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This topic comprises 3 pages: 1 2 3
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Author
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Topic: Domestic appliance conspiracy theory
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Tony Bandiera Jr
Film God
Posts: 3067
From: Moreland Idaho
Registered: Apr 2004
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posted 03-19-2016 11:14 AM
That is true Mike, but the problem I have with the new gen dishwashers is that because they have to run longer, they use over DOUBLE the electricity of an older model machine....
In many areas, the electricity costs a LOT more than the water does. (Very true here where I live.)
And as I mentioned before, they don't clean worth a damn. (To get truly clean dishes from a new d/w, you HAVE to pre-rinse so much that you've now wasted MORE water than the old units used ..so double whammy.) And THAT is also more wasted time. (also note that they "save water" by using half of what the old ones did, so your dishes are simply being run longer in twice as dirty water.)
Leo, thanks for naming the brands. I am surprised that the Samsung dryer had issues..
And to everyone who has newer appliances....a very wise investment is to add whole-house surge protectors to your main breaker panel (and if you have a subpanel serving any appliances, add one there too) as well as point of use (ie plug in) surge protection to 120v appliances.
Most brands of breaker panels make "plug-on" or circuit breaker style units that use two spaces in the panel. Those are an easy DIY install. If you have no open spaces in your panel, there are "hardwired" versions, but those require an electrician to install. (Even so, that added cost is, IMHO, still worth it to protect your appliances ...as a bonus, ALL of your home electronics get protected as well.)
Total cost for the protectors will be around $100-200 total, well worth it.
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Randy Stankey
Film God
Posts: 6539
From: Erie, Pennsylvania
Registered: Jun 99
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posted 03-19-2016 12:44 PM
The way I understand, most household appliances are made by two companies, Electrolux or Whirlpool and they are basically all the same except for, maybe, exterior design and the brand label. All the companies we used to know like General Electric, Westinghouse, Tappan, Amana, etc., etc. have been bought and sold so many times that nothing remains but the name and the label that gets slapped on as the product rolls off an assembly line.
It's same with the consumer electronics brands we all used to know like RCA or Zenith. They exist in name only. The same with Polaroid. You can't really buy an RCA product, anymore.
So, it doesn't surprise me to hear somebody say that "XYZ" brand appliances suck... because they ALL suck... they are all the same except for the label.
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Leo Enticknap
Film God
Posts: 7474
From: Loma Linda, CA
Registered: Jul 2000
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posted 03-19-2016 04:09 PM
I'm not passing judgment on the reputation of individual brand names, here. An otherwise reputable brand that usually has good quality control associated with it can have a bad day with a design decision on an individual model (Ford Pinto, anyone?) or a part that went into a complete production run, and started to fail prematurely once in the field. I'm not willing to write off an entire brand on the basis of one bad experience, even if the brand name were a reliable indicator of who actually made the thing.
I have to confess that I was wondering if this was what happened here. This model of Samsung dryer was released, sold at the full price as a gleaming new model, then the motors started to go out in significant quantities, and Samsung thought, "Oh, bugger - we've got another 256,098 of these sitting in the warehouse - what do we do with them? I know - make Home Depot and Lowe's offers they can't refuse to take them and sell them as sale or special offer items. Let's say that 20% of those then fail under warranty and we need to pick up the tab for someone to come out and replace the motor. OK, so we split the cost of that service call and motor across every 5 units that we sell wholesale - job done." 80% of the customers end up happy, and the 20% that don't are a PR bullet that just has to be bitten.
As for dryer fires, I can't believe that the filters don't have some sort of air flow sensor in them that shuts the things down if the filters get clogged. I once tried to use ours after my wife had run it for 5-6 cycles without cleaning the filter. I couldn't understand why my clothes were still a bit damp after an hour on the "hot as Hades" setting. Then I investigated the filter, and the lint coating on it was literally too hot to touch. No air had been getting out, and so it was basically circulating superheated steam in the drum. I thought at the time that this can't be particularly safe.
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Randy Stankey
Film God
Posts: 6539
From: Erie, Pennsylvania
Registered: Jun 99
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posted 03-19-2016 09:23 PM
quote: David Buckley
These American brands, yeah. But Samsung are a Korean company, and thus aren't part of this conglomeration of brand names.
The same with Dishlex, Simpson, Volta and others. They are all owned by the Electrolux Group, based in Sweden.
Samsung is but another worldwide conglomerate that owns many industries from consumer electronics to shipbuilding and construction. I don't know which arm of the "Samsung Group" makes home appliances but I don't think it's the same part of the conglomerate that makes cell phones.
In the U.S., Sears company sells the Kenmore brand of appliances and in Britain, the John Lewis company sells their own house brand. Both of them are just OEM by Electrolux.
I bet you a nickel that, if Brad wanted to sell a line of home appliances, all that would be necessary would be to pay the right monies to the right people and sign a stack of contracts then, in a short time, we could all be buying "Film-Tech" washing machines and refrigerators. Brad (or whomever the hypothetical businessman) wouldn't have to lift a finger to do any manufacturing or logistics. If he played his cards right, I bet he wouldn't even have to do his own advertising.
Today's consumer appliance industry is, literally, "Lick 'Em and Stick 'Em." Items roll off an assembly line from some factory in a third-world country where they literally slap labels on the boxes before they load them into shipping containers bound for parts unknown.
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Leo Enticknap
Film God
Posts: 7474
From: Loma Linda, CA
Registered: Jul 2000
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posted 11-16-2016 06:58 PM
Our Samsung washing machine, bought as the same too-good-to-be-true Black Friday sale last year, has been recalled, because there have been incidents involving this model self-destructing during the spin cycle.
What with this and the incendiary batteries in their new cellphones, Samsung's brand image has gone from reliable if unspectacular, to avoid-at-all-costs deathtrap in less than a year. Out of morbid curiosity I'd be interested to know if anyone was involved in the design of both products, if just a senior executive signing them off.
I am also very unimpressed with the way that they're handling the recall. You complete a form on their website and are then emailed a PDF form to complete, print and mail in, onto which you're supposed to stick the serial number label from the bad machine, and enclose a copy of the receipt for the replacement you buy. Then they send you a check. Disposing of the bad machine is entirely up to you: they do not collect it. So I bet that there will be lots of people out there who mail in their labels, buy a new machine, and then give the old one to a friend, sell it on Ebay, give it to a thrift store ... in short, it remains in use and capable of disintegrating and hurting someone, or worse. Samsung should have been more proactive in making sure that the bad machines are actually taken out of use, IMHO.
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Jim Cassedy
Phenomenal Film Handler
Posts: 1661
From: San Francisco, CA
Registered: Dec 2006
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posted 11-19-2016 06:10 PM
Waaaaay back in the early 1970's, when I was in High School, I worked,
for a short time, I worked in the "small electronics" section of
a regional department store.
One of the things we sold were a line of not too expensive clock radios
sold under names like Soundesign, General Electric, and the store brand.
But if you opened them up. . . they were all EXACTLY the same radio, but
sold under different brand names. The only difference was that the chassis
was punched with multiple holes so that one brand could put the knobs on
the top, or another one could put them on the side, in various configurations.
Same with the loudspeaker placement. The chassis was designed so that the
small speaker could be on top, the side or the bottom.
But electronics-wise, they were exactly the same radio.
(But you paid more for the "GE" radio than you'd pay for the Soundesign
or store branded version of the same radio)
I suspect this was true of many appliances. Some time in the late 80's,
Consumer reports published a chart which in which you could look up the
model number of your TV and find out where it was made.
Once again, the chart documented that a couple of Japanese and Korean
companies (at that time) were making the bulk of the TV sets sold
under various electronics and department store brand names.
And, just as in my 'clock radio' story- - the difference between many of
the brands were simply cosmetic and a model number change.
Internally, many were exactly the same.
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