After years of hearing about Maytag's great, unbreakable products, and the fact that the Maytag Repairman was "out of work," I remodeled my kitchen and installed new cabinets based on the company's appliance dimensions. I had more or less become a captive buyer.
Not long after, my first two Maytag dishwashers had leaking problems, so I upgraded to a higher-end stainless-steel model. I thought I was free and clear from appliance trouble, but no such luck -- Maytag sold out to Whirlpool. After that move, it was one problem after another in my house. The company moved to outsourced production, which included cheap labor, parts, and maintenance.
I had problems again with the new Maytag stainless-steel dishwasher, and as luck would have it, I neglected to buy the extended warranty. That was a big mistake. After one year and two weeks to the day -- when the standard warranty ran out -- it stopped working. After about three days, I got in touch with the designated Whirlpool maintenance company. They came and installed a new electronic starter that cost north of $300. I kept the old part and went online to find that I could have bought the replacement part for $50 from a store in Boston.
This entry was submitted by Dan McCarthy and edited by Jennifer Campbell.
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As a matter of fact Limericks are a recognized form of poetry just like a sonnet or hyko (sp) is. There is a prescribed beat pattern and rhyme scheme. An alert reader will find an occassional Limerick in Shakespeare. The poems acquired their name from a town in England, Limerick where they were first recorded in print as songs sung in the local taverns.
When I was still teaching English I used to utilize a lesson plan based on limericks to teach students to write with an economy of words. They enjoyed it and were usually proud of their efforts. All of them had to be "CLEAN" and it did help teach them how to eliminate unnecessary verbage.
All appliances should be white. When I first got married, 1967, we bought coppertone kitchen appliances and an avacado washer. By the time we could afford a dryer, avacado was no longer in style so we got harvest gold. When the refrigerator died after 20 or so years we could still buy wierd colors, but none to match anything we had. Guess what, white is still available. Hooray for Speed Queen.
Oh yeah machine shop equipment should be gray, wood burning stoves black, and Kennedy tool boxes brown crinkle paint. There are other standards that should not be fooled with, but that will do for a start.
bob: You are saying what I have been saying for years, we as consumers have repeatedly demonstrated that we want all the bells and whistles and the bottom line better not increase. Why then are we surprised when we get fancy cheap junk?
rickgtoc, I agree with you on extended warranties; my criteria is very much like yours. On one occasion, however, I bought the extended warranty on 2 used vehicles I purchased in 2000. I was glad I did-my wife's SUV battery gave out, the A/C went out, and finally the transmission. My vehicle did the same, usually within 2 weeks of her failures. Best investment I had made in a while on those warranties. This is not a knock against Dodge (Ram 1500 and Durango), but I knew these vehicles had been rentals until I bought them at 18K miles. . .rode hard and put up wet, I suppose. My truck is still running A-OK (fingers crossed).
rickgtoc, I agree with you on extended warranties; my criteria is very much like yours. On one occasion, however, I bought the extended warranty on 2 used vehicles I purchased in 2000. I was glad I did-my wife's SUV battery gave out, the A/C went out, and finally the transmission. My vehicle did the same, usually within 2 weeks of her failures. Best investment I had made in a while on those warranties. This is not a knock against Dodge (Ram 1500 and Durango), but I knew these vehicles had been rentals until I bought them at 18K miles. . .rode hard and put up wet, I suppose. My truckis still running A-OK (fingers crossed).
"it's amazing how the F-word translates across boundaries!"
Way off topic; I was at an airport in some foreign land, you know, I don't even remember where, other than a mixture of strange languages reverberated in the air. In a washroom stall I glanced at some graffiti on the wall, also is a strange language, it read something like this:
da dada da dada da da
da dada da dada da da
da dada da da
da dada da da
da dada da dada da da
Oh my lord, it was a limerick! I couldn't make out the word Nantucket anywhere in there, but it was a limerick, just the same. I had no idea it was an international art form.
Funny you mention sugar. My mom always bought ten pound bags. I don't bake nearly as much as she did, so I bought a five lb. bag. Just imagine my surprise to pull a 4 lb. bag out of my shopping bag when I got home.
Planned obsolescence is the cry of the modern manufacturer. Gone are the days of making a good product, then making it better... or is it? Someone so accurately mentioned Apple as having good quality products. Yea... that is the American way, right? Apparently, the American way of manufacturing and quality has 2 avenues to increase profits.
Make a good product, then when the public adopts it and you have a successful brand... you need to make MORE and MORE money, so...
1) To make more money you start using cheaper parts to make your product, effectively getting an inferior product, and try to fool the public as long as you can. Alternatively, you can make your product or quantity smaller and smaller in increments, maybe no one will notice. Similarly, you replace your natural ingredients (like sugar) with some manufacturing (and dirt cheap) waste product like HFCS.
2) You have cheaper slave labor build your product in another country (like APPLE), where you can pay you slaves almost nothing to build your product. Additionally, you won't have to worry about factory working conditions, worker safety, harmful emissions, or government regulations. Workers will never strike or sue you for the way they are treated or injured on the job. Then you can sell your quality product for 4 times the price of everyone else's product, as if it actually cost you more to build.
We remodeled our kitchen and selected a five burner GE stove - the kind with a large griddle plate in the middle. We also purchased the Extended Warranty from the retailer, Best Buy. The extended added 3 years onto the manufacturer's standard - 1 year if I remember correctly.
As with all modern gas stoves, this model used an ignitor and spark gap. From a few months in, burners would not reliably ignite - we kept a box of matches nearby.
GE service sent a local repairman who spoke more Russian than English - but it's amazing how the F-word translates across boundaries! He replaced the ignitor, the tubing, the spark points, the power cord, even the knobs. He even tried an ignitor that looked more like an oil burner transformer, complete with ceramic insulators and weighing over 40 pounds.
The stove was designed as a sealed top and required that the entire top be hinged back to service - very carefully - as the designers at GE used aluminum tubing with minor S-bends in them. The idea being that the bend would be the flexure point - only being aluminum, you can only flex it so much.
On his last (and I emphasize last) service call, he replaced half the tubing with items from his truck as they were showing pronounced cracking. And wouldn't you know it, to show us of his acheivement and design prowess, as soon as turned the knob and the ignitor sparked, a huge flame rocketed out the side of the stove singing the countertop and cabinets.
At the time, Best Buy has a Lemon Guarantee: that if something breaks down more than three times, you get full credit. As this was the Fourth repair (and first fire) for the same problem, I called and demanded a new stove. "Oh, No, Mr. Bloom. It has to be for three DIFFERENT problems! Not three repairs of the same one!"
Like (heck)! I filed a complaint with the California Department of Insurance (extended warranties, at least in California, are considered Insurance. Within a week, I picked out a new stove at Best Buy's expense - a Whirlpool. It's been 7 or 8 years now and it works just like it was brand new.
Here's to keeping the home fires burning - just in their proper place!
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