22 ms·

Yep, some are so shitty that the whole product category becomes garbage. We went on an adventure with blenders: 1. We bought a Bosch hand blender (maxomixx) be

• ygra 4y ago
  Interestingly, the Bosch food processor we have has a plastic coupling between the motor and the meat grinder attachment on purpose, so if anything gets stuck, it's a 5 € plastic part that's broken, instead of a more expensive and less accessible one. So a plastic coupling alone doesn't sound that alarming in general.
  • s0rce 4y ago
    I think Kitchenaid's have that too, I remember repairing one years ago with my dad.
    • justinlloyd 4y ago
      Yes, they precisely have that. Have repaired three Kitchenaid mixers over the years, from different eras. Even in the higher end machines where it is almost all metal gears and parts, the helical gear box in those too is all plastic parts for easy and cheap replacement, and so that anything getting stuck doesn't burn out a more expensive elctrical motor. I have an immersion blender that also has plastic gears, and even though the motor is sold as a single unit that is not an FRU, you can take it apart and service it with off-the-shelf gears you can source from eBay. The two coffee grinders I have, high quality metal burrs, plastic gearing, for the same reason. My higher quality power tools- track saw, drills, etc, all plastic gearing, metal everywhere else. It just makes sense when it comes to repairs, though can be frustrating when they strip out. That said, most consumer crap made today is complete shite.
      • Scoundreller 4y ago
        Most garage door openers too. Unfortunately, it's an open system, so the grease usually dries out after 5-10 years. Undo the 6 screws and put some marine grease on them every couple years everybody.
        • rsa4046 4y ago
          I bought and installed a Sommer Evo+ (German made), after Chamberlain, Craftsman products crapped out prematurely. So far, so good (7 years), extremely quiet; slow, but well put together.
        • justinlloyd 4y ago
          Garage door maintenance, every two years, regular as clockwork. In Southern California, with all the dust and the dry desert heat, you have to clean them down and regrease regularly. If you don't, they get real noisy, and then they fail. I've looked at closed system units, but they aren't worth the cost vs the 20 or so minutes of biennial maintenance. I'd rather have $3 of plastic gears strip out that I can reorder through a dozen different supplies than actual damage to my door or the infrastructure that holds the door. Though that has become less of an issue on newer units with excessive force sensors.
      • winrid 4y ago
        Your drills have plastic gears simply as a cost saving measure. Spend a bit more and you get powdered metal gears.
        • justinlloyd 4y ago
          Okay, I'll bite, tell me which drills I should be spending a bit more on?
          • winrid 4y ago
            Not sure. I don't think drill manufacturers advertise these details often because they don't want to confuse consumers. You can try to watch teardowns, like this DeWalt by Ave: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NHCS7JXfuv0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NHCS7JXfuv0 Gears at 16:40
    • sokoloff 4y ago
      They do. I've replaced ours twice in 15 years of ownership (and have 3 more replacements in the junk drawer, since they came 5-for-$10: ASIN B07Y7S33RF). It's a pretty elegant design. Unfortunately, a lot of people (including my wife, initially) would be prone to concluding that the whole unit was “worn out and needed replacing”.
  • rodgerd 4y ago
    The folks over at Lens Rentals have an excellent blog where they tear down lenses and cameras; they've discussed previously that plastics and metals have strengths and weaknesses, and encouraged people not to simply assume that plastic components in a lens tell you anything about quality or durability.
  • phpisthebest 4y ago
    That is only true if the parts are available, often times companies will change the design annually and discontinue the parts making that "easy fix" a time bomb waiting to break and now you have to replace the entire thing 3D printing could resolve some of that, but brands have been known to issue take downs or other legal threats over people sharing models so....
  • Arrath 4y ago
    Its common practice for larger devices as well. E.G. construction equipment will often have an inexpensive rubber coupling between the very expensive 250 HP diesel motor and the hydraulic pump or air compressor that provide useful working fluids to the tools. Sometimes they can be a right bastard to replace, but its still cheaper and much quicker than replacing a blown hydraulic pump and flushing the system to ensure no filings escaped the filters.
    • hasmanean 4y ago
      Yes, this is the moral of the story behind the “one boss shay.” https://www.gutenberg.org/files/45280/45280-h/45280-h.htm https://www.gutenberg.org/files/45280/45280-h/45280-h.htm A deacon designed a horse cart where all the parts were designed to last a hundred years. Most cart had a weak spot which meant the cart wore out but never broke down. This thing was built with no weak spots. So on the hundredth and one year to the day, all of a sudden everything failed at the same time and it collapsed into a cloud of dust.
  • dzhiurgis 4y ago
    > it's a 5 € plastic part that's broken FWIW you can buy used one for that price
  • sydd 4y ago
    There are 2 issues: 1. They don't sell this coupler as a part. I could get one from abroad for like $7+postage and wait weeks for it. 2. This plastic crap is glued to the motor shaft. I might deform the shaft while trying to fix it.
  • tlavoie 4y ago
    It depends a lot on where the breakable part is, and whether it can be replaced reasonably. I just did some repairs on our Cuisinart food processor, that highlighted poor design. The motor is in the base of course, driving a shaft that comes up through the center of the housing. So far, so good. The problem is that this beefy-looking motor is screwed onto three plastic pillars that are just part of the otherwise thin outer housing. Each pillar is essentially an "asterisk" cross-section, probably to minimize material, and it had just snapped off the outer shell. You can buy things like the blades or the plastic bowl, but not random parts from the inside (or, outside). I managed to get it together with a screw through the housing and a large glob of epoxy putty, but the experience really emphasized that it was pretty much designed to fail.
• azza2110 4y ago
  I'd happily pay 5x the price of the cheapest product available, if I knew I was getting a higher quality product with a longer lifetime. However, I can never tell if this 5x premium actually gets me a better core product, or just gets me better branding, advertising, aesthetics, and/or superfluous features. So I usually just buy the cheapest and hope for the best.
  • ygra 4y ago
    In Germany there's an independent organisation, Stiftung Warentest [−4], that anonymously buys various products in stores and tests them quite rigorously. Some may say perhaps a bit too well (including things like the manual, how easy it is to set up a large appliance, or whether toxic chemicals are used in parts that are handled), but overall they seem to do a very good job. Testing and scoring methodology is published as well. I trust them a lot more than Amazon or YouTube reviews or some random blog that got the product sent by its manufacturer. [−4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stiftung_Warentest https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stiftung_Warentest – the article also has a few pointers to international, similar organisations near the bottom.
    • floydnoel 4y ago
      Thanks for sharing, this is great information. I definitely think that independent testing organizations are important for quality so it’s always great to hear of more of them
    • drekipus 4y ago
      We have the same in australia too, called choice magazine. https://www.choice.com.au/ https://www.choice.com.au/
      • nuker 4y ago
        And even better, OzBargain.com.au crowdsourced one liner reviews, surprisingly valid :)
    • Gurgler 4y ago
• bombcar 4y ago
  For food-service you can often find commercial-grade stuff which still has some durability to it - but it will NOT have things like "be quiet" or "small portion size" or "cheap" usually.
• seb1204 4y ago
  Commercial range of devices often are better as they need to endure much more uses.
  • ClumsyPilot 4y ago
    Commercial grade devices are often not suitable for home use - for example commercial dishwashers are a totally different beast, their cycles are like 10 minutes and they are meant for disinfection nore than cleaning. They need frequent maintenance, dont come with a pump, dont tolerate long periods of non use, etc.
    • quickthrower2 4y ago
      I noticed this when looking into coffee grinders. A commercial one is a problem at home unless you make 20 coffees a day because it is going to retain a lot of grinds (not a problem if you have a lot of throughput, it won't go stale). It will also be noisy and big. A prosumer one should be quite and good for not retaining grinds, but would be bad for commercial as it wont be fast enough (ten times slower), and you you don't want to wait grind for every shot. Also a prosumer one would look nicer probably.
      • ghostpepper 4y ago
        FWIW I've had a Baratza grinder going strong with daily use for 5+ years
• 14 4y ago
  Same issue with a Dremel. Stopped spinning so opened it up and found it had a plastic coupler. Junk. Luckily I was able to find a 3d file and print a new coupler with my printer.
  • daniel-cussen 4y ago
    Fantastic you could 3D print the part. That's beautiful. That's how you fuck their business, and good that you did, they should sell quality.
    • 14 4y ago
      I love my 3d printer. Last Christmas opened up a brand new hot wheels track and told the kids not to touch it so we didn’t lose any parts. They waited patiently as I built it. Get toward the end and realize a clip for the tracks was missing no fault of the kids. Damn. Quick search and find a 3d file for new clip. Printed within 30 minutes and kids had their track. So much easier then calling the company and dealing with waiting for a part and not having the receipt anymore. Was really nice
      • daniel-cussen 4y ago
        I knew of a kid in elementary, this was in Chile, ordering missing Lego parts from the catalog. Was unthinkable. Pre-internet, I think mail or international phone call, something crazy. Unthinkable. Plus the company introduces a wait. No blame on hot wheels, they (I think, not sure but want to believe) try to live up to being a cool toy. Good gift. They want to be a good gift, like get a kid saying "Ohhhhh, damnit I mean gosh-darn-it, sorry, hot wheels cars, real cars, wow oh wow oh wow oh wow!" Jumping up and down. But it's still a wait. So the problem is, reminiscing upon childhood, children make promises to themselves about holding out until birthdays and Christmas. So if they break that promise with themselves because a "company" (what's that?) "makes an error" (like on a test?) then it's like...nah, "I'm not a happy kid."
  • kevin_thibedeau 4y ago
    I had a higher end Dremel that would intermittently die because the brushes got stuck in their channels once the motor warmed up. I was so happy when the speed controller died and I replaced that garbage with a $20 Menard's unit that's been bulletproof.
• jibe 4y ago
  planned obsolence out there I don't think it is planned obsolescence, it is just a race to the bottom on price. At $30, an immersion blender can't have metal gears. Most people value cheapness more than quality, so we get cheap junky products. Nylon gears are a travesty, but most people prefer replacing crap to paying 7x for the Vitamix.
  • CoastalCoder 4y ago
    This isn't true of me. I value quality and price. Unfortunately, while price is clearly stated, poor quality is often hidden.
  • ClumsyPilot 4y ago
    thats fine, but then why do I get the same problems when i pay $200?
  • BlargMcLarg 4y ago
    >Most people value cheapness more than quality, so we get cheap junky products. Well, it would help tremendously if costs per month/year/lifetime were more obvious. A lot of people just don't know how long certain appliances are supposed to last at what price points comparatively. 7x is only a hefty price tag upfront when you know it will pay for itself over time, but even that is no longer certain.
    • jtbayly 4y ago
      How many years would you divide by as a “lifetime”? That’s your new failure year that lots of people would prefer for it to last longer than.
    • someguydave 4y ago
      Right, judging long-term product value is like trying to win against the casino on their own slot machines.
  • lambdasquirrel 4y ago
    Disclaimer: I have a KitchenAid blender. I only paid 5x for it, so I didn't have to pay the Vitamix guerrilla marketing part of the deal. But yes, expect something several multiples over the nickel-and-dimed stuff. The high-end blender lines of both brands are made domestically, and rate at the top in Consumer Reports. I can vouch that both are pretty quiet in operation, for what are essentially food-violence machines. Just because it's a German brand like Bosch doesn't mean it's made in Germany, from quality parts, so, buyer beware.
• Gordonjcp 4y ago
  > I called the Bosch service hotline, they told me that the whole body is one "part" that I can buy for ~80% of the original price. It's eight months old. They *have* to replace it under warranty.
• ars 4y ago
  This doesn't work in all categories, but when the product breaks before a reasonable lifetime you buy a new one, and return the old one. The store ships it back to the manufacturer, and if they are smart they tear it down and improve whatever caused it to break. If enough people did this quality would improve.
  • thfuran 4y ago
    Yeah, except that you're not getting your money back because almost nothing has a warranty that extends nearly to it's reasonable lifetime, so the manufacturer has no particular interest in stopping you from buying another one.
    • ars 4y ago
      You get your money back when your return the defective item for a refund.
      • ImPostingOnHN 4y ago
        not when the return is a year after purchase (even shorter for most products these days)
        • ProjectArcturis 4y ago
          You don't claim the warranty. You buy the new one, put the old broken one in the new one's box, and return that.
          • warkdarrior 4y ago
            I believe this is called fraud, but you do you.
            • boppo1 4y ago
              Well, on some ethical level so is what manufacturers are doing. Race to the bottom!
• daniel-cussen 4y ago
  [flagged]
  • eru 4y ago
    You know that foreign countries don't have to take the loans you offer at the interest rates you offer? In principle especially a wanna-be socialist country like the Soviet Union wouldn't need to participate in capitalist rituals like this.
    • daniel-cussen 4y ago
      Capital is global. Seeks the highest returns wherever they are.
  • icecap12 4y ago
    GE sold their appliance division in 2016[1]. [1]https://www.ge.com/news/reports/done-deal-ge-sells-its-appliances-business-to-haier-for-5-6-billion https://www.ge.com/news/reports/done-deal-ge-sells-its-appli...
    • daniel-cussen 4y ago
      That was long after they sold the Cussen household their toasters. They're responsible for what they sold when they sold it. The didn't sell responsibility for stealing my food.
• avar 4y ago
  Undervalued option for a hand blender: A power drill with a blender attachment, it'll easily beat any store bought immersion blender when it comes to reliability. Of course you might end up wishing for crappy plastic gears over something with enough torque to shear a finger off...
  • liminalsunset 4y ago
    In this case, the power drill actually has a torque limit feature (normally used for putting in screws, without stripping them). If the blender attachment gets stuck, the drill "cams out" and does not get damaged at all, unlike plastic gears.
• OJFord 4y ago
  If I understand the issue correctly, I have a Bamix model with 'metal coupling'. Swiss company, bought on Amazon UK, presumably available on Amazon US, no idea about 'malls'. As an aside, AIUI there are two Boschs, and 'consumer Bosch' is merely a marketing/branding department.
• golergka 4y ago
  What blenders do professional kitchens buy?
• swimfar 4y ago
  Was the blender part one of these: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:4415363 https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:4415363 https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3969534 https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3969534 https://www.printables.com/model/172705-bosch-blender-coupling https://www.printables.com/model/172705-bosch-blender-coupli... You could try printing it yourself, or using a 3D printing service to get a replacement. It would be interesting to see how different material options hold up.
  • sydd 4y ago
    Yep, its one of these, but 3D printing will not work here. The original part is some kind of injection molded, ABS or PC with 5-30% glass fiber content. In other words a very strong type of plastic, which was not strong enough for the job. FDM printed parts are inherently much weaker than injection molded ones, simply it breaks very easily between the layers. Even if you print it in the right direction it will be much weaker. Maybe parts printed with continuous glass fibers could hold up with the original part, which was crap in itself. Until there are affordable printers that can print metal this will be crap by design. Or I could buy a CNC that can work with steel :)
• sgtnoodle 4y ago
  I bought a refurbished Blendtec blender a while back. The jar failed after a year and a half; some plastic involved in the blade shaft bearing melted from the blender's own rotation. It's not designed to be replaceable and so I consider it a design flaw. It turns out someone already created a better jar with a significantly more robust, replaceable bearing assembly. It's called the Alterna-jar or something. In total I'm in for about $450 and have a powerful blender that should last for at least the next decade.
• RileyJames 4y ago
  >> “it broke after 8 months” Why are you being asked to pay for a replacement? Isn’t this covered under warranty?
  • aidenn0 4y ago
    Most warranties in the US are only "free from manufacturing defects" so if the gear was manufactured to spec, but just wore out, then it's not covered Also a 90 day warranty is not uncommon
    • RileyJames 4y ago
      There’s a problem. In Australia a 12 month warranty is required. And for “expensive goods” it’s 24 months. I’m not sure where the line is, but an iPhone certainly falls into the expensive category. When those battery woes occurred, Apple was required to replace batteries, and they did.
      • aidenn0 4y ago
        It varies from state-to-state, but "Caveat Emptor" is the general rule of the land in the US. [edit] It's not quite "Caveat Emptor" but rather "perfect-tender" which still requires the buyer to inspect the items with "reasonable promptness"
• syntheweave 4y ago
  Sometimes it's easiest to do without some appliances. Blenders are convenient, but also one more thing to maintain, if only just to clean it. Often there's an alternative to get something premade. Like, I could make milkshakes...or I could take fresh milk and stir it into ice cream. If it's your hobby to cook more elaborately, of course, you still end up in the position of having no quality options. But if you're dealing with something sufficiently disposable, maybe it makes sense to lean into it. Everyone who writes or draws regularly has extra stationary supplies, for example - but not everyone goes down the route of getting a converter fountain pen and filling it with bottled ink. The extra packaging of a disposable pen body is waste, but the all-in-one nature of it makes it portable, fungible. I actually made an attempt to calculate what it would take to replace everything I seriously use in my home recently - all the cookware, electronics, toiletries, furniture, office supplies, clothes, cleaning tools. I estimate that it would be under $15k. Whatever I have on top of that is essentially just purchases that turned into waste - extra clothes, extra furniture, etc. So most of my outgoing costs are strictly recurring service charges: rent, energy, food, transport, insurance, etc. We often get appliances in hopes of beating those service charges, but then it turns into junk. On balance, most things can be done more easily than they used to be with an appropriate mix of product and service. But we also all got on the hedonic treadmill and the promise of living better by buying better. Maybe that's not how to live better.
• dghughes 4y ago
  It's the indifference and apathy that is annoying. Just yesterday I was told "did you check online" from a local business that was complaining that nobody buys local. Or my new hated phrase "ready to ship" on store websites, in other words they don't have it. Why would I get it shipped to them and then have to call when I can just order it direct. Between crap quality, apathetic store staff, and no inventory it's become a pain to buy anything locally or online even just a regular toaster.
• twobitshifter 4y ago
  On Blenders, I got mine from the free/donation pile at the dump. It’s glass, all metal and proudly declares itself “solid state”. It has 14 speeds with a high and low and smells vaguely of ozone when you turn it on. It’s bulletproof.
  • userbinator 4y ago
    About the ozone, you might want to replace the brushes and/or polish the commutator. Blenders of that design use brushed motors, and the brushes are a wear part (although they can last a long time).
    • ornornor 4y ago
      And they’re dirt cheap and usually easily accessible.
• tenpies 4y ago
  > Yes, there is plenty of planned obsolence out there, and one of the greenest things you can do is buy premium stuff that will last you a lifetime The annoying part is that you can end up missing on new features. I look at the Zojirushi rice cooker that I bought in college - a hefty purchase at the time - the Jaguar of rice cookers at a time when I should have been buying the $10 Black and Decker rice cooker. It's still with me, over a decade later, through countless moves, a handful of girlfriend (who all had opinions on it, interestingly), and at least 1,000 bowls of rice cooked. The battery that keeps the time died (I could replace it, but I'd have to take it apart and it's technically non-replaceable), but other than that it's working perfectly. The rice is as good as it ever has been. My oh most first world of problems? A while ago Zojirushi released rice cookers also function as pressure cookers in the same device. I'd love to upgrade so I can quickly make stews in it, but I cannot possibly retire my old one just because it's old. Most likely I'm going to end up having two Zojirushis because well, rice goes pretty well with stew and you can't exactly make both simultaneously. And then in 10 years when they make one that's both a rice cooker, a pressure cooker, and an air fryer; I'll be having this monologue again.
  • steve_adams_86 4y ago
    I have a similar story of buying a zojirushi rice cooker when spending 1/10th as much would have seemed wiser. That was 13 years ago! It turned out to be a great decision because it’s also still going strong. The clock is still good, but now you’ve got me worried that it’s on its way out. I can also relate to your envy of the new models we don’t need.
  • ornornor 4y ago
    > I cannot possibly retire my old one just because it's old. Why not sell it second hand? Someone (even a student like you once were?) will happily extract a decade or more of value from it and you’ll get some of your money back towards the upgrade.
  • lenocinor 4y ago
    Same with my Zojirushi rice cooker, as well as my Zojirushi water heater and thermos. Their stuff has lasted a long time and performed great for me.
• jacknews 4y ago
  The problem isn't just with poor quality, but with integration or lack of modularity/standardization. I've had exactly the same problem with blenders, several times, where for example a small plastic tab that secures the blender bowl to the motor base snaps off, making the whole thing useless. It would not be such an issue if these couplings were standardized in some way, so that you could buy a replacement, other than the manufacturer's hugely price inflated spare part. Contrast the situation with when your PC graphics card or memory stick fails, you can just buy a commodity replacement, rather than junking the whole PC, screen, keyboard. The more philosophical problem of course is that market capitalism's one incentive is to make profit. Making good products is only incidental to that imperative, and clearly not always a requirement.
• sbf501 4y ago
  I try to buy kitchen stuff from kitchen supply stores, not the mall. If you've ever been to a quality restaurant where the kitchen is visible from the seating area, you can see that they don't use fancy-ass pots and pans, because they are very hard on cookware (heavy vollrath aluminum with no coating, no stainless steel!). Same goes with their appliances: if a kitchen is using an appliance, you know it has been abused. I would have tried these first: Light duty: https://www.restaurantsupply.com/waring-wsb33x-quik-stik-7-inch-long-stainless-steel-shaft-light-duty-2-speed-motor-immersion-blender-120v-100-watts https://www.restaurantsupply.com/waring-wsb33x-quik-stik-7-i... Turn it up: https://www.restaurantsupply.com/waring-wsb40-quik-stik-plus-10-inch-long-stainless-steel-shaft-medium-duty-2-speed-motor-immersion-blender-120v-350-watts https://www.restaurantsupply.com/waring-wsb40-quik-stik-plus... Bring the noise!... https://www.restaurantsupply.com/robot-coupe-mp600-turbo-23-immersion-blender-120v https://www.restaurantsupply.com/robot-coupe-mp600-turbo-23-...
  • derefr 4y ago
    On the other hand, some components get so abused in a commercial/industrial setting, that they're considered consumable parts of the machine, making "long life if lightly used" into a complete non-consideration in the design process. You probably don't want a commercial-kitchen dishwasher; IIRC you're expected to have someone in to replace the hoses in them every year or two, because they make those hoses out of plastics that are tolerant to higher temperatures, but at the expense of plasticizer degradation (becoming stiff + brittle) after just sitting around at ambient temperature-and-pressure for a few years. A residential dishwasher, while not able to clean as well, will be able to start up just fine after years of disuse; which is more what you want in a house or apartment that might go years sitting empty.
    • sbf501 4y ago
      I didn't know that. At least it is understood up front! I really would like one of the bar water jets they use for cleaning the mixers/shakers, tho!
    • jcampbell1 4y ago
      Commercial dishwashers work completely differently from home ones. They are designed to use the same water across multiple loads. Home ones clean way better but take 1.5 hours per load rather than the 3 minutes commercial ones use. Have you ever actually used a commercial dishwasher? They are about as similar to a residential dishwasher as a Porsche is to a dump truck.
• timbo1642 4y ago
• totetsu 4y ago
  had exactly the same point fail on a hand blender. the plastic teeth of the gear connecting the motor to the blades. every other part was still perfectly fine, but it's just garbage now.
• RachelF 4y ago
  There's a law of economics [1] that describes how bad products drive out good ones if they look the same: [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gresham%27s_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gresham%27s_law
  • wizofaus 4y ago
    Gresham's law is about (physical) currencies though - while it could arguably be somewhat extended to consumer products, the latter can typically be distinguished readily on more than just their superficial appearance. The fact that it's hard to accurately do so at point of purchase for most consumers is definitely part of the problem though.
  • oigursh 4y ago
    Believe the Market for Lemons may apply: [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Market_for_Lemons https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Market_for_Lemons
• bogota 4y ago
  Its a nightmare anything that will last is now “premium” and top of the line. You spend easily 4x what even a good one costs and then you get something that lasts as long as appliances did 30 years ago. Washers and dryer’s drive me mad not to mention most kitchen appliances.
• hnxs 4y ago
  my vitamix is turning six. i would love to buy the equivalent of a vitamix for anything whenever possible
• ddingus 4y ago
  We had a similar experience tooling up our kitchen. I ended up buying used, high quality appliances from an earlier era. Best move ever! Our Kitchen Aid mixer, for example, is metal construction, has servicable motor parts, and just works. Well, it did get glitchy a month or two back. I took it apart, saw flour everywhere. Hit it with compressed air, greased up some things, cleaned the motor brushes and mating parts, put it back together and it's like new! Toaster, blender, can opener, all the same deal. When I get them, I do a quick test and refurb on them. Doesn't take long, and often I can get parts, depending on what it is. Once I know the device, I feel like I can depend on it. And going used = ultra cheap. It's kind of crazy how cheap. And these things are simple. They have the features they need to and that's kind of it. Attachments are not hard to find either. Worst case it's a bad call. Oh well, try again.
  • rightbyte 4y ago
    I bought a Ankarsrum assistent for the sole reason it was designed in the 40s and comes with 10y warranty for the motor. I am so tired of "cheap" stuff breaking.
• techsin101 4y ago
  I bought a blender off amazon, it literally vaporized in first use. All gears turned to powder
• iforgotpassword 4y ago
  I had the exact same experience with hand blenders! I went for WMF the first time, a brand known at least in Germany for its quality. The connection was plastic too, but even worse: it didn't have a simple snap in mechanism, but you had to rotate it by about 20 degrees after connecting until you heard a click. When my mom visited she didn't know and didn't do it properly, and you could hear an awful sound. Within seconds the plastic connector got completely destroyed. Was also just a couple months old, so I went to the store (yes they have stores in almost every city that's maybe 200k people or more), and they were like "sorry bud, but you can get 10€ off for a new one". WMF is now on my blacklist of "crap companies that use their reputation to sell cheap China crap for a premium". I was so mad I glued together the connector with JB weld and used it for almost another year. Cleaning sucked that way though. Now I always get the cheapest one on Amazon so I don't have any expectations. When I wanted a standing one a couple years later I did that right from the start.
• hnbad 4y ago
  I take it you don't live in the EU? Because regardless of what warranties the seller provides, all consumer electronics generally have a 2 year legal minimum guarantee and the first two blenders you describe definitely would have been covered by it. Bosch would have had to replace that plastic part, not "sell" it to you. I'm not saying this to dunk on Americans. I'm just saying this is a problem that can be addressed with proper consumer protection regulations. Mind you, products will still fail and need to be replaced but this incentivizes manufacturers to aim for 2 years of use rather than 2 months. Of course the real problem is that the broken device becomes your problem once the legal guarantee runs out and electronics waste is just handled in bulk, disregarding the environmental impact and resource waste. All the long-term damage becomes an externality so companies will optimize for limiting the lifetime of components to the least they can get away with because longer lasting products mean fewer sales.
• soco 4y ago
  In the world of 3D printing where the tagline is "the limit is only your imagination" you'd expect to get those plastic replacement parts for a dime but nooo the devices are not even designed to be replaceable...
• Loic 4y ago
  We have a Vitamix at home, in use every morning. After nearly 7 years, the blade block started to leak. They sent a new one. It was very interesting to see how they improved the design of the block in between. As I said somewhere else, first buy cheap, if it fails you know better what you really need and can buy the right expensive stuff. If it does not fail, enjoy your luck.
• xbmcuser 4y ago
  For kitchen appliances you should try to get restaurant grade if you can afford it. Won't solve all the problems but Restaurant appliances are made for heavy use so are more durable compared to home kitchen appliances. Last 1-2 years would have been a good year to get 2nd hand restaurant appliances with the many restaurants going out of business.
• nfhshy68 4y ago
  Your country needs consumer laws. If something craps out like that within a reasonable timeframe for the thing to last you get a refund or replacement. Generally people expect a blender to last for more than a year or two, you'd get your money back after 8 months here easy. Same goes for whiteware that's expected to last more than 5 generally. Shops still somehow sell extended warranties though. Crooks.
• ConceptJunkie 4y ago
  We have a blender that we got from my wife's parents. It probably dates back to the 1950s, and I love it. It's only got two speeds and heavy as anything, but it's probably the most solidly-built appliance I own. I also have one I bought in the early 90s that's fine as well. I don't expect to ever need to buy another one. But you're absolutely right. Buying cheap stuff is bad in so many ways. Since they wear out faster, you end up replacing them much more often, which is environmentally bad, and in the long run, costs more. The problem is that being expensive does not necessarily correlate with lasting long. When our TV died a few years ago, my kids pooled together and bought me a 50" Samsung 4k TV. It's a great device in so many ways, but after 3 years, the backlights started failing. Right now half the screen is dark, and it would cost almost as much as a new TV to get them replaced, with a part that probably costs all of $5 to manufacture. So it's been hanging on the wall for the last year, because I've been too cheap to replace the whole TV, and too scared too attempt the repair on my own, since it involves stripping the thing down to the frame (and removing that enormous panel). I still might try some day. It's worth a $50 gamble to get the TV back. Either that or I'll just replace the darn thing. This TV (like all modern TVs) is a miracle of engineering, and the thing that stopped it from being usable is probably the simplest and one of the cheapest components. My first TV was a hand-me-down from my parents that eventually died in late '88 or '89. It was an RCA from 1968. Then I bought a 26" RCA TV in 1989 and used it until we replaced it with an HD TV in 2012. It still worked fine when we got rid of it, and I was sad to see it go, even though we had no use for it.
  • april_22 4y ago
    Another issue I've experienced with these smart TVs is, that the software becomes extremly slow and almost unusable after a couple of years.
    • lenocinor 4y ago
      Seconded. Don’t forget updating with ads and spyware. I’ve resolved never to update the software on my TVs going forward unless there’s a major bug.
  • dzhiurgis 4y ago
• Cthulhu_ 4y ago
  This is why I'm glad for EU laws; nowadays their objectives is to reduce e-waste. Electronic products now have a mandatory warranty of three years; I believe smartphones and such electronic devices need to have a lifetime of six. But one-year warranties have been a thing everywhere for a long time I believe, so I hope you got your money back for both devices. A good channel on youtube for these kinds of things is AvE, especially his older videos are good breakdowns and explanations of mostly electric tools where the creator points out things like molding, plastics, but also gears and probable failure modes - often a switch or as you mentioned, plastic gears or bad / missing bearings. The best device he had a teardown of was actually the Juicero, a massively over-engineered piece of hardware that was basically an inefficient press - as in, you get more juice just by hand-squeezing/rolling the overpriced Juicero bags. Is that company still in business? If it does I'm sure some SF companies with too much money on their hands are still paying their subscriptions / deliveries. Edit: it is not, they went out of business in 2017.
• adamsmith143 4y ago
  >Yes, there is plenty of planned obsolence out there, and one of the greenest things you can do is buy premium stuff that will last you a lifetime (if you can afford it :/ ) Economically this is almost always the case. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boots_theory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boots_theory
  • LorenPechtel 4y ago
    If you can identify the good boots. That's the problem--quality is hard to identify these days.
    • adamsmith143 4y ago
      Wisdom of the crowd: https://www.reddit.com/r/BuyItForLife/ https://www.reddit.com/r/BuyItForLife/
• jtbayly 4y ago
  Same. Exact. Experience. Mother-in-law has a very old one with a metal coupling. Why can’t I buy one like that?!