wrong because that is exactly what I am going to talk about.
First, I want to talk about my car. I have a 2005 Toyota Land Cruiser with 236,000 miles on it. It looks almost like new and runs almost like new. I know other people that have high mileage on their vehicles and they are still running strong. That is a testament to auto manufacturers. That’s really what we, as consumers, want.
My question is: Why can’t the same thing hold true for appliances? Ronnie and I did an addition on our house five years ago and we put in all new appliances. I was a little ticked when I had to replace my microwave last year when it was just four years old. I could never remember appliances going that quickly when I was younger. Okay, it was only a microwave oven. I bit the bullet and replaced it and it is humming along just fine.
2012 was a pretty bad year for me. I had some health issues (which since have resolved) and superstorm Sandy put three feet of water on my entire business property. I lost all my trucks, equipment and supplies. But when I looked around, I realized that I didn’t have it as bad as many others in my area. Again, I bit the bullet and am trying to restart the business on a smaller scale which actually fits my business model better right now. Ronnie has been up and down health wise and she seems to have turned the corner on that. I am hoping that she stays that way.
As 2012 winded down, I was hoping that all the bad stuff was gone and that 2013 would bring much better times. On the 27th of December, we lost power for a few hours. When it came back on, one of the power supplies on one of my computers would not work. I replaced it and everything seemed fine.
Sometime during the day, I opened the freezer and noticed water dripping from the ice maker. That didn’t seem right so I explored some more and found the meats in the freezer starting to thaw. I wasn’t sure what happened but I thought that maybe I had left the freezer door open and that was the cause of the thaw. I was to find out that I was wrong. Something had gone wrong with the refrigerator. I did some googling and found lots of reasons – but none that I could fix myself. The next morning, I called a repair company and was told that the soonest that they could come was on the 31st.
We started scrambling and moving things that we could save. We have a refrigerator in our basement that is at least 35 years old and it runs like brand new. We moved a lot of the things from the freezer and the refrigerator to the unit in the basement. We have a cooler that plugs into a wall outlet so we put refrigerator items that we would use most in there.
We improvised until the morning of the 31st when the repairman arrived. He was disappointed that we had unplugged the refrigerator days earlier because he said it would be harder to diagnose the problem because he couldn’t see symptoms that would be evident with a running machine (list frost on the interior walls or hot spots between the refrigerator and the freezer. He started his diagnostic process and after ten or fifteen minutes, he gave us the bad news. It looked like the compressor was bad and that meant a new refrigerator. This side-by-side until was only five years old and I was really disappointed. Why is my 35 year old unit running so well and this one wasn’t’. I asked the repairman if he could recommend what we should purchase. He immediately said, “No, I don’t like any of the brands.” He did say that our brand (GE) is one that he fixes frequently. He was carrying four motherboards in his truck for that brand. He also told us that Samsung and LG were brands that were hard to get serviced. I pushed him as hard as I could and he finally said that Whirlpool or Frigidaire would probably do well.
I thanked him, paid for the service call. Ronnie and I left on our quest for a new refrigerator. We settled on a Whirlpool side-by-side. We purchased it on New Year’s Eve and Lowe’s delivered it on New Years Day. We will keep our fingers crossed and hope that this one lasts much longer.
So why do appliances last much less time now that they used to? Someone asked me if I thought the manufacturer’s built in obsolescence into the appliances. When I sat down and thought about it, I realized “Why would they want them to last forever?” No one would ever need to buy new appliances. Even with cars lasting much longer, people change cars much more frequently than they do appliances.
What do you think? Is there any reason that modern technology has left the appliance industry in the dust? There are so many more bells and whistles on appliances so why don’t they last as long as my 35+ year refrigerator in the basement?
© 2013, Herb Segars. All rights reserved.
Our first and second house microwave lasted forever. The last one we had in the house gave up in less than 3 years. The microwave in the motorhome has had to be replaced a few times. Seems the motherboard on the one they installed in the motorhome while being built, often went. So, we got a new motherboard and it too went with the no display symptoms. If I had to pay a service call on top of that, it would have doubled my price. Since the motorboard alone and a new microwave were the same price, we have gone with new ones since the first.
In looking at motherboards on many of the things we have had to replace, I would think that they just don’t make them like they did. The boards aren’t as thick – have less room between wires – solder isn’t done as well – but I guess they are cheaper. My thinking is these things are not standing up to the heat and humidity and don’t dare move it. All it takes is one hot spot and the appliance is history.
Then there is the problem of the new appliance doesn’t fit where the old one was.
I feel your pain…