It's True. They Don't Make Appliances Like They Used to.
By Stephanie Cavanaugh
Special to The Washington Post
Saturday, February 26, 2005
Judith Capen's rattletrap dishwasher recently went into death throes. Two repairmen fiddled with it, then stomped off, saying she could buy a new one for less than it would cost to fix the 18-year-old machine.
But Capen, an architect and self-described "defective consumer," didn't want to replace it. She wanted it fixed. Particularly after she and her husband went off to eye a $1,500 dishwasher for which he had been lusting--whisper quiet, stainless steel inside and out, and bottom line "very cool looking"--and the sales clerk said it wouldn't last any longer than the mid-priced model dripping in their Capitol Hill kitchen.
Capen went home and stuck an aluminum baking pan under the leak until she could figure out a better solution. "That's how our frost-free refrigerator works too. Fifteen cents versus $1,500."
Then she grumbled, "I grew up when people expected to be buried with their appliances."
Search the Internet for consumer complaints about appliances and it appears there is scarcely a stove, refrigerator or dishwasher that won't break down, blow up, or flood your new parquet floors, usually in the midst of some major family event. The catalogue of consumer wrath at www.consumeraffairs.com , for example, will make you contemplate resurrecting the ice box and cooking joints of mutton on a spit in the fireplace.
Were kitchen appliances really more reliable in the old days?
"I think they generally break down less than they did," said John Lefever, president of Alco Appliance in Beltsville. "If you made a graph of the last 50 years--overall they're more reliable. Much like automobiles, they last longer."
It seems that memories of trusty appliances are tinged with the same nostalgia that colors so much else about the halcyon 1950s. "I go to dinner parties and people, particularly those in their sixties, say they never saw an appliance guy all the time they were growing up," he said. "Of course they broke down. People used to fix things themselves or there was a guy they called in the neighborhood."
And don't forget that Mama herself was at home, waxing the linoleum, so repairs always seemed painless and invisible.
One thing is true about the 1950s: At least when it came to appliances, things really were simpler. There were no icemakers, computers or links to the Internet that let you defrost tonight's roast from your office. All of these gadgets and gizmos have a tendency to . . . break. But you knew that, didn't you?
"A range can last a few years or 40 years," said Lefever, who has been repairing ranges for more than 30, plus another 10 if you include teenage tinkering. "It depends on the complexity of it. And some are just better than others. . . . But price has little to do with quality and longevity. The dual-fuel Jenn-Air is a more troublesome range than a GE gas. The pricier you get, the more features, and the more features, the more there is to break."
"Some appliances are so simple they're hard to mess up," said Hal Woodyard, chief inspector at Archer Inspections Inc., a local home inspection firm. "When I look at housing I see a lot of low-end stuff. A $250 gas stove will last a long time. The more complicated you make something, the more opportunity there is for it to break."
Not that cheap appliances are necessarily durable. "Thirty years ago they didn't really make super-cheap . . . appliances. They do now," the former general contractor said.
"If you're willing to pay $1,000-plus for a refrigerator or $700-plus for a dishwasher . . . you'll still get something that'll last for 20 to 30 years. If you spend only half that amount, expect to get something that'll last only 10 years or so."
For the record, the Association of Home Appliance Manufacturers, a Washington trade group, gives the approximate life of a dishwasher as 13 years, 14 for refrigerators and 17 for ranges.
"But are they giving you the typical lifespan of an appliance or how long people keep them before sending them to the trash heap?" asked Robert Krughoff, president of Consumers' Checkbook, a nonprofit research organization that rates goods and services in the metropolitan area and in other cities.
Lifespan estimates tend to become self-fulfilling prophecies. People look at the numbers and wonder if a broken appliance is worth repairing, Krughoff said. "I'm not sure that's the way those data should be used. Sure, people throw out an appliance after 15 years, but that doesn't mean it was dead. That doesn't mean yours wouldn't last another 10 years."
Bottom line, he said: "If you like it, get it fixed."
The most frequently requested repairs are, in fact, pretty simple, said Lefever: icemaker malfunctions; clogged gas jets on stoves; dishwasher leaks and broken glass and foreign objects caught in the pump; and various electrical problems.
Big-ticket items, where Lefever would be inclined to suggest replacement, include problems with a refrigerator compressor, or a refrigerant leak; replacing computer oven controls and glass cooking tops; and replacing the complete pump, motor or electronic control system on a dishwasher.
"Unless you get a reasonable repair quote, you should question whether you want to fix them or not," he said. "But if you have an $1,800 refrigerator that matches the kitchen and has custom panels, a $400-$500 repair might make sense."
With most appliances, "there's some non-central feature that will usually break," said Woodyard. "Like with a refrigerator, it's usually not the compressor, the core of the refrigerator, it's something else: plastic drawers fall apart or a water problem shorts out a wire. And you become disenchanted with the thing--not that it's not fixable at a reasonable price."
Or maybe you're just ready to be disenchanted, looking for an excuse to get something new. Just as with cars and computers, appliances come with ever-sexier features. Then there are those covetable brands that drip status, even when they're not quite the performers they're cracked up to be.
"The Sub-Zero is a very nice refrigerator, but the competition, GE and Amana, have the same desirable features and have even exceeded Sub-Zero in some areas," Woodyard said. "But there's still the cachet of the Sub Zero . . . and top-end European appliances. . . . They're perceived as high end and high quality. . . . It's like buying a Rolls-Royce."
But woe to you when it comes to fixing some of those sexy Europeans, particularly the dishwashers. "If you expect it to be silent and beautiful and sit there it will be great," Lefever said. Operating consistently is another thing entirely.
"And the trend toward professional ranges is not a trend toward reliability--they will increase my repair business," he added. "There are more parts and features, downdraft blowers, convection blowers, extra parts that can go bad. There's more to go wrong. And they're more expensive, so you'll spend more money to . . . protect the investment."
If you want an appliance to last, "buy a machine that would be readily repairable," Lefever said. "If you buy an exotic European model, getting the parts will be a problem. If you stick with Maytag, Whirlpool, KitchenAid, you improve the odds of keeping it a long time."
The alternative to calling a repairman is to fix it yourself.
"The problem is not with the product, it's the repair cost," said Chris Hall, a former appliance repairman and the founder of www.repairclinic.com . "Manufacturers are producing appliances for nearly the price they were 10 years ago . . . but the repairman's expenses have gone up. I did some calculations and the cost of the part is 25 percent of the repair. You can save 75 percent by doing it yourself."
Hall sells everything from knobs to broiler coils to glass panes, to entire doors for just about every appliance made; the company carries parts for 80 different brands.
It also provides a trouble-shooting section that reminds you to check for common problems such as blown fuses and burnt-out light bulbs, or to see if that cold, dark oven won't heat up because it's set for a timed or self-cleaning cycle.
And it dispenses free advice to about 30,000 people each month on fixes as simple as "putting the knob back on the stove to replacing a washing machine transmission," said Hall.
Consumers' Checkbook will be reviewing local appliance service companies in the issue of its Washington magazine that is due out in late March or early April. (For details go to www.checkbook.org .)
And if you do call one and he tells you to toss something you would rather keep? "The secret is to say, 'Yeah, yeah, yeah, but just fix it'," said Capen, who eventually found a third repairman who improvised a fix for her ailing dishwasher.
Judith Capen found a temporary solution for her 18-year-old leaky dishwasher -- an aluminum pan. An appliance repairman later made a more permanent fix.