It’s nice to see people happy with their Whirlpool products, since I work for them.
I work the line that runs the matching dryers for the top loading maytag washers. I can say that in the year or so we’ve owned them, the quality has gone up a bit. Some of the parts that were outsourced and the way they looked made one think “no wonder we bought them out”.
I’m sure cars are the same way(matrix/vibe prizm/corolla, etc.), but appliances are really “6 of one, half dozen of another”. Basically you’re paying for a name on a console panel, some wires, and a couple options.
help keep me in a job; buy Whirlpool brand appliances(Roper, Estate, Ingles, Kenmore, Whirlpool, Maytag, Amana, Kitchenaid, Magic Chef, etc.)
Don’t worry! I am a confirmed Whirlpool customer, and I have educated my family and friends about their superior products also. I hope to keep you folks in Benton Harbor working for many years to come.
The handwriting is on the wall for ANY device that depends on complex electronics to operate. Automobile, washer, copying machine, TV, whatever. After 10 years, parts availability becomes difficult (if there ever was any parts availability) and repair costs usually exceed the price of a new item.
So I guess you could say ALL consumer products are disposable.
When Americans can no longer afford to PAY for fancy computerized devices, they will be supplied with the same basic items sold in Third World countries today. You can still buy a manual, wringer washer in Mexico today…
One day far into the future when some person decides that his/her 05 Camry/Malibu/Accord with a dead unreplacable computer is a car of interest after all and therefore needs restoring, I can envision a universal interface module that connects engine inputs and outputs to a laptop or a PC to run the engine. Never underestimate the ability of the aftermarket to come up with what is needed.
Got a dead 05 Benz or a 08 Cadillac CTS in 2050 that you want running? There will be a way!
When I moved into one of my first apartments about 17 years ago they had Servel air conditioning—they were natural gas powered “absorbers” filled with ammonia and cooled the building very well. They seemed ‘bulletproof’ Until the building changed hands and someone didn’t drain the water that ran through the heat exchangers. So they froze and destroyed two of the three units. (one never worked anyway) They replaced them with electric chillers and after that had nothing but trouble several times a year.
Since the topic has already drifted from cars to kitchen appliances, I thought I’d mention the Oster electric can opener my parents received as a wedding gift in 1958 that still hangs in my mother’s kitchen and likely will start its 51st year of service in November.
The first automatic washers were front loading and made by the Bendix company. Top loading washers didn’t come along until the late 1940’s as I remember. It’s interesting that we are going back to the Bendix design.
I’ll chime in with the 49 year old Vornado window fan my father bought when I was a baby (he could afford it with the money he saved keeping his '48 Plymouth). That fan did duty in the house I grew up in and now pulls air through the house I’m currently in, on those not too how summer nights. That baby is all metal except for the push button controlls and it move an enormous amount of air for the 200 watts it consumes. It’s aerodynamically designed with a cowl around the blades. It’s got a fully enclosed six pole capacitor run motor and direct drive. I replaced its power cord about 20 years ago.
The electronics of ANY device SHOULD be the part that lasts forever. It’s the mechanical parts that fail. The electronics are also the cheapest part (at least to manufacturer) by far.
Front loaders have always had reliability and safety problems, that is why they fell out of favor. They need very good seals hat in older designs had to be replaced frequently and if a kid was playing around one of them during the spin cycle and accidently opened the door, it could rip him/her apart.
The new front loaders haven’t really been around long enough to establish a reliability record, but the early imports did not do too well. They are supposed to be safer now though.
The thing about them that gets me is that almost every laundry room in every house in the US was designed with the washer on the right as you face it. All the front loaders are designed to be on the left. If you buy a front loader, you have to buy extended hoses etc. to swap sides. This is not what I’d call good design.
VDC: I’m actually in the Marion, Ohio dryer plant.
They say we’re the largest dryer plant around, but I don’t really have the data to back it up. I’m not sure who it was that brought the colors back, but we’re goin head strong into that market. Red, blue, yellow(bique), green, white, black, silver, and now brown of all colors. Course, most of the colors are on the Kenmore Elite/HE dryers, so you’re gonna pay a bit more for that model.
Mike: My uncle has an Electrolux uni-unit(washer and dryer is just a single unit, no transferring clothes to dry), says when it works, it works good, but it doesn’t work worth a crap much. Company called him up and wanted to know if he wanted to trade up for a new one.
I have one of those Maytag commercial top loaders and a Whirlpool dryer. I like the bottom hinged dryer door better than the side hinge models. If you have any pull with the engineers there, see if you can get them to look into reversing the doors on the front loading washers and side hinged driers so they work in the majority of American laundry rooms. I will not buy a front loader until this design defect is addressed.
I know what you mean about the pull down doors for the dryer, I love mine. Unfortunately, all the Maytag top loader(washer) dryers are side swing. I believe you are able to get the doors reverse hinged, atleast on the front load(washer) dryers you were able to, and the top loaders have little plastic tabs to allow for reverse hinging(don’t ask me how you’re gonna get them out without scratching paint though).
Despite the majority of the Maytag runs, I will recommend against getting one with a porcelain top if you can avoid it(the red(front loader) is actually powder coated instead of porcelain). Once porcelain chips, it’s a nasty mess, and it is pretty easy to chip. Not as easy as when Whirlpool first took over(I swear you could sneeze on it and it’d chip), but you got kids that like to throw things around and it’s good bye porcelain. Atleast with paint, you can buy a model kit brush and repaint it good as new.
Wel-l-l-l-l-l, electronics are a mixed blessing. The more integrated they are, the cheaper they are to manufacture (and in general, more reliable), but when they break (and, in my personal experience, they will at some point) you’ve got to replace a big hunk. Most consumer electronics are not repairable without replacing a big chunk of the innards, and so are essentially disposable. It is a point to worry about in cars that they’re becoming more computerized. Sure, the benefits (cost, mileage, emissions) are tremendous, but in an old car if that computer goes, are there going to be aftermarket parts available to replace it? Unlike mechanical parts, electronic circuits are frequently protected by copyrights, making it difficult to reverse-engineer them like you would a mechanical widget. Plus, who has the patience to open up an integrated circuit and figure out how to reverse-engineer it? We may indeed be getting to the point where cars become disposable because some electronic gizmo crapped out, and that will be bad.
