Posted on 02/21/2024 8:21:39 AM PST by ChicagoConservative27
Between 2013 and 2023, Americans’ spending on home appliances jumped 53 percent. Adjusted for inflation, that’s an annual increase of $390 to $558. But the cost of appliances decreased by 12 percent during that same time.
How is that possible?
Well, as the Wall Street Journal explains, one “reason for the discrepancy between [higher] spending and [lower] prices is a higher rate of replacement[.]”
Over a mere two years, “Yelp users … requested 58% more quotes from thousands of appliance repair businesses last month than they did in January 2022.”
“We’re making things more complicated, they’re harder to fix and more expensive to fix,” one expert in appliance repair told the Journal. This means that when “a complicated machine fails, technicians say they have a much harder time figuring out what went wrong.” And when the problem is finally diagnosed, “consumers are often left with repairs that exceed half the cost of replacement, rendering the machine totaled. ”
(Excerpt) Read more at breitbart.com ...
I wonder if it now makes sense to buy the extended warranty. They’ll probably have some way to weasel out of honoring it, though.
My $650 LG electric stove from Bestbuy needed a new temp controller for one burner recently......at $140 if I need to replace the other 3 controllers it would be about as cheap to just buy a new stove.
If you can find ‘em - k.i.s.s.
Get the most manual appliance you can.
I just bought a couple of ten year old used ones, just to get an agitator and simplicity.
Just put a new belt and rollers on the Kenmore dryer i bought in 1989. And had to replace a knob on the matching washing machine. They will probably outlast me.
I bought a dryer at Kmart over a decade ago. Still going strong.
I noticed that the new refrigerators are really poorly constructed compared to those from 30 years ago. I can’t image they’d last even half as long.
“I wonder if it now makes sense to buy the extended warranty.”
Sellers of extended warranties expect to make a profit at your loss.
We’ve actually had very good luck with appliances. We bought a house in 1983 that was built in 1952. The kitchen was remodeled in the mid 60s, we think. We kept that refrigerator for another 35 years, so it was probably close to 50 years old!
We replaced it around 2010 with a new GE upper-lower with bottom freezer and the only thing wrong with it has been the ice maker.
We bought a house in Idaho with a Sub-Zero upper/lower that the previous owners installed about 12 years ago and it’s running fine.
We’ve got Bosch dishwashers in both houses and they are working fine.
The only failure we’ve had is on a Maytag Neptune front-load clothes washer that’s about 20 years old. The hot water cotton cycle occasionally fills the tub with water and the cycle doesn’t complete. But all the other cycles run fine. I bought a replacement control board for $90 that I need to install (it’s a used one as original parts are no longer available).
Two microwaves, ovens, range, and gas cooktop all work great. Replaced one microwave after about 40 years!
So, surprisingly, I can’t complain about our appliances. I count myself as fortunate.
I’ve had issues with 4 different Whirlpool brands appliances, some quite high end, between this house and my son’s. I wouldn’t buy anything they make at this point.
And your regulatory morons in DC are part of the problem. They’ve made it so appliances don’t operate well. If they’re going to do anything (arguably they shouldn’t), they should be focusing on longevity and repairability of the device so it doesn’t end up in the landfill prematurely, vs. water and energy use when operating.
We bought a Speed Queen washer last year. Cost quite a bit more than most other washers, but I think it’ll last a while. As you said, we got the model with the least electronic stuff we could find. It’s not completely manual-everything, though.
Yes, I know, which is why I have never bought them. If a machine is going to break down, though, I’d rather it do so while still under some sort of warranty. In the past, I could generally count on an appliance to last a while.
Dryer does not have as many parts to go wrong as a washer. 9 of 10 times, the washer will die first.
The completely manual kit has a box of rocks to place in the stream.
Here is my 2 cents worth. Avoid over loading the washer. Better to do 3 wash load instead of 2 bigger loads.
The streams around here only flow during really heavy rains, plus they generally have lots of rocks in them already.
Good advice, and how we do it.
They’re ripping everyone off with Chinese junk appliances, most all these new appliances are nothing but junk from China and Korea.
I chose the simplest, most basic model I could find, and checked the on-line reviews which generally said it was a very reliable model. It's the bells and whistles that cause the most problems.
I have learned to buy appliances with the fewest number of bells and whistles possible. Those features are always the first thing to go out and they decrease the usable life of the appliance.
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