lansbury

In 2009 we remodeled the kitchen. So far this month the microwave stopped working, not worth repairing if I could even work out what was wrong. Then the oven kept turning off at 350 degrees, research online gave a clue as to what it might be. Spent ages tracking down someone who had the part in stock, and waited 2 weeks for it to arrive. Repaired oven Tuesday.

This afternoon a puddle appears under the dishwasher. Spent the afternoon on my hand and knees trying to find the source of the leak. Had a new bottom door seal so changed that, still leaks. Cannot see anywhere the water is dripping from, but the puddle keeps getting bigger. Had to admit defeat and call the local repair guy. Now we have to hope that whatever it is they have parts in stock, as both parts and new appliances are in short supply due to covid.

3 out of 4 appliances lasted 11 years.

scrubbedexpat091

11 years isn't too bad.

Google tells me the average lifespan of a modern dishwasher is 6-12 years.

Microwave about 7 years.

They certainly don't build em like they used to.

When my grandmother died in 2004 or 2005, she had a fan from the 1960's, still worked, and here I am lucky if a modern fan lasts me 3 years, sometimes 4.

moneypenny20

The husband was an airport firefighter for British Aerospace back in the 80s. The factory had a garage sale type thing to get rid of 'stuff'. He bought home a computer and a dehumidifier. The computer lasted about a year - well it was still going, just had the memory of a gif! . The dehumidifier is still going and since we've been in Aus, we've had it running nearly every day. He's had to replace the fan a couple of times and it's now quite noisy but bloody hell it's a solid piece of kit, I can only just pick it up. I went out looking for a replacement and absolutely nothing, regardless of cost, comes close to the quality of this one,. We're going to be gutted when it finally dies.

robin1234

My mother in law married in 1946, so quite a few things we still use are of that vintage. Three electrical things that we use regularly - Electrolux vacuum cleaner, still works perfectly and is really powerful. In the kitchen, we use her “meat grinder” not for meat, but I use it once a year to grind up potatoes for potato latkes at Hanukkah. Then we have her big, heavy, cast iron electrical griddle that we use to make pancakes (and the potato latkes.)

We also use several of her vintage Pyrex bowls, these round, colored ones for instance.

KarlieBoe

Built In Obsolescence is the worst. I’m trying to “retire” young, and everything breaking all the time makes this goal harder. Btw, I put retire in quotes because I don’t really plan on doing a do-nothing retirement, I just want a slower pace.

Pulaski

As per Jsmth, 11 years for a dishwasher is about typical - we recently gave up on a Bosch D/W after 14 years when the circulation pump failed. Replacing the pump would have been easy, however the "flood resistant" design, placing all the mechanical parts in a sealed plastic tray underneath the main washing tub meant that the only way to replace the pump was to dismantle the machine, removing the tub off the tray - which meant a couple of hours of labour, making the process economically unviable. I actually still have it and might have a stab sometime at taking it apart myself and replacing the pump, assuming one is available, so then we'll have a spare dishwasher, because who couldn't use a spare dishwasher?

About 8 years ago I had a fridge fail after 5½ years (I am so glad that I hadn't bought the 5 year extended warranty on that one, though I have never, and will never by an extended warranty, on any appliance, full stop), and after coughing up $70 for a call out fee to have the tech declare that it was a refridgerant leak that wasn't repairable (actual location couldn't readily be identified), I have sworn to never call a technician to a fridge again, as I would sooner put the call-out fee towards a new fridge.

Our ten-year-old cooker had the oven fan fail, and it cost us about $250 to replace that earlier this year, about a tenth the cost of replacing it (it's an induction cooker, or at least the rings are). I could have probably done that myself, but didn't really have the time.

IMO microwaves are in the same category as kettles and toasters - dirt cheap to buy new and pretty much unrepairable, even if you wanted to.

scrubbedexpat091

I hate the extended warranties, especially at Best Buy where they really push them hard. When I bought my pc a year or 2 ago they were pushing the extended warranty hard, it was like $200, but the damn computer was only $399, no flipping way I am spending $200 for a warranty on a $399 computer....plus the first year is covered by the manufacturer, and eh never had a computer actually break hardware wise, it's always some Microsoft Windows problem, if I get 3 years from a PC, I am good to just buy a new one.

Wal-Mart is on the extended warranty thing too, bought a $20 electric coffee maker, their self check out asked if I wanted a $15 3 year warranty, um no.

When we bought our car it was used a year old, but still had 3 years left on the manufacturer warranty which was transferable, the dealer spent at least an hour trying to convince me to buy the extended 5 year 100,000km warranty, so glad we turned the offer down, never had an issue and that extended warranty would be no good now, and eh now is the time when things will start breaking.....

mrken30

I had to fix our dishwasher due to a high pitch squeal that I couldn't hear. Ended up costing me $200 for complete new innards. It was a very easy job and would probably do it again. If it wasn't the fact that it was $1000+ to replace, I would have got a new appliance. However $200 is cheap to buy peace with the rest of the family.

I have found that Lowes does reasonable extended warranties, I think it was $99 for 5 years on $1200 fridge. I also use my credit card often to get the extra year free warranty on a lot of things.

The car warranty I bough online for about 1/3 of the cost the dealership wanted to charge.

Generally I avoid paying for extended warranties though.

Pulaski

I have never paid for an extended warranty on anything ever, and in all the appliances I have ever bought I have only ever had one fail within 5 years. By my calculation I am already several $'000's ahead even after having to buy a new $900 washing machine to replace one that failed after 2½ years.

We did sit through an extended pitch by "the finance guy" at a Honda dealer when we bought Mrs P's current Accord, back in 2017. The successive pitch of five or six different optional Honda warranties reached the level of farce when we were offered some sort of additional drive train warranty that would cover, among other things, a replacement clutch. The finance guy told us, with a straight face, that "clutches don't last longer than about 60,000 miles". I responded by telling him that we had another Accord at home on the drive that had its original clutch and 320,000 miles on the clock. The finance guy said nothing, shuffled his papers and moved on to the next warranty program.

mrken30

The car warranty was just over $200 a year which included breakdown coverage for those years. I have had little problems go wrong with almost every car I have had over the past 20 years, I like it for peace of mind. From a courtesy light to a door motor. Door motor was about $1000 each side. Also with so many electronics on cars, which are fairly reliable, I was OK with the price as it covers everything on the car. It costs almost $200 before any repairs. Plus, it gives me access to free rental if they cant repair it.

It's just a peace of mind thing, not an economical decision.

Pulaski

That make sense.

Lion in Winter

My mother had one of those Electrolux vacuums. They looked like art deco trains and weighed a ton.

She never used cast iron, but we now now old cast iron things (Griswold) to cook on. Lovely stuff, but a pain to deal with because of the seasoning, rusting etc etc.

Owen778

Nice!

I would have been tempted to stand up and say "Thank you for admitting that to us, that was a near miss. We'd better go to the Toyota dealership."

robin1234

Yeah the Electrolux is heavy. It is an object of beauty though. We have five different vacuum cleaners, in different parts of the house, so we never have to schlep them too far (massive Victorian pile we live in.)

lansbury

Well it was the pump and motor that were leaking, plus they found some other parts broken, the door springs for one. Cost of parts wasn't far short of a cheap new dishwasher, and if I had them do the repairs 60% of the cost of reasonable one.