High End Kitchen Appliances Are A Complete Scam

[masraum]

Originally Posted by Chocaholic

Nice job on the installation too!




Couldn’t resist.

LOL. And creative backdraft venting!

[908/930]

Originally Posted by zakthor

And... whatever was the last thing he did... the oven works now. Some grounding problem in an oven motor? An actual short? Some mystery disease? Anyway. Major city (seattle) new miele induction range, miele repair guy... seriously disappointed.

Last nail in the coffin... it cooks like crap. Whoever thinks induction cooking is good has never used a good gas stove. All that trouble and it just sucks. Friend is stunned that her beautiful copper pans won't work (don't get me started on the decision in the first place.) I wouldn't be surprised if it breaks soon.

If it cooks like crap there is still something wrong with it, did she check if a magnet will stick to the bottom of her copper pan? It needs to be magnetic to work. There are adaptor plates available. And yes I have cooked on good gas ranges but prefer induction by a mile.

The Miele appliances are shipped from Germany so a possibility that something rattled loose.

[Deschodt]

That thread made me think of this week... Our 10y old Samsung oven was starting to fail - display went bad and convection fan squealing. Guy on showroom floor told me it was not worth repairing and tried to sell me "Holy inflation" models... I ended up replacing the LCD for $50 and the fan motor for $80 in 20 minutes all included. I'd never bothered to fix an appliance before but holy prices !!!

[masraum]

Originally Posted by Deschodt

That thread made me think of this week... Our 10y old Samsung oven was starting to fail - display went bad and convection fan squealing. Guy on showroom floor told me it was not worth repairing and tried to sell me "Holy inflation" models... I ended up replacing the LCD for $50 and the fan motor for $80 in 20 minutes all included. I'd never bothered to fix an appliance before but holy prices !!!

Yep, the parts are often not that expensive or that hard to replace. Most of these appliances are fairly simple to understand and fairly cheap to repair. No knock on the good guys, but I'm guessing that the vast majority of appliance repair folks are not mensa members. Most of us could probably do a better job than most of them. The biggest hurdle may be for devices where parts are NLA.

[zakthor]

Originally Posted by look 171

Hey op, who no vent hood? Second story or ceiling joist or something in the way?

From the kitchen ceiling there's two more finished stories up to the roof. Cove ceilings. It'd be a ton of drywall, not to mention there's nowhere to accommodate the vent pipe.

Its not impossible, we'd need to redo the kitchen ceiling and route a vent out the side. There's a built in fridge in the way, etc, etc. I'm a huge fan (ar ar ar) of following physics and my friends are all yelling that I'm an idiot for not getting a hood but... it'd be quite a bit of money. The specific situation is like it was designed to prevent a hood. I dunno. >$20k? And then the kitchen ceiling would be lower. We've lived with downdraft for > 20 years and it is not terrible.

Originally Posted by 908/930

If it cooks like crap there is still something wrong with it, did she check if a magnet will stick to the bottom of her copper pan? It needs to be magnetic to work. There are adaptor plates available. And yes I have cooked on good gas ranges but prefer induction by a mile.

I thought the heat pattern was bad with a big cast iron skillet. Was a doughnut of heat with cold in the middle and up the sides. As far as I see she paid a premium price and got something worse, wasn't the obviously better 'tech from the future' that we expected.

I'm lucky she got one and I could try it because we were totally considering induction. Could be that she just needs to get all new different 'induction specific' cookware, but cast iron is as ferric as it comes, its the induction field shape that sucked. Maybe that skillet was too thick or something?

I'll ask her again in 5 years.

[masraum]

Originally Posted by zakthor

From the kitchen ceiling there's two more finished stories up to the roof. Cove ceilings. It'd be a ton of drywall, not to mention there's nowhere to accommodate the vent pipe.

Its not impossible, we'd need to redo the kitchen ceiling and route a vent out the side. There's a built in fridge in the way, etc, etc. I'm a huge fan (ar ar ar) of following physics and my friends are all yelling that I'm an idiot for not getting a hood but... it'd be quite a bit of money. The specific situation is like it was designed to prevent a hood. I dunno. >$20k? And then the kitchen ceiling would be lower. We've lived with downdraft for > 20 years and it is not terrible.

I don't think I've ever lived in anyplace that didn't have a recirculating vent. ie, it sucks air in underneath and then spits it back out the top-front of the hood. We did, for a short time have a house that had a downdraft that vented to the outside. Then we got rid of the downdraft cooktop and replaced it with an invented hood.
I don't feel like not having a vented hood has ever been an issue.

I thought the heat pattern was bad with a big cast iron skillet. Was a doughnut of heat with cold in the middle and up the sides. As far as I see she paid a premium price and got something worse, wasn't the obviously better 'tech from the future' that we expected.

I'm lucky she got one and I could try it because we were totally considering induction. Could be that she just needs to get all new different 'induction specific' cookware, but cast iron is as ferric as it comes, its the induction field shape that sucked. Maybe that skillet was too thick or something?

I'll ask her again in 5 years.

We have the nice Demeyere multilayer stainless. We bought a fairly nice, 120V induction cooktop to try it out thinking that we might go induction. I love it. It gets hot fast, it cools off fast. I feel like it's more efficient than gas because only the pot gets hot instead of most of the heat going around the pot, heating the handle, top, sides, kitchen, etc.... I haven't burned anything on the induction either. I've got a bunch of cast iron, but it's in storage so we haven't tried it with induction. Unfortunately, we ended up not going with an induction cooktop/range for other reasons.

We do have a cheap pot that's thin Al with a very thin ferrous disk on the bottom. It was a gift. It "works" on the induction, but not nearly as well as the better Demeyere pots. It's much slower, and the heat isn't as evenly distributed.

[sugarwood]

Cue all the hoarders who brag about their 35 year old appliances being better than today's trash.

[mjohnson]

Originally Posted by masraum

...We bought a fairly nice, 120V induction cooktop to try it out thinking that we might go induction. I love it. It gets hot fast, it cools off fast. I feel like it's more efficient than gas because only the pot gets hot instead of most of the heat going around the pot, heating the handle, top, sides, kitchen, etc...

I've used induction for years at work (metallurgist/exotic metal foundry) and I understand it well. We picked up a 220V catering induction 1-burner hob, 3500W I think. Regardless of my background, all I can do is giggle when I cook with it. It's magic!!

Mrs mjohnson is a gas-stalwart. I once was but I'm kind of induction-curious for a proper cooktop. Yes, there are a few all-Al pans that might get given to friends but that tech could find a place in my life.

Induction is just simple electricity - why wouldn't it be reliable and fixable?

(then again, gas is just plumbing, why wouldn't it be reliable and fixable? - and we've all seen that path of misery...)

[look 171]

Originally Posted by sugarwood

Cue all the hoarders who brag about their 35 year old appliances being better than today's trash.

It aint better, just simpler with no insulation.

[Jeff Alton]

I have owned plenty of appliances of varying grades over the years. I can tell you that our Fulgor range, which was not cheap, was not a scam. Worth every penny. Could have spent more on a couple of other brands for sure, easilly. Putting one in our house we will build on the other side of the globe as well....

It is sort of like saying a Ferrari or a Porsche is a Scam... A BMW may be a scam, but buy the correct high end brand and you will be very pleased with your purchase.....


Cheers

[Gogar]

Originally Posted by look 171

Sharp makes great microwaves. Big name also rebadge them

I think I read There's only 2 companies that actually manufacture microwaves, sharp being one of them.

The undercounter Wolf is actually a Sharp with the faceplate swapped out.

[masraum]

Originally Posted by Gogar

I think I read There's only 2 companies that actually manufacture microwaves, sharp being one of them.

The undercounter Wolf is actually a Sharp with the faceplate swapped out.

Something like that is the case with almost all appliances. I don't know all of the relationships, but often times the same part may be the correct part for 5 different name brands.

I do wonder, if certain brands require differing levels of QC/QA and possibly try to build to different levels of quality.

Many years ago, when I was looking to buy my first stereo as a teen, I was, of course, looking for all of the whiz-bang features. My dad taught me that it was better to look for quality than quantity. Get a higher quality unit with fewer fancy features for the same price as a lower quality unit with more fancy features and you'll get better sound and, likely, reliability. I suspect that still applies to some extent to just about anything. I remember years ago, probably 20-25, going into Best Buy to get a dishwasher. There were some that were expensive, then there were some that were cheap but had more features. Many of those cheaper models were only sold at Best Buy. I think they were the super cheap models with an added feature or two. I think we got one and it ended up being junk. I didn't make that mistake again.

[HardDrive]

Sorry, disagree with this thread. We have Miele fridge that set us back $8k when we got it. One minor issue that was repaired under warranty when we got it. It has been otherwise flawless for 10 years. It is excellent. Miele oven, Viking stove, Wolf hood, Asko dishwasher. All flawless 10 years later, and the are excellent from a performance perspective.

(.....now that I have said that above, you know what is coming....)

[Jeff Alton]

^^^^^ I agree with you 100%. When we spent on GOOD boutique high end brands, we got amazing products. The same way a 78 Porsche 911 is likely still on the road and a 7 Cadillac is likely no where near a road. Both were "high end " products....

Cheers

[zakthor]

Originally Posted by mjohnson

I've used induction for years at work (metallurgist/exotic metal foundry) and I understand it well. We picked up a 220V catering induction 1-burner hob, 3500W I think. Regardless of my background, all I can do is giggle when I cook with it. It's magic!!

Mrs mjohnson is a gas-stalwart. I once was but I'm kind of induction-curious for a proper cooktop. Yes, there are a few all-Al pans that might get given to friends but that tech could find a place in my life.

Induction is just simple electricity - why wouldn't it be reliable and fixable?

(then again, gas is just plumbing, why wouldn't it be reliable and fixable? - and we've all seen that path of misery...)

Yeah, induction is awesome for controlled heating. My rice cooker uses induction to heat its rice crucible from the bottom and sides, apparently to agitate the rice while it cooks, the water boils in a torus shape. Makes good rice, who knows if the induction is actually responsible. Had it 5 years and its been great. I'm not blaming induction, I'm blaming the crap designers of these expensive boondoggles.

A smelting furnace is just a perfect application because the energy input is perfectly controlled and the heater doesn't need to contact melty metal. Issue I've got is that the cooktop units I've tried the induction field doesn't seem to be uniform or penetrate the pans well.

I don't know why induction would be less unreliable. Knowing how bad the applience engineers are its likely the dials on a modern induction cook stove go to a fancy regulator involving a cpu and some crazy rube-goldberg sensing device. The sky is the limit for how much complexity they could build into it.

The devices I saw in the showroom looked like all flash and no common sense. Like they were designed by a certain kind of architect where function followed form. The architects that don't like the look of eaves and gutters?

The induction wolf stove with capacitive touch temp control gave me the whillies because I know they won't be there for me when it breaks.

Hardrive: you are so jinxed!

Finally: More sample bias: It might be the showroom we visited only had crazy stuff innit because the sensible stuff was all bought-ed already.

[Bill Douglas]

Originally Posted by masraum

My dad taught me that it was better to look for quality than quantity. Get a higher quality unit with fewer fancy features for the same price as a lower quality unit with more fancy features and you'll get better sound and, likely, reliability.

Yeah.

I've come to the conclusion it's better to pay more (even a lot more) money up front and not have to pay a repair person every two years to come and fix the thing.

[sugarwood]

Originally Posted by HardDrive

Sorry, disagree with this thread. We have Miele fridge that set us back $8k when we got it. One minor issue that was repaired under warranty when we got it. It has been otherwise flawless for 10 years.

Looks like you overpaid by $7500 if your goal was reliability.
My $382 Frigidaire fridge has been flawless for over 20 years.

In comparison, your Miele sounds like a piece of crap if it needed even a single repair before 20 years.

Reminds me of the deluded fools who call the 911 "bulletproof".
Sure, the 911 can be a very reliable car but this "bulletproof" mythology really needs to stop.

Bulletproof......

Except if you have pulled or snapped head studs.
Except if you have a failed chain tensioner.
Except if you have an exploding air box without popoff valve.
Except if you have worn valve guides.
Except when you need the 915 synchros replaced.
Except when you have the exploding rubber centered clutch.
Except when the Targa top leaks.
Except when the A/C doesn't work.

No car ever made is bulletproof, especially the 911 with its engine out $5,000 gearbox and $10,000 topend services.
Your wallet better be bulletproof if you want to own a vintage car

[Jeff Alton]

^^^ Consistnent with many of your posts. You you are not wrong at all, but you might not get it either.

Many don't want a new Camry or Accord.... Yep plenty reliable, but massively boring...

Plenty of people have spent a little more to get a boutique new appliance that fits the build of their home or kitchen. It is somthing you interact with daily. Others wait for 30 years to buy that same thing used. Sort of like P Cars..... (what year is yours?) But no one is waiting to buy a 30 year old Frigidaire.......

Some value their home and the way they interact with it the same way many value their toy vehicles. Is what it is. There is value in spending a bit more for a good appliance.

Ask a non car person if they there is value in driving a 1986 Porsche worth north of 60K... They will respond in same way you did about appliances...

It is not your thing, and that is cool. Just no need to justify it.....
Cheers

[look 171]

Jeff is correct but I will add this, many of them are actually very reliable. Parts are readily available, for Sub Zero as an example. I am not sure about the smaller cities or towns, but around here, they are plenty. We pulled out more then our fair share of sub zeros in some of the homes we worked on. After 20-25 years, they still works. Pop in a new one and never heard form them again for a long time. Like any mechanical or electrical items, somethings go wrong at times. I bet there are more Maytag, Frigidaire or other common appliance brands that have been repaired then a sub zero or wolf unit. People suck it up, buy another or repair them without making much noise about it.

[Hads930]

Received an all gas Viking range and overhead vent hood 19 years ago as a wedding gift and they have been great. Replaced the stove burner igniter module, >$100, and the oven igniter elements once. The service guy did say the older ones are a bit more desirable.

On a related note does anyone have any experience with Speed Queen products? Gas dryer is not heating and I am buying a new one this week. TIA.