When we moved into this place 8 years ago, I went up to a used appliance/repair shop that has unfortunately since went away and bought a matching set of refurbished Maytag washer and dryer for $450, delivered and installed.. After a week we found out the dryer actually worked a little too well, you could smell hot clothes all the way around the house. One phone call, they sent a guy out and he used a hand held temp sensor and confirmed my suspicions that it was actually running way too hot.
An hour later the thermostat was replaced and we have not had one single issue with either one of them other than the plastic switch actuator on the dryer door that always breaks off.
No electronic anything on either one of them, just the old twist and pull knobs.
My Mom has been dead for at least two years now and she went through two sets of washers and driers in 6 years. Samsung expensive as fuck models.
Like $1600 just for a POS washer that didn’t last a full 2 years.
If either one of these units we have shits the bed for any reason, I will pay a premium to have someone fix them.
I absolutely refuse to have electronic appliances.
Why in the fuck would I want my toaster to be able to tell me what time it is in Tokyo or to be able to access my purchase history on Amazon?
I sure as shit don’t need my refrigerator being connected to the internet for any reason whatsoever either.
Keep It Simple Stupid is my operating principal for just about everything I have to deal with and will be until I take the Dirt Nap.
It’s why I drive thirty plus year old vehicles too.
I just posted up over at Irish’s place about my buddy who was thinking it was about time to replace his old truck, so he went down to look at the new Chevy’s. Got in one for a test drive and discovered that the seat belt had to be latched before the shifter could be moved out of Park.
So, he left the shifter in Park and drove the old truck home. BFYTW.
I rented a minivan a year ago. I tried to pull forward with the door open and the thing applied the brakes. It would not move until I closed the door.
That’s okay, Fred, sometimes when using low-low range up/downhill, yet gotta get out and walk beside the vehicle anyway, especially with the homo vehicles that are designed and built in Yankistan. (Cederq even puts a gaybar glitter-ball on his in case people don’t see him coming.)
Your lot hasn’t built a decent 4WD since the late Sixties, you can’t see beyond the bloody mudguards (fenders to Yanks) when you need to study the ground in front of you!
If any makers copy Toyota’s load-sensing seat to run a drive cut-out, you won’t be able to do real bush driving in a new 4 X 4 soon.
Have been a fan of LG appliances and electronics for 20 years. Always been reliable and their return policy was the best. No returning a burnt pixeled out monitor and waiting six weeks for a new one. Return it to the store and they give you a brand new one. Good policy by them imo.
Three years ago we moved to where we are in AB and bought a new fridge, gas stove/oven and microwave. All delivered the same day and installed on the same day.
Two years later the fridge went for a shit…just died. Last week my oven stopped working. A few weeks ago my son pointed out the microwave digital read out was flickering
LG!! What happened to you guys?
Thankfully the fridge had a ten year company warranty and I jumped thru the right hoops and got a full refund minus two years use. Fair enuff. Forgot about one final hoop and couldve got up to $300 for all the food I lost. Got another LG fridge (french doors) and the left side door flap never quite worked right for the last year.
Two days ago the repairman shows up to replace the ignitor in the oven. He used a $60 Fridgedair part instead of the $300 LG ignitor. My fridge had 16 days left on factory warranty and the fridge flap was replaced for free and works properly. As far as the digital readout goes on the MW…$212 for the part. Costco has the same microwave on sale for $200. Ill live with the flicker for now.
Steve in Alberta
These aren’t bugs, they’re FEATURES.
Install surge protectors or better yet, surge protector circuit breakers on all outlets that power ANYTHING with a circuit board in them. Many circuit board issues can be fixed easily with a good magnifying glass and a hot soldering iron.
Speed Queen, expensive but just knobs…
Plan ahead for those treasures.
Locate a wiring diagram and a service manual for both. Some of them actually had the suggested parts inventory list – use that if you have it.
Purchase a seal and impeller kit for the washer, a couple of those special bearings would be in order. Those idiot plastic door hinges are also a nice touch.
For the drier, grab a temperature sensor, a set or two of the drum rollers, a couple belts and a drive pulley.
I may have missed a couple things, but having them around will also act as a Talisman to ward off the evil repair demons.
Ten years ago I wouldve fixed the oven myself. Watched on Ewe toob how to do it and get the ignitor from Amazon.
I dont bend certain ways anymore and if I tried to stick my body into the oven to remove panels etc, would have to call neighbours to help me get back out of it. I am 67 and beat up from years of working heavy construction.
Having repairman come by cost me $170 bucks. Im sure he got equivalent amt from LG to do a warranty repair.
Back in the ’60’s when we only had cans of foam to spray in oven’s I wasn’t happy about the way it looked. So, thinking how easy it would be to take it apart and put back together. So, I took apart and cleaned to a sparkling look and starting put everything back in order. All the while taking care of 2 small children, lunches, cookies and naps. Hubby got home, took one look and asked me what in *** was I doing. I explained, he just looked at me, shook his head and went to the garage. Called him in a couple of hours later for dinner. All I had left over was 1 screw. Worked for over 20 years so I guess that 1 screw was totally necessary. But most of all I never did it again. Way too much work for the result.
You are not alone, good sir. Lot of thoughtful people discovering there is an option other than The Next Big Thing That Will Do Your Taxes While You Defrost Something…
Why won’t the SMOD just show up and get it over with????
washer went out Christmas a year ago with family coming. Lowe’s and Best Buy were selling the latest Korean junk, which had just died. So I took a chance and went to a locally owned store that sold everything. They had Speed Queen which I didn’t know. Bought the commercial brand and it arrived the next day. Big box store best time was two weeks. Nothing fancy on this machine but it is the best appliance I have had in 30 years. Even gets the clothes clean, without a computer.
Go to Repair Clinic for how to videos, they have a symptom cause list as well.
The best place to get parts is Marcone Appliance parts.
Been a multi family service tech/manager for more than 30 years.
Obama started this mess in the name of energy efficiency.
My neighbor has been in business for over 30 years repairing appliances. He’s fixed our old mechanical washer and dryer multiple times. Always tells us not to buy the new electronic crap, if he can’t get parts to fix ours he’ll find us working appliances that can still get parts for.
The ice maker in our fridge quit working. Looked up symptoms on an appliance parts website, ordered replacement ice maker and installed it myself.
Good for you. I fixed the ice maker in my GE a couple of years ago. Lots of help on the internet. It was a fairly easy job.
s everyone has pointed out, fix it, and if I can fix it, I’m real sure you’re more than capable of it.
My dryer conked out two years ago. Did some research and found the needed parts online. The repair was not technically difficult, just a pain in the ass in close quarters. Repair before replace. Watch out for those interior sheet metal parts, they are sharp!
Bought both a .washer and dryer for the new house in 1983, Maytag. As long as I can find parts I’ll keep repairing them. Parts are starting to dry up so that’s a challenge. They are simple to fix unlike the other appliances that I’ve had to buy since then.
Good choice. A friend had a fancy custom home built with state of the art everything, most could be controlled by your phone (WTF?!? Why does anyone want to turn their oven on using their phone?!?)
Anyway, about a month in, the oven wouldn’t turn off. You had to go to the fuse box and throw the breaker to turn the oven off. Turns out the oven needed an over-the-air software upgrade. WTF?!?
So here she is, in this over priced breadbox, where some bored teenager in Ufuckustan can turn her oven on and off at will. Which ever genius at the factory thought that was a good idea should be shoved feet first into some good, old fashioned German ovens.
Place we moved into had a gas range with a computer board in it somewhere. Went glitchy, and we ended up at a local retailer that had a gas range for sale with regular knobs and no computer or electronic doodads on it anywhere. Works great.
Phil, you’re dead right, as usual. After buying a Samsung microwave oven and an LG air conditioner and having them both shit the bed, I won’t be buying any Korean crap to replace my oven, now that it’s shit itself again. Rebuilt the fucker twice already.
Yep guilty, bought that new fangled front loader washer and dryer for the wife when I moved long ago.
Noticed my gym clothes were still a little ripe after drying. Shit washer don’t do the job without agitator. replaced it with the cheapest least automated model with agitator. Problem solved. Didn’t give a shit if they didn’t match. Dryer eventually quit as well.
We have a 1938 GE monitor top fridge. A 1980 GE fridge freezer. 2 mid 70’s freezers. And I drive a 1968 Dodge Power wagon. We also have lots of older mixers, grinders, mills etc. Stuff just WON’T QUIT !
Manufacturers know how to build appliances that will last. They simply don’t want to. No profit in making things that last 10-20 years. We have become a disposable society…and we are about to be disposed of.
I hear ya, brother. We used to know how to make things.
If you will allow, I would like to boast about our three 1950’s refrigerators and our four 1940’s gas stoves (we have rentals and guest houses). Also, may I mention the 1920’s toaster my wife uses each morning – it’s nearly one hundred years old! – and the 1960’s percolator with which she brews our coffee.
They each work perfectly and will all still be running long after we kick it.
Last weekend helping my brother on a 2 year old Hotpoint dryer that wouldn’t heat. It’s a basic switches and timer setup, so should be simple, probably a heating element or perhaps the timer or the thermostat or high temp limits. If you think you take off the back to get into it, you would wrong. Over to YouTube to see, the top, the front and maybe 1 side has to be removed, than the drum has to be removed before you can get to any of the suspect components. If you get to the troubleshooting to get the ohms on the element you discover that GE/Hotpoint, is owned by Haier (red chinks), but assembled in ‘Merica has numerous causes of no heat, such as the purple wire of doom. It appears that this wire sometimes or many times tends to burn up at the terminal to the heating element. The wire is probably undersized and the spade connector might not be crimped correctly or is loose on the element terminal. And the heating element is a 150 dollar item, almost 200 for the assembly with the mounting dish.
And you can get a complete replacement on at the Home Despot for a bit over 400.
If you have to pay for a technician to come and fix it you would be pushing the 400.
A chain is only as strong as its weakest link. That is something to remember when selecting an appliance. I have gotten stung several times on the “Green New Deal.”
LG High efficiency washer, Inverter linear scroll compressor~ refrigerator freezers, and LG air conditioner. Average life span? About two or three years. Anything with a solid state circuit board is sensitive to power surges or low quality components on the board. A $.50 (cent) resistor, diode, or capacitor fails an you are out $200-$300 and up. First to go was an LG washer. It would not turn on due to “Lid not closed” warning. Excuse me? It was closed and would not open due to the solenoid pin staying engaged. I got it open and studied a few online videos. I bypassed the switch for the lid, no joy. Found out a circuit board was over half the price of the machine. My wife complained the clothes took too long to wash and I was noticing the worn spots on the side of the knee area on my blue jeans. Plus, you had to use “High Efficiency detergent.” No bargain there either. I bought a Maytag commercial with analog controls.
Next was the LG ref. Bad compressor. Had it replaced just short of the three year extended warranty coverage we paid extra for. The new compressor only made it two years. I cut one of them open, found black ferrous particles in the oil.
GE refrigerator wouldn’t keep cold so I called for a repairman, who came a few days later. He said, oh it just needs a sensor. Would be four more days to get that. I ordered one, soldered it in, plugged it in, okay. I should have let it run over night.
I put it in the cellar as we ordered another of same model and had a ref back in quicker than the slow, casual repair would take. Why buy the extended warranty when I have one in the basement that was fixed (so I thought.)
We had a power outage so I was running on generators. After that, I noticed the freezer on the newer GE was not staying cold enough, but the ref side was okay.
Called for a repairman (it was just out of warranty by a month or two.) Repair guy plugs a diagnostic blue tooth device into a connector, bottom front, behind the small grill. He couldn’t get a good connection on his cell phone. I am 6 miles from the nearest tower so it’s iffy. He said, “I will have to buy an upgraded phone, and I’ll be back in a couple days.” Never came back, didn’t call, nothing. I know enough to start my own search for answers and found a newer circuit board online for $250. I ordered it, thinking the problem was noticed within a week of using the generator, and the compressor and fan worked okay. I replaced in in under ten minutes and it has been working fine ever since.
An LG 19,000 BTU A/C lasted 3 years with few running hours. A Soleus 6k BTU (it hangs over a window sill) lasted only 2 years. I replaced both of them with 2 Mr. Cool 12k BTU mini-split heat pump/ air conditioners. These are do-it-yourself items and so far, fingers crossed, they have amazed me with their quiet efficiency. But, nobody, and I do mean nobody, will service these units. If one could buy all the parts in these, and had the training, it might be a good niche to fill.
In closing I will say, the Green New Deal involves removing the green $ from your pocket, and handing it to China or maybe Mexico. we can’t control the climate anyway.
I actually have the dryer in this picture.
Bought it used about 3 ago for $85. Works. The one before that was similar, simple, was used when I got it, and lasted 15 years.
Speed Queen.
Speed Queen is still made in the USA and is old school.
They still make the coin-op laundromat machines.
No pansy ass front loader bullshit.
Only issue is that the EPA forced them to delete the
“hot” water wash option. Bought mine before that but
the smarter among us can get around that pretty easy.