FML: Failed home appliances

Yep, bad luck streak continues for my family. Not one or two but three appliances in my home failed this month. Washing machine, microwave and dishwasher. Repair guy just left. Said washing machine is fixable for $200 (already paid him to fix). Microwave (no longer heating food) and dishwasher (heating element is stuck to on and won't turn off) is not worth fixing. Said GE profile kitchen appliances parts are stupid expensive. Anyone agree with his suggestion? He basically said go buy anything new that is not a GE appliance.

In the past two and a half years I've fixed my dryer, my oven, my microwave, and myy dishwasher (twice). In all cases but the dryer I ordered parts from the internet and installed them myself. For the dryer I bought a used heating element from a local used appliance/junk guy because I didn't want to wait for a new part to arrive.

My guess is that with a little digging on the internet and appliance parts direct or some other website, you can diagnose and repair these yourself and save a bundle.

I had to replace a big capacitor in my microwave. It was a relatively trivial repair - the hardest part was getting the thing opened up and out of the wall so I could access it. My oven stopped heating and it took a few minutes to determine it was not the actual heating elements. I ended up having to replace the main control board. A little tougher to do then the microwave capacitor, but not rocket science. That part cost be a bit, but way less than a new microwave and over (mine are combined into one unit stacked on top of each other).

Yep, my Microwave from 2006 started acting up last year and basically wouldn't heat food, just spin the turn table and run the timer.

A little investigation online and it was one of the 3 door switches that failed. Once I replaced $12 switch, its worked great (even the light works reliably again, so it was a bad switch from day one that finally failed completely).

I also had a electric latch on our front loading washer fail and cause it to stop spinning. $36 for a new latch and its been working ever since.

If you're moderately handy, you can generally repair quite a lot of appliances on your own.

I'm an appliance repair guy. Yes GE parts are stupid expensive, and their appliances suck, even when working as they are intended. You can't "fix" them, just make them work as well as they ever did. If you replace them, don't get GE stuff, especially since It just sold the appliance division to a Chinese company. Also don't buy Samsung or LG products for exactly the reason stated above. They also don't provide parts beyond 5-7 years, and when you can get parts they are the wrong ones half the time. Also avoid Bosch. Any of those 4 brands are basically throw always, despite the high cost. Kenmore tends to be rebadged LG these days, too.

If you want kitchen appliances, your best bet is whirlpool products, also badged as maytag, Amana, kitchen aid. Some Amana fridges had compressors made by Tecumseh and they fail REALLY quick, so maybe avoid those, some of the fancier fridges with dual evaporators leak freon after a few years, so avoid those. The cheap plastic tub maytag however is an old maytag design and is probably your best bet for reliability and serviceability later on, assuming parts are available. Also don't get a whirlpool spark ignition gas whirlpool oven, they have ignition problems in the oven. It can be fixed, but reengineering a new thing shouldn't be required...

LG and Samsung microwaves seem to have wiring problems, probably a good idea to avoid those.

For washing machines, get a speedqueen toploader. If you must have a front loader, speed queen or whirpool.

I won't contradict Rufledt because I have never repaired mine, but I'm pretty happy with my Samsung stove (note: came with house). It has a dedicated button for chicken nuggets.

In reply to slowride: stoves don't have many moving parts, so they aren't as much of an issue. If you need to fix it, read up on whirlpool ovens, they are dead ripoffs.

Edit: also chicken nuggets are the bomb. I'm hungry now

In reply to Sine_Qua_Non:

Not sure if there's a Menard's anywhere near you(or if they even still have them) but we picked up a microwave oven there last fall for $40 and it's still working great. We don't really "cook" much, so it gets the most use of any of our appliances.

What are the issues you've seen with Bosch appliances? (And which ones?) I have a Bosch dishwasher, washer, and dryer and have been beyond pleased with them. The washer and dryer are about 9-10 years old and the dishwasher is 4-5 years old. Best home machines I've ever owned and even if they popped tomorrow I would replace them with Bosch.

Best part is they were all made in the USA.

The thing that I can add here is that if you can find an OEM part number, type that into the Amazon search bar. Appliance parts is actually how I started using Amazon. They haven't let me down yet.

I've repaired a bunch of home appliances through Repair Clinic. They have great videos of how to disassemble and troubleshoot, and their parts are reasonably priced (with quick shipping). Fixing my own appliances has saved me several thousand dollars over the last few years.

Pretty much echo what all the others said. I've had to fix a few appliances, and as a total novice, YouTube and parts websites learned me enough to fix two washers and two dryers.

However if you need to replace, check for your desired model number on eBay. My house has a small dishwasher, and everywhere local and Amazon were $500+ for the one we liked. Got it new in box from eBay for $329 or $349 with free shipping. Seller had tons of positive feedback, and so far we are very happy with it

dculberson wrote: What are the issues you've seen with Bosch appliances? (And which ones?) I have a Bosch dishwasher, washer, and dryer and have been beyond pleased with them. The washer and dryer are about 9-10 years old and the dishwasher is 4-5 years old. Best home machines I've ever owned and even if they popped tomorrow I would replace them with Bosch. Best part is they were all made in the USA.

I wasn't clear, I mentioned Bosch as a throw away (i.e. intentionally not meant to be fixed), but they do seem work when they work. however the company takes a different approach to make them not serviceable, as opposed to the other ones mentioned. LG makes it hard to get parts, Bosch makes their appliances fall apart on disassembly (plastic snapped together dishwashers for example). Also they have straight up sued some websites we subscribe to (that offer extra info, real tech manuals, additional info on non-usual problems, etc...), so it's more of a personal beef. We have ripped apart a few bosch appliances out of curiosity, and wow are they cheaply snapped together, but they do work while they work.

I did not know about the suing tech manual websites. That really sucks; I hate companies that do that.

In reply to Rufledt:

I am amazed, back when I was selling for Sears (2008ish) I wouldnt have touched a maytag fridge with a 10 foot pole. We were seeing a 50% return rate due to failures.

Back then Kenmore was rebadged Whirlpool though...

They all seem to make things to be less and less serviceable though.

HappyAndy wrote: The thing that I can add here is that if you can find an OEM part number, type that into the Amazon search bar. Appliance parts is actually how I started using Amazon. They haven't let me down yet.

also check sears parts direct. my new stovetop was $30 less with a promo code than amazon. my wife left the burner on high with an empty pan on it. melted the glass to the pan.

i believe appliances are made nowhere near as good as they were 25 years ago. that's why 25 year old dishwashers still work and 5 year old ones puke. especially so with microwaves. it actually took 3 tries to get a brand new one that worked. they build them to last X years so you buy new ones all the time.

In reply to Apexcarver:

Yeah when maytag was going under they did a whole bunch of stupid things, one of which was to buy a bunch of dirt cheap crap from LG and some others and rebadge it. That garbage died fast, maytag went under for good, and whirlpool bought it up. One good thing maytag did was sell off speed queen to some company in Canada. Because of that, speedqueens are still unchanged. You could bet whirlpool would've scrapped the old water guzzling design.

patgizz wrote: i believe appliances are made nowhere near as good as they were 25 years ago. that's why 25 year old dishwashers still work and 5 year old ones puke. especially so with microwaves. it actually took 3 tries to get a brand new one that worked. they build them to last X years so you buy new ones all the time.

QFT. The newer ones are still serviceable, but in the same way new cars are serviceable. It's sometimes a much bigger pain than it needs to be, but they break frequently so it's good for business I guess? we just tell people to fix their old ones until parts aren't available anymore.

slowride wrote: I won't contradict Rufledt because I have never repaired mine, but I'm pretty happy with my Samsung stove (note: came with house). It has a dedicated button for chicken nuggets.

I find that the more E36 M3 it does, the more E36 M3 breaks. Ive got a 5 year old. I can cook chicken nuggets in my sleep.

Though admittedly ive been guilty of attempting to hack the smart samsung fridge at best buy with a tv in it, so i can make it do E36 M3 the appliance guys won't like.

Our microwave puked after 15 years. It was a Sharp, but the display died after a couple of years, so we just punched in a number and let it go. Searching for a replacement it seems ALL microwaves are made in China. So we got this Amana. They have these in the break room at work and they take a pounding and keep going. Hopefully it will work for several years. Plus it's simple, just set the time.

Our refrigerator is from the 80's. It's power hungry, but still works great. I'm cringing having to replace it.

Amana @ Webstaurantstore.com

In February a tree partially took the lines down leading to my house. It caused 240 volts to go through my house and it fried a bunch of things. Microwave, convection oven, portable phone base station, ceiling fan. I have to say that everything that was on a serge protector was ok. A couple of the power strip protectors melted but they did there job and saves all my home theater stuff and the entertainment system up stairs along with a bunch of phone chargers.