3 ms·

I wish there was like a rating system for how well-built appliances are. I guess the poor man's version of that is looking at how long the manufacturer's warran

by Nition 9y ago

I wish there was like a rating system for how well-built appliances are. I guess the poor man's version of that is looking at how long the manufacturer's warranty is.

maxerickson 9y ago
Even better would be to get ahold of the price list of a 3rd party warranty company. The manufacturer warranty is just as likely to be a financial product as it is to reflect product quality.
icantdrive55 9y ago
Yea, I've been wanting something like this for awhile. We have Consumer Reports, but they don't do the job like I would like. Actually, it wouldn't be a bad choice to build a company around? Maybe better than another clone.com of a monopoly.com? I've given up on appliances that last a long time, and there's always a mechanical engineer that tells me they do last longer, and work better. I don't want to argue, but their duty cycle might be a few days longer, but they aren't easily repairable. That's the rub. We used to be able go fix t.v.'s, most appliances. Now--it's just junk it. I'm looking for a new car. Even the mechanics I've talked with don't know what to recommend. Most just say look for a vechicle that isn't too exotic. Meaning a older Toyota, with a manual. Soo--I am waiting for a list. I even thought about a list. "What kind of list dude? A list that would identify quality products, along with fair companies. Just a honest list. Thennchithonestlist.com
dlgeek 9y ago
www.consumerreports.com
- coldpie 9y ago
  I'm actually on the market for a new kitchen range and I bought a CR subscription last night. I was disappointed. Almost none of the ranges have textual reviews, just a 5-star rating on about 6 different feature points. They each have a User Reviews section, most of which were unpopulated, and the remainder having one or two one-star reviews cursing it for falling apart in the first month. CR has a short blurb about reliability across entire brands, but the range was between 10% and 16% expected failure rate across the small subset of brands that were listed; most of the manufacturers were not even on the list. I'm left about as clueless as when I started.
bitJericho 9y ago
I'd look for the repair manual.
gorkonsine 9y ago
Well these days, with Amazon, that's what the reviews are for. I've passed on lots of purchases because I looked at the reviews and saw too many negative ones, and bought other things after seeing almost all glowing reviews. A bad-quality product can lead to poor reviews, and this can affect sales. Manufacturers' warranties are only so useful; a lot of companies make you jump through hoops to actually make use of them. If the product isn't that expensive, you'll end up paying so much in shipping that it just isn't worth bothering with when you can go buy a new one. And you always take the chance that they'll simply deny your claim and then your recourse is to sue them (not worth it for anything under a few thousand dollars) and to post bad reviews.
- kqr 9y ago
  I'd like to point out an addition to this. Always read the negative reviews. Don't just count them. I put much more weight on the negative reviews than the positive ones. You can frequently tell if the bad experience is due to a user error or if it's a systematic fault in the product. If a product has 70% negative reviews, of which 90% are operator error, I'll probably still prefer that product to the one with only 30% negative reviews where only 30% are operator error.
  - gorkonsine 9y ago
    That's a good point. A lot of bad reviews are clearly user stupidity: I even see ones where they obviously bought the wrong thing, had unrealistic expectations, etc., and then gave a poor review based on this. Or reviews where the merchant (usually Amazon) screwed up somehow, so they give a poor review to the product. On the other hand, positive reviews are frequently either lies or fluff, so you're exactly right to weight them much less. A lot of them look like they're written by shills, some of them even clearly say they got the product for free or cheap in exchange for a review, and many are written shortly after acquiring the product so they really haven't had enough time to fairly test it and see if it's reliable long-term. Also, well-written negative reviews will go into great detail explaining exactly why the product is crap, so look for those. I'm remembering a great (and long) review I read for an automatic cat litterbox which attaches to a toilet here, and sometimes ends up cooking cat turds...

by Nition 9y ago

I wish there was like a rating system for how well-built appliances are. I guess the poor man's version of that is looking at how long the manufacturer's warranty is.

maxerickson 9y ago

Even better would be to get ahold of the price list of a 3rd party warranty company. The manufacturer warranty is just as likely to be a financial product as it is to reflect product quality.

icantdrive55 9y ago

Yea, I've been wanting something like this for awhile. We have Consumer Reports, but they don't do the job like I would like. Actually, it wouldn't be a bad choice to build a company around? Maybe better than another clone.com of a monopoly.com? I've given up on appliances that last a long time, and there's always a mechanical engineer that tells me they do last longer, and work better. I don't want to argue, but their duty cycle might be a few days longer, but they aren't easily repairable. That's the rub. We used to be able go fix t.v.'s, most appliances. Now--it's just junk it. I'm looking for a new car. Even the mechanics I've talked with don't know what to recommend. Most just say look for a vechicle that isn't too exotic. Meaning a older Toyota, with a manual. Soo--I am waiting for a list. I even thought about a list. "What kind of list dude? A list that would identify quality products, along with fair companies. Just a honest list. Thennchithonestlist.com

dlgeek 9y ago

www.consumerreports.com

coldpie 9y ago
I'm actually on the market for a new kitchen range and I bought a CR subscription last night. I was disappointed. Almost none of the ranges have textual reviews, just a 5-star rating on about 6 different feature points. They each have a User Reviews section, most of which were unpopulated, and the remainder having one or two one-star reviews cursing it for falling apart in the first month. CR has a short blurb about reliability across entire brands, but the range was between 10% and 16% expected failure rate across the small subset of brands that were listed; most of the manufacturers were not even on the list. I'm left about as clueless as when I started.

bitJericho 9y ago

I'd look for the repair manual.

gorkonsine 9y ago

Well these days, with Amazon, that's what the reviews are for. I've passed on lots of purchases because I looked at the reviews and saw too many negative ones, and bought other things after seeing almost all glowing reviews. A bad-quality product can lead to poor reviews, and this can affect sales. Manufacturers' warranties are only so useful; a lot of companies make you jump through hoops to actually make use of them. If the product isn't that expensive, you'll end up paying so much in shipping that it just isn't worth bothering with when you can go buy a new one. And you always take the chance that they'll simply deny your claim and then your recourse is to sue them (not worth it for anything under a few thousand dollars) and to post bad reviews.

kqr 9y ago
I'd like to point out an addition to this. Always read the negative reviews. Don't just count them. I put much more weight on the negative reviews than the positive ones. You can frequently tell if the bad experience is due to a user error or if it's a systematic fault in the product. If a product has 70% negative reviews, of which 90% are operator error, I'll probably still prefer that product to the one with only 30% negative reviews where only 30% are operator error.
- gorkonsine 9y ago
  That's a good point. A lot of bad reviews are clearly user stupidity: I even see ones where they obviously bought the wrong thing, had unrealistic expectations, etc., and then gave a poor review based on this. Or reviews where the merchant (usually Amazon) screwed up somehow, so they give a poor review to the product. On the other hand, positive reviews are frequently either lies or fluff, so you're exactly right to weight them much less. A lot of them look like they're written by shills, some of them even clearly say they got the product for free or cheap in exchange for a review, and many are written shortly after acquiring the product so they really haven't had enough time to fairly test it and see if it's reliable long-term. Also, well-written negative reviews will go into great detail explaining exactly why the product is crap, so look for those. I'm remembering a great (and long) review I read for an automatic cat litterbox which attaches to a toilet here, and sometimes ends up cooking cat turds...