Getting long lasting appliances

[tabbypurr]

> > I think the issue is generally that people have no idea how to buy > > long lasting appliances, and no idea when to repair and when to > > chuck. Too many people chuck out good stuff to replace it with > > short lived gimmicky crap. > > What is the secret to buying long lasting appliances then? I've had > back luck with some reputable brands.

This deserves its own thread...

First appreciate the bathtub curve. This gives rise to 2 things

1. don't buy new, get used appliances, and you'll have longer average appliance life, so long as you can assess the thing properly
2. people often wrongly think the bathtub curve means that old appliances should be avoided. Far from, the bathtub is a different length for each appliance model.

1. An appliance that's lasted 20 years has proven it's well enough designed/built to last 20 years.

2. Appliances tend to come in 2 main types: ones where the manufacturer has an eye on what matters, and the gimmicky crap type. Avoid the latter.

1. Assess brands & prices, and choose the best you can find.

2. If you have electronic repair/engineering skills its often worth repairing, and can sometimes find a really good quality appliance that needs a repair - such things on average give far longer service than some new gimmicky crap with a guarantee.

7.Guarantees are only worth a very small percentage of the appliance value. They certainly don't imply quality.

1. When possible, assess the appliance for usability. Well made goosd with well thought out UIs are more likely to last than stupidly designed stuff.

2. Avoid newness disease. This is the usually unrealistic belief that if it's newer it must be better.

1. Don't worry about dirt, clean does not equal quality. Most buyers seem to steer away from good quality stuff if it needs a clean. In the past I've turned some really filthy old things into good long lived appliances.

2. And to state the obvious yet often overlooked, take correct care of the appliance. Read the destructions, if any are available.

I daresay there's more.

NT

[Bob Eager]

Don't assume that because you know of an Acme washing machine that lasted

20 years, a newer Acme model will as well. The company has probably changed hands, outsourced production, etc.

[Andy Burns]

By the time it's ten years old, and the owners are singing its praises, the company will have changed hands, and the new model will have been engineered down to a price ...

[alan_m]

The design engineers will have moved on - production will have been transferred to the country with the cheapest labour costs.

The management may have authorised the fitting of a cheat device :)

Perhaps avoid recommendations from those who claim that brand X is better because their product has lasted 20+ years. They often will have no knowledge of what's currently in the market place because they haven't been researching a replacement.

Don't assume that if a company (brand) is good at making one product they are good at making other products.

It is not unknown for a company to use two technologies in a range of products where one of the technologies is much better than the other. This is not mentioned in the advertising.

Many well respected brands names of old have been sold and are used to badge no-name goods. It is not unknown for boxes with identical innards to be packaged in different cases and with different well known badges to be sold at different prices for those who slavishly have a brand loyalty.

Often top-of-the range products have multiple bells and whistles that

99.99% of buyers never use. Reviews sites often just count the number of widgets and award more stars for a higher number.

These days price may not be an indicator of performance and quality.

[Mr Pounder Esquire]

In a different life I used to repair domestic and commercial refrigeration. I can remember replacing thermostats in LEC fridge freezers that were 25 years old. Before I moved home the compressor in my old larder fridge was 32 years old, I put it in. My Hotpoint fridge freezer is now 7 years old, I'm expecting the stat to fail very soon.

[DerbyBorn]

+1. Don't assume a brand name signifies much.

[Tim Watts]

Possibly why Miele seem to be floating to the top - they are one of the few companies who are still "pure".

It's like shopping in Waitrose vs other supermarkets. IME only:

Many big name supermarkets sell some right s**te - notably fresh produce that has a fridge life of 2 days.

Waitrose has a reputation of being expensive. Well, it is if you buy the top end stuff. But several years ago I ran my Sainsburys shopping list against Waitrose and got a pretty good match on price by choosing the "essential" and "tesco-matched" products - which are generally fine and have a mean fridge life measured in a larger fraction of a week rather than 2 days.

So yes, you can buy a Miele washing machine for >£2000 - or you an buy the basic model for barely a smidge more than some of the other big names.

[Theo Markettos]

Look at appliances like cars. A Jaguar X-type might be a Ford Mondeo underneath, so:

a) get the parts lists and compare b) look at spares suppliers, see if a part for brand A also fits brand B c) see how widespread the aftermarket parts supply is. If wheel bearings for a recent Ford Mondeo are cheap, that either means they are simple, or that owners are changing the things so frequently that volume brings the prices down. That has good and bad sides. d) look for service tools (software, etc) - because if you can talk to it by plugging in your laptop now, you have a hope in 20 years time

Information also has a lifetime. The Kia Brisa wasn't popular on release and has little classic value, so there's not much user community and documentation circulating. Archive service information and software now, while the model is current.

Miele are one of the few that take parts seriously - like a car manufacturer. Like a car manufacturer they aren't cheap.

Others make a half-hearted attempt at parts (bags, elements, etc), but when some key part dies through old age you're on your own.

Avoid unnecessary gizmos. It's better to buy the L poverty-spec car with manual-everything than the GLX version with electric toys that break after a few years. On an appliance these days you probably can't avoid the crummy microcontroller driving the thing, but the more sensors it has the more likely some are to go wrong.

Keep everything as modular as possible. Don't customise worktops, fascia panels, fittings, etc, in a way that will make it difficult to replace the machine should it fail. You don't want to have to replace the kitchen as well as the machine.

And finally, when they start getting cheap secondhand, buy a scrapper and keep one in the shed to rob for parts. Just think, they take up much less space than a car chassis...

Theo

[Johnny B Good]

Sadly, all too true some 35 odd years down the line. Acme must have had a good reputation for quality way back, when the DEC LA180 printer was first designed. The large Acme mains transformer certainly looked the part. I guess, if it was good enough for Wile E. Coyote, it was good enough for DEC.

[soup]

But not (possibly) twenty two.

[Adam Funk]

I dunno, Wile E experienced a lot of technical problems.

[Johnny B Good]

Yeah, but they seemed to be mostly of his own making. One can't help but wonder how much more success and less disasters he'd have experienced if he'd simply had the wit to "RTFM" and 'Think things through'.

However, since the whole point of the cartoon was to generate the 'Slapstick' scenarios, Wile E Coyote's character was destined to be the victim every time. There was never any doubting that ACME's very wide range of products would do 'exactly as it said on the tin'. :-)

[John Rumm]

Engineers might ponder the irony of a thread about acme ;-)

[Tim+]

Getting long lasting appliances is easy.

Buy a bunch of household appliances over several decades. Some will die early, some will last a long time.

Then, forget all about the short lived ones and crow about your ability to pick long lived ones and quote examples of long lived appliances that you genuinely have, through blind luck though, rather than any real ability to pick winners.

Tim

[Adam Funk]

I haven't watched any of those for a while, but I distinctly remember that he occasionally read *at least some* of the instructions --- but not always enough of them. I vaguely recall (or perhaps imagine) that sometimes the cartoon showed an extra page he'd missed or ignored --- perhaps that is cautionary advice to all us DIYers.

A few years ago we went into an "Acme Market" (local supermarket / grocery) in the USA, but my smarter half wouldn't let me ask the customer service people where to find the anvils & dynamite....

[tabbypurr]

I guess there's always the idiot approach

[alan_m]

Only because he didn't read the f***** manual.