14 ms·

When did Maytag go bad? (2007)

• aemreunal 5y ago
  On a meta point: Sites like these make me appreciate the internet so much. There's a forum for people who are "experts, collecters and fans of [...] washing machines" (among other things). Never would've thought such a website existed in a million years.
  • dewey 5y ago
    Especially these days when the only sites you find if you google a product like this are seo spam comparison sites with affiliate links and some text written by either a machine or someone stuffing as many keywords in the most general article as possible.
  • a9h74j 5y ago
    Also, for years I have had the phrase "open source washing machine" in my head. Finally duck-searched upon seeing this thread. A ton of existing work/proposals.
  • bityard 5y ago
    All we need now are search engines that are smart enough to find this information.
  • aezell 5y ago
    Really, any forum that focuses on a specific niche. They could be some of the best places in the Internet. Facebook ate up most of those amazing communities.
• simonblack 5y ago
  That I couldn't tell you. But I do know that I have been hearing about Maytag problems for at least twenty years. Before the awareness sets in that a brand has declined markedly, we tend to find that we become aware of complaints more often than before. Then later the penny drops.
  • CogitoCogito 5y ago
    “How did you go bankrupt?” Bill asked. “Two ways,” Mike said. “Gradually, then suddenly.”
• Lio 5y ago
  I'd never heard of Maytag before and had to look them up[1]. For anyone as naive as me, Maytag is an American home appliance brand. That's "white goods" like washing machines, fridges, etc. I suspect it's just me, as they seem to have sold internationally. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maytag https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maytag
  • emptyparadise 5y ago
    Classic ruined Americana.
  • rootsudo 5y ago
    It's probably just you - but it's curious how many brands that are known to millions and export can still be unknown to people. Next you'll say you think Whirlpools just exist in oceans. :D
    • manuelabeledo 5y ago
      Not quite. I had never heard of Maytag until I moved to the US. It isn’t a widely known brand in mainland Europe. Whirlpool is, though it seems that it has been displaced a bit from the market by LG and Samsung.
    • OakNinja 5y ago
      I’ve never heard of Maytag before either. I guess they are not on the European market?
      • zerkten 5y ago
        They were available per https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maytag#Maytag_International https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maytag#Maytag_International. The problem is that they didn't fit with typical requirements in a European home with their cost and space requirements. This relegated them to commercial usage or custom homes with dedicated space for a washer and drier.
    • open-source-ux 5y ago
• supernova87a 5y ago
  The advertising icon of the Maytag lonely repairman (because Maytag is so reliable, nothing to repair: https://thumbs.worthpoint.com/zoom/images1/1/1107/18/porcelain-maytag-repairman-figurine-1st-in_1_30e9c79558cbb83ed1df070d42df0512.jpg https://thumbs.worthpoint.com/zoom/images1/1/1107/18/porcela...) was great, but is long gone now. And a general statement: If anything, many of our products have become more expensive to repair than throw away and buy new. Partly the rising cost of labor and time it takes to disassemble something, figure out what's wrong (takes some skilled labor), and put it all back together again, and partly because improvements in manufacturing have made it cheaper just to produce from scratch. Our throwaway society at work.
  • louismerlin 5y ago
    Working image url : https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/4/47/Maytag_repairman.jpg https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/4/47/Maytag_repair...
  • cjrp 5y ago
    The mechanics of something like a washing machine are still relatively simple (motor, belt, drum, pump), but when the PCB goes it seems to be game over as often the part costs nearly as much as a new machine.
    • pygy_ 5y ago
      Wouldn't there be a market for 3rd party PCB and control panel kits for used machines?
      • moonchrome 5y ago
        Low volume market, having to sit on inventory for a long time and high upfront cost ? Sounds like a recipe for cheaper to buy new than repairing.
        • Freak_NL 5y ago
          Interestingly enough, as soon as the price of replacing it goes up (because you have less to spend), and an abundance of second hand devices entering your country, this model of repair suddenly becomes feasible. In some African countries you can get your TV fixed if a certain part fails, because the local repairman takes all working boards from broken TV sets and keeps an inventory. It's a business model that is unsustainable in more 'developed' countries. Here repairs are only done on really high-end devices. Beside that, there is the convenience factor. I can buy a new washing machine, and have it here tomorrow, where they take the old one away, and plug the new one in if I want to buy that option. You can't get that level service from a repairman. They can't compete with this business model. And even if they could, the chance of them being able to fix it is not 100%, whereas the new one is all but guaranteed to work (for as long as that lasts).
• pram 5y ago
  I had a Maytag front loader washing machine from 2013 and it lasted until last year with zero issues, no mold or anything. Maybe being bought by Whirlpool was a good thing then?
  • readthenotes1 5y ago
    My Kenmores from 1990 are still going strong. 2013 is still infancy.
    • Tagbert 5y ago
      We just ordered a Maytag dryer to replace our Kenmore from 1995. Hoping the matching Kenmore washer keeps working. Sad to hear the Maytag is not as reliable now, but it still sounds better than some of the other brands. We chose a model without the electronic controls.
  • cjrp 5y ago
    8 years doesn't seem very long for an appliance, although that is probably par for the course now.
    • Freak_NL 5y ago
      Eleven years seems to be the (depressing) average for washing machines now.
  • mikestew 5y ago
    Only eight years? Even our crappy LG front loader is still going after that long (rusty thought it might be). Apparently Maytag’s quality has going downhill.
• busterarm 5y ago
  I had a Maytag washer & dryer from 1955 that was still working up until 2009. The belts broke and I literally could not get replacements. That would have been the only repair needed. That said, I sold both units to a prop company for a nice sum. Modern machines are shit.
• ggm 5y ago
  There's bad, and there's "Gorenje Pacific" bad. It's -(edit: was Romanian) Slovenian, branded to sound like a Japanese quality brand name. We got one to wash diapers and when it was stolen I was forbidden to replace like with like. Maytag may have reached an outer circle of Dante's inferno but the cold heart is Gorenje.
  • eCa 5y ago
    Minor correction: Gorenje is Slovenian, now owned by a Chinese company.
    • Cockbrand 5y ago
      Minor correction to the minor correction: according to Wikipedia, Gorenje has been owned by Chinese company Hisense since 2018, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gorenje https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gorenje
      • ggm 5y ago
        The quality may have gone up. Hisense did pretty good digital TVs.
    • ggm 5y ago
      Actually.. ours might have been Yugoslavian because this was in '92
      • dotancohen 5y ago
        That would explain the quality. I do honestly believe that the Yugoslavian manufacturing industry was conceived solely to make the Italian manufacturing industry look decent.
        • CapricornNoble 5y ago
          My Yugo SKS is pretty solid (better than the Chinese ones, but arguably not as nice as the original Russian ones though...).
• deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
• MarkusWandel 5y ago
  I have an early 2000s (got it for free in 2004) Maytag top loader of the more-or-less classic design. It has had exactly one issue in all this time: A piece of debris got into the water pump, and I had to take that apart to get it out. Aside from that nothing, and in the past decade it has been a busy family washing machine. It'll probably die from the mechanical dial sequencer wearing out, if anything. The reason the Maytags were so reliable is their mechanical simplicity. Motor runs one way, the machine agitates and washes. Run the other way, the machine drains. The gearbox is simple, so simple that "spin" and "drain" are the same thing. How do you spin a tub full of water? You have a special kind of belt, that acts as a slip clutch so the spin builds up gradually as the water drains away. Because of the simple mechanics, the tub is deep; the machine has truly gigantic capacity. We fear the day it finally dies and we have to replace it with something else, the only choices being: Really crappy top loading agitator machines, the bizarre "agitator-less" top loaders, and front loaders. I used to use a Whirlpool built Kenmore machine before that. It had unbelievably complicated mechanics and plumbing (ever hear of a "wig wag"?) But it did have a reverse flush lint filter. That complicated stuff also eventually went wrong. Because if its simple mechanicals, the Maytag does not do any kind of lint filtering. Given that we also line dry, that is an issue. The machine is plainly for a world in which everything goes through a clothes dryer, which strips the lint.
  • cebert 5y ago
    If you’re looking for that reliability and simplicity, you may want to take a look at SpeedQueen. They’re a bit more expensive, but built like tanks.
    • op00to 5y ago
      There’s an independent appliance store near my house that sells speed queen. I always drool over those!
      • MarkusWandel 5y ago
        Are the front load Speed Queens also best in class? I can see a front loader in our future; they do use less water. The old-school Maytag, especially with the wife's insistence on an extra rinse, uses a lot.
• llampx 5y ago
  After our hand-me-down Bosch machine from the 1980s gave up the ghost, we decided to get another Bosch, but not because of brand loyalty. I think the mid-level machines are the best compromise between high cost brands like Miele and Maytag, and low-cost brands like Gorenje and Beko. However, as with many things, there has been a lot of consolidation in the space, and many brands are actually owned by holding companies, leading to some unlikely bedfellows. At the same time, planned obsolescence means that the machines are engineered to fail at some point between 2 and 5 years. Long enough to get out of warranty, and long enough that the consumer doesn't feel cheated when the machine fails the day after warranty expires, but not as long as you would expect from technology that has remained unchanged since the 50s except the addition of some sensors and PCBs. White goods are unique in terms of our expectations for their lifetime, because they are labor-intensive and/or expensive to replace, and a catastrophic failure with a water leak can be very expensive. I still find it somewhat funny though, that we easily give out between $200-1500 for our phones every couple of years and hem and haw when spending that much for white goods.
  • jmrm 5y ago
    "I think the mid-level machines are the best compromise...": This is totally true. I repair our family appliances and low-level and mid-level ones are pretty easy to work on. High-level ones like Miele products and some Samsung products now usually have diagnostic ports, like OBD-II in cars, and some sensors can't be replaced without reprogramming the main board with a valid diagnostic tool. The only two appliances I had problems with in the last five years were the two European front loading washing machines, a old low-level one who need a 20€ (from the scrapyard) main board every 2-3 years, the other is a high-level one that had two 100€ main boards in less than 8 years. Guess what kind of washing machine will be the next I buy.
  • Freak_NL 5y ago
    Miele's reputation was tarnished this/last year because of their new stance of replacement parts. From now on, only licensed Miele repairmen are able to order spare parts. General repairmen are seeing their Miele parts inventory shrink and will have to stop servicing Miele devices entirely.
• cebert 5y ago
  I purchased a SpeedQueen washer and dryer combo set this October and was delivered towards the end of December. They’re a US-based manufacturer based out of Wisconsin. It is still early for me to post a final review, but so far I love it. You can tell the units are built solidly and they do a great job cleaning cloths. These units were quite a bit more expensive than typical units you will find at Home Depot, but I am happy with my purchase. Supposedly, these units can last 20-25 years.
  • eadmund 5y ago
    Hate to say that Speed Queens might have gotten worse in the last several years: https://www.nytimes.com/wirecutter/blog/speed-queen-washer/ https://www.nytimes.com/wirecutter/blog/speed-queen-washer/ I do not have one, so do not know how true the article is.
    • jtbayly 5y ago
      Wow. Thanks for posting this. We love our 20 year old Speed Queen. Glad to know I should keep it going rather than replace it if it needs a repair in the next 20 years.
    • User23 5y ago
      They backtracked on that. The TC5 uses their traditional action[1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speed_Queen#cite_note-5 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speed_Queen#cite_note-5
    • derbOac 5y ago
      We sort of inherited a relatively new-ish SQ with our house, and it's been an interesting experience. I was aware of SQ before, but only minimally so, and so looked into them, finding out there is a split between a sort of SQ fan base and review outlets like Consumer Reports, Wirecutter, etc. At the time, I was skeptical of the fan base, trusted these review outlets more, and had a modern front-loader before that, but figured it didn't cost us anything so would give it a try. I really love the SQ washer actually. I don't know that I like it more than the front loader before it but it's been very reliable and cleans well. I've noticed that SQ seems to treat its washer design as if washing machines are tools to be used, rather than as a device that washes your clothes for you. So, for example, I do think a modern front loader would clean clothes better on a default setting, but I can customize the cycles a lot more with our SQ, so in the end they come out the same. If you have reviews that are standardized so the testers push a "normal wash button" and evaluate the output, it's misleading, because that's not really how SQ machines shine. They're also not very water efficient, leading to some controversies when they started to be reviewed by popular review outlets. Anyway, it seems like some of the newer electronic control models aren't quite as popular, and there's some issues along these lines with how review outlets evaluate products. The even newer ones that are more like they're older ones are more popular, and I'm not sure the way consumer sites review machines is quite right for something like SQ anyway. If you look at front-loading machines, for example, SQ is a higher-rated brand; I think this is partly due to smaller differences between brands in how controls are implemented. I think if we had to replace the machine, I'd probably get a front-loader, but I'd probably want a SQ again. In any event, it (along with some other similar issues with other product categories) has really convinced me that these standardized product review sites aren't quite picking up on certain things in the way I might have thought 10 years ago. Something seems off to me about them in a way I can't quite put my finger on, even though in general I think those kinds of review processes (third-party standardized product testing) are essential and usually the bar to meet.
• mattacular 5y ago
  Weird how this keeps happening to products we've known how to make well for decades but it turns out it is more "profitable" not to do that.
  • f0e4c2f7 5y ago
    I think this is actually a natural market cycle you see across all industries. New entrant offers incredible product or service, customers rejoice. Competing products, pale. De facto monopoly is established. Time passed, maybe a new board and CEO, maybe not. The now monopoly starts exploiting their dominant position by charging more for worse quality. For some time the monopoly will act as a moat for this behavior. Customers no longer like the incumbent and a gap is opened that other companies and startups can attempt to shoot through. Once one succeeds the cycle starts over. Since someone pointed out this pattern to me I've tried to notice companies that don't follow it. It seems pretty common. Overall though, products and services in the market are still often good. You just have to be careful to buy them from the company that is still rising rather than the declining monopoly.
    • mattacular 5y ago
      It's actually not natural though.
      • refurb 5y ago
        It absolutely is. Look at airlines. Customers bitch about service but then always buy the cheapest ticket. Same with consumer goods. Sure some consumers will pay more, but if two brands with exist, one lasts 10 years, one 7 years but the 2nd is 20% cheaper, most people will opt for it.
  • prepend 5y ago
    First I buy a brand with a good reputation. Then I fire all the designers and keep a bare bones staff, including marketing and social media/PR. Then I coast on slowing degrading quality through shrinkage and part swapping. This can last years or decades while I take in the profit from not having staff. I worked for an enterprise software company that got bought by private equity and did this. 15 years later the company is still running and has been profitable for a long time.
• otterley 5y ago
  (2007)
• asimpletune 5y ago
  What's so insane to me is that washers and dryers (also dishwashers) are all very simple devices. I would love for someone to just come out with "dumb" versions of these, that attack the design weaknesses of what is currently offered. Something that is designed to last, but also to be easily diagnosed and owner serviced. Even better if they were designed to be built into existing cabinetry, so you can move with them and retrofit them into whatever home you go into.
  • convolvatron 5y ago
    its marketing and expectations. I soak my clothes soak with soap in a 5gal bucket, rinse in the same bucket by pouring the water out in the tub, and spin them nearly dry in a motor+drum and hand and dry over the tub. I can easily throw in a little soda or peroxide, and I rinse it until the water is clear. its sounds terribly manual and regressive but really its very little work, just filling up a bucket and dumping it out. the clothes come out cleaner (no extra soap and lint), and it doesn't really take any more time. the only hardware, the spinner, is cheap and fantastically straightforward. I think people have been deceived over generations to consider what goes on inside a washing machine as some kind of arduous and complicated magic.
    • bityard 5y ago
      If I was only doing my own laundry, I would only have to wash a load once a week, and I would never use the dryer since I'm content to air-dry all of my clothes. However, a family of four tilts the balance in favor of the time-saving machines. (That said, we /do/ make our own laundry detergent for pennies a gallon and it has saved us a ton of money over the years.)
      • truetraveller 5y ago
        What is the recipe for the detergent, if you don't mind?
    • xkfm 5y ago
      What spinner do you use if you don't mind me asking?
• ouid 5y ago
  The point of making a brand with a reputation of shit that lasts can never be repeat business. I love my stand mixer, and in 300 years, when I need a new one, the company it was bought from won't exist anymore. Hell, it barely exists today. So the value of this reputation can only be to sell inferior cheaply made products with it.
  • drewzero1 5y ago
    The same thing happened to Saturn, another of my once-favorite brands. The trick is to find companies that are producing products that are built too well to sell twice, and figure that out before they do.
• tfandango 5y ago
  I have a maytag washer/dryer that is a little over 2 years old. The frustrating part is they have "10 year warranty" stickers all over them. They dryer failed 3 times (different part each time) and I learned that the 10 year warranty ONLY covers the motor and the drum (big metal tube). Those are the 2 parts that never break. On the upside the machine is so incredibly simple I've been able to disassemble the entire thing and fix whatever is broken on my own, so keeping it up and running requires some handiness and some spare parts.
  • poulsbohemian 5y ago
    Ironically, I have an LG that was considered top-of-the-line when I bought it ten+ years ago, and the drum is the thing that broke. Still no idea what happened but it had a huge gash. Think I had to pay some kind of service fee but basically a free replacement.
• throwaway894345 5y ago
  > The people I really feel sorry for are the good people of Newton, Iowa, who now have to transform their town from a "company town" into something else if they're to survive economically My wife is from Newton. It’s a strange place since Maytag left. It was clearly a pretty nice place to live 20 years ago, but now there are a lot of foreclosed homes and a pretty visible meth problem. Still, they are working hard to rebuild their local economy. Prior to the pandemic, I thought that Des Moines might grow enough that Newton might be a desirable exurb, but with more people working from home, who knows what will happen.
  • mateo411 5y ago
    I think exurbs will become more desirable now that more people are working from home.
    • Jotra7 5y ago
    • throwaway894345 5y ago
      For Newton’s sake, I hope so, but if you have (more or less) full remote freedom, why settle for exurbs? What is keeping you in the city’s gravity? Not trying to be argumentative; I’m genuinely curious.
      • mateo411 5y ago
        Some people enjoy being close to a city for other reasons that work. Some will go into the city for entertainment, they will want to go to a restaurant, a show, or see a sporting event. Some people like to be reasonably close to an airport. You can have all of these things available to you if you live in the exurbs. You can also have a larger house and a larger yard. Before the pandemic, your commute into the city would be terrible, but that's not as much of a factor now.
• mml 5y ago
  My Bosch dryer breaks its cheap nylon door latch every 2 years. the replacement costs $25, and could be 3d printed, or punched out of metal in about 10 minutes. once the electronics break, I'm just burning down the house and moving to the woods.
  • bogomipz 5y ago
    I was under the impression(perhaps very wrongfully) that Bosch was supposed to be quality engineering. Was this never true or is it just not true for certain product segments? The last part of your comment made me laugh out loud.
    • tcbawo 5y ago
      I once had a Bosch dishwasher in a condo that I purchased in the mid 2000s. The control board had a tendency to go bad every few years and flood the kitchen. I had read this was because the board was originally designed for European voltages and certain connections couldn't handle NA current over time. The first time it happened coincided with the birth of my first child. Getting back from the hospital with warped flooring was not a pleasant discovery. Bosch seems like a bit of luxury brand, although I've had some Bosch power tools that have worked out great.
    • alliao 5y ago
      bosch is supposedly middle class in europe, siemens is the upper middle brand it is quality engineering, but like most german engineered products it expects similarly engineered environment. think german cars on autobahn appliances in german household with german conditions my dishwasher came with water hardness testing kit, you bet I tested my water and gave it everything it asks, salt/own washing tablet etc They don't usually fail gracefully due to how engineered it got I do have a whirlpool top loader from more than 20yrs ago, I can tell it's designed to fail gracefully and I dread the day it dies and I'd have to replace it with a 5yr lifespan crap. (when you overload the whirlpool machine, it's a plastic part that breaks rather than taking down the motor by hard coupling with a metal part. when i just had to replace a $7 part I wish I could buy the engineer a beer.)
  • 5y ago
• mml 5y ago
  Some people may not be aware that the Maytag family makes excellent cheese, or did, not sure if they own it anymore. https://maytagdairyfarms.com https://maytagdairyfarms.com
• Maxburn 5y ago
  I have a Maytag washer dryer set from 1982. I've done some repairs and looked things over internally and they are extremely well built. I'll keep these as long as possible.
  • drewzero1 5y ago
    I have just the washer from around the same era, bought at a yard sale 7 years ago for $10. I've taken it apart but only to clean a clog out of the pump hose, check the belt, and lubricate a squeaky bushing. When I had the front panel off I realized it's not too different from my great-grandma's old Maytag washer that we used as a rain barrel when I was a kid. (I think that one originally was powered by a small two-stroke engine.) My favorite part of owning this washing machine was realizing that I have the same model --though (un?)fortunately not the same glorious avocado color-- used on the set of That 70's Show. [https://productplacementblog.com/tv-series/maytag-washing-machines-in-that-70s-show-s02e23-holy-crap-2000/ https://productplacementblog.com/tv-series/maytag-washing-ma...]
    • Maxburn 5y ago
      Mine are white with brown/black control panels and appear to be ageless, they could fit in forever. The washer has what sounds like a belt squeak for the past four years or so, only appears when heavily loaded. One of these days I'll look into that. Nine years ago the motor bearings on the dryer locked up, it was making a rattling noise for probably five years prior. I think I spent nearly $200 on the motor and new belt, because when I opened it up and looked at things I was thinking this easily has another 30 years of service and you could spent $2000+ and not find a dryer this well built. You simply can't get machines this good any more and that's a shame.
      • drewzero1 5y ago
        Mine's white as well which definitely helps the spousal approval factor. Our gas dryer is newer, probably early 2000s, but similar level of technology. I took it apart last year because it was running indefinitely without heating, replaced a $12 solenoid, and vacuumed lint out of everything. The dryer isn't that heavy and there's always a few on Craigslist, so I'm not worried about replacing it with a similar (used!) unit if I have to, but the 225lb washer is staying in that basement as long as I can keep it going.
• poulsbohemian 5y ago
  While most of this conversation is about washers / dryers, I have a Maytag dishwasher that's less than 5 years old that we are strongly considering replacing. It simply doesn't wash dishes. It splashes a lot of water around, but there's something strange going on where it throws food bits all over our dishes. This is even after we've basically hand-washed the dishes we're putting in it, so we can't even figure out where all these bits are coming from! We had a repairman out and for a couple weeks it was better, but now back to same issues. Considering a Bosch, would love to get this group's thoughts on manufacturers and models.
  • Aloha 5y ago
    Have you cleaned the internal skimmer/trap, do you use a pre wash setting with hot water?
    • poulsbohemian 5y ago
      Per the repairman's suggestions: -- we run the hot water before starting the cycle -- we add a detergent booster -- we run regular empty loads with a cleaning product Separately, we've removed and cleaned any parts that can be removed and cleaned, but with the same results.
      • dsr_ 5y ago
        Replace the spin arms. Once some food or plastic scrap wedges inside, they're really difficult to clean.
        • poulsbohemian 5y ago
          I hear you on that - I was working on cleaning them last night and while I could get the water to run clean, it was clear there were some bits stuck in them.
          • seanp2k2 5y ago
            Stuff like this is why I find fears about robots taking over any time in the next few decades just hilarious. I don't know of many machines not made by Honda that can work reliably for a decade or more with zero maintenance.
• ilamont 5y ago
  This board probably has members of a club made up people (mostly middle aged men in the U.S., with some members in Canada and Australia) who collect washing machines. I've seen video of a collector's basement which is wall to wall washing machines and dryers, many of them still operational. It's this clip from CBS News some years back: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jmmmxI-Y_6U https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jmmmxI-Y_6U https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/75356/men-who-stare-laundry https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/75356/men-who-stare-laun...
• Taniwha 5y ago
  Maytag used to have an advert running with a bored repairman complaining that they never failed .... either they were tempting fate, or they fired that repairman
  • christinamltn 5y ago
    They stopped making machines he could repair and parts for the few that he could. I fondly remember the actual Maytag repairman coming to my parents’ house when I was a child (he also did Kenmore and a few other brands). And the subsequent years as he explained what not to buy until it got to the point where he couldn’t recommend anything (at least near the prices his customers were used to in rural eastern Canada).
• seanp2k2 5y ago
  Had a Samsung fridge of ~2016 vintage for about 4 years until it failed. Basically, the defrost cycle relies on a tiny aluminum "finger" that dips into the ~1/2" hole at the back of the fridge where the cooling coils are. The idea is that it stays warm enough to not freeze. It wasn't good enough to actually do that. The result was that the coils would constantly ice up and form into a solid block of ice. As this part was behind a lot of styrofoam and plastic that was GLUED INTO PLACE, in addition to having some of the most annoying mechanical design I've ever had the displeasure of disassembling for the shelves and drawers to even get to that part, disassembling it breaks it. The first sign of the ice is the fan making a grinding sound, as it's literally grinding on the ice block. I eventually rigged it up in a way that didn't allow condensation to form enough to even ice up in the first place, by removing the entire inside back panel, plastic, styrofoam, and all, and putting 4x 120mm computer fans with a cheap external fan controller and a 12v wall wart plug to power it. My wife hated it, but it did work. We replaced it with a nice GE Profile that has been great. Ooh, also: the ice maker would also ice over and constantly require manual defrosting, which the manual explicitly warns against -- their solution: remove everything from the fridge for 48-72 hours and leave it open for the ice to melt by itself. What a great idea if you have a second fridge and freezer to store everything while that works. The parts were also very complex, hard to fit together, and very difficult to clean. It was mechanically over-engineered, but had awful reliability, repairability, and ease of maintenance -- spill something on the lower shelf? Prepare for 30 minutes of disassembling sticky plastic panels and yanking things just to clean up the spill that seeped under the poorly-designed panels that are inaccessible otherwise. Make sure to remember where all 8 different lengths of screws go. There are class-action lawsuits about these fridges: https://topclassactions.com/lawsuit-settlements/consumer-products/appliances/hearing-set-after-more-than-a-year-of-mediation-in-samsung-refrigerator-class-action/ https://topclassactions.com/lawsuit-settlements/consumer-pro... Their dishwasher that we unfortunately own isn't much better: the soap dispenser is blocked by anything remotely large in the lower front-left tray, causing the soap to not come out (as the door swings open and is easily blocked by anything in front of it). The drain / valve part (a large one-piece molded plastic part that costs $150 ish) is on the side and attached with an eighth-turn plastic screw comes off at the slightest touch and causes a leak down the side which triggers the leak sensor, requiring pulling the entire thing out, drying off the bottom, and re-attaching that piece on the side. There was a part, I think it was a small plastic wheel to detect water flow, inside of that one-piece molded plastic plumbing / tank / whatever mixer on the side, that had a couple pieces of rust in it from our crappy 100 year old city water main. Because that part is entirely encased in heat-welded thick plastic, it's impossible to remove to clean. Now that one is in a landfill and the new one was quite expensive. The error code is also non-specific, despite having a few dozen wires leading to all the different sensors that can and will eventually fail, so I first replaced the main water inlet sensor, which didn't fix the problem. Lastly, the touch controls are on the top front of the unit, which means it must be opened slightly to control them, and of course they're capacitive touch buttons with no raised edges, so you must look at them to touch the right one, and they don't work with wet hands, which is just a fantastic idea for a dishwasher. I think Samsung has some of the worst industrial designers in the industry, along with some of the worst product and software people (read up on the Bixby button on their phones some time). Their appliances and most of their other products are pure garbage destined for landfills, and I will never buy another as long as I live if I have any say in it. I have spent countless hours diagnosing and attempting to repair their hot garbage products, and I truly hope they go out of business very soon for making such horrible products that make the world a worse place in so many ways. They make shiny crap that looks good on a shelf or in Best Buy, then you get it home and maybe it works OK for a few months. I have no idea why they have fans out there. Edit: The only Samsung stuff I own by choice is their B-die RAM and SSDs. Guessing that's an entirely different division.
• sillyquiet 5y ago
  I think Maytag is another example of what I think of as the attitude of profit margin >>> artisanry in modern companies. It goes something like this: Company A makes a thing, maybe it was founded by the inventor of the thing, maybe not, but it makes a thing and it is PROUD to make the thing. The thing is reliable, durable, and it does what it is advertised to do, well. It's crafted with care, with QA and built with quality parts. And THEN the beancounters come in. Oh-ho, they say, you can increase your profit margin on every unit sold if you replace this FooPart with a cheaply made mass produced overseas equivalent. Also, we will reduce the number of expensive quality inspectors to save costs. Actually, we are outsourcing ALL labor to overseas to save costs, and etc etc, the cost of the unit probably doesn't decrease, but the profit margins sure look nice until the point confidence in the product collapses and sales tank.
  • GorsyGentle 5y ago
    s/beancounters/investors/ Just sayin'. It's not the Accountants, it's the Business majors hired by the investors that are the issue. At the end of the day, its the investment firms and the endless churn to increase profit year over year that does this.
    • sillyquiet 5y ago
      sure sure - it's unfair of me, but I call decision makers of all stripes - c-levels, etc - who are only motivated by short term numbers on a spreadsheet 'beancounters'
  • bolasanibk 5y ago
    You forgot the make it smart/app based/subscription model!!
    • nosianu 5y ago
      The scary thing is they can only do that because it sells. Plenty of people like the "new". I think much of that movement is the opposite of sustainability. Software-based products will have even shorter lifetimes. Even if some cloud service is not needed and it works with "only" a local app on your phone, the phones change quickly and even the OS. Even with backwards compatibility, ten years of lifetime already is ambitious. Devices used to have decades of lifetime. Electronics shortened it, computing elements more so, and now software. The cycles got shorter. The construction also got more and more flimsy. All the devices I got from my grandparents are still usable (cooking, mechanical calculator, photo, film), the more modern it is the less metal and the more cheap plastics that does not age well. If we had an efficient recycling system, and renewable energy to power the entire cycle it would be doable albeit still wasteful. But we have neither. The cycle is mostly fueled with fossil fuels, adding more and more carbon from deep below ground, and containing the energy of the ancient sun, to the surface carbon cycle. It is not circular, the end products end up dumped somewhere.
• throwawaymanbot 5y ago
• ctime 5y ago
  I just moved to SpeedQueen (awne92sp113tw01) washer/dryer combo and the best way I could describe the difference between them and the old set (Samsung, relatively new but rather abused) is that the SpeedQueen uses one "low efficiency wash" to wash what the Samsung set would take two. The motor isn't any louder. The digital controls are warranted for 25 years. The motor is super strong (water leaving the drum on the spin cycle is way more powerful than the old set). My wife seems to approve (I don't think she cared as much as I do). Her friends are seem to be aware/care, however.