Kitchen Aid/Whirlpool and their awful warranty service.

The BBQ Pit
1

We have all new kitchen appliances in our new house, all bought in September of 2008, and delivered December 8 af 2008. They all match, with that brushed stainless steel finish - the gas stove, the microwave/fan, the fridge, the dishwasher and the toaster oven.

Our problems begin in late March of 2009, when the microwave stops working. No problem, it’s on warranty. The earliest service appointment we can get is April 8th. Two guys come over, take it apart - they’ve never seen this model before. Second contractor takes over - it needs a new control panel. Orders panel, and now we wait.

It is a policy of Kitchen Aid/Whirlpool that they will not replace appliances under warranty, they will only repair them. They also do not stock parts in Canada, and so we have to wait for the part to be shipped. It is May 19th when the part arrives and is installed, making for a period of 7 weeks without a microwave. By which time -

The dishwasher stops working around May 7th. May 19th is the first date that a service technician is available for a service call. The control panel needs replacing. No, the parts are not stocked in Canada, we have to wait for one to be shipped. I just got off the phone with Whirlpool - no firm date. Their policy is that they will not replace defective appliances, only repair. 6 weeks without a dishwasher and counting.

I have phoned them repeatedly. I have complained to them, to the local appliance service people and the shop from which I bought the appliances. My fundamental problem - if you are going to sell the machines in Canada, then stock the parts. If your company will not stock the parts, then you should replace the machines. If you will do neither, then a pox on you - your company deserves to be pitted on message boards by dissatisfied customers.

Meantime, the fridge now makes a clunking noise everytime it starts up. I haven’t called yet; I’m looking for a 7 week window when I can do without my fridge while they order a part…

2

I wouldn’t worry about it. When your toaster oven goes next month, it will just need a new control panel. It should arrive in 6-8 weeks.

3

That’s fucked up. Does Canada have some sort of consumer affairs government watchdog that you can complain to about this sort of thing?

4

We have a Whirlpool dish washer that died. It was the control-surface touch pad circuitry, which is of course not a simple “order a part” mechanical fix. When I cruised the consumer boards, Whirlpool was generally regarded as garbage.

Their warranty was also farmed out to 3rd party repair service, and you’re stuck with whatever service tech has exclusive coverage for your area, and ours was a creepy, leering, sweaty weirdo who, after leaving, the first thing my wife said was “Change the locks.”

5

Contact the upper management of the store you bought it at.

6

No parts in Canada? For major applicances like Kitchenaid? you would have won a bet with me on that one. That’s too strange

7

It sounds to me like you have a solid case to return everything.

8

Wow–that couldn’t be further from my experience with KitchenAid warranty service. My mixer (Pro 600) jacked up a month or so after I bought it. I called them up, the very nice lady had me turn it on for her so she could hear the noise it was making over the phone, and less than 24 hours later I had a brand new mixer sitting on my front porch. They told me to pack the old one up in the box and FedEx would be back for it in a few days.

Of course, their small appliance and large appliance divisions are completely separate, and I’ve often heard that their brand quality and reliability doesn’t really extend up into the large appliances.

9

Yeah. Kitchen-Aid mixers are the shit. Dunno about their larger appliances. I just had a similar (and expensive) experience with my Maytag refrigerator due to a massive recall.

Cite: https://repair.maytag.com/prjjck/refrigerator.jsp

The part that was recalled was an electrical relay that kicked the compressor on and off. My part failed the day the recall was issued. The recall was becuase this part could short out and cause a fire. Mine just died. So, I thumbed through the Yellow Pages and found a company called “Authorized Appliance”, and saw that Maytag was listed as a line they were “authorized” to repair.

I couldn’t wait. I had $200 worth of food thawing outside on my deck, and the Maytag recall was so huge (almost 2 million units) that I couldn’t get through to them over the phone to arrange what they said was a free repair.

So I called this company, they came and replaced my dead relay, the cost, $250. No sweat, I thought, I’ll just call Maytag, explain my situation, and they will reimburse me.

Didn’t happen. Turns out “Authorized Appliance” is just the name of the company, and that they are NOT an authorized repair service in the eyes of Maytag.

So Maytag comes out anyway, inspects the repair job, declares that the relay that this other company put in “isn’t the right part” and puts in a different one for free. But I still had to pay for the initial replacement part.

Fuckers.

10

Update - the part is in. The service people are coming on Friday afternoon to scratch up the floor. I’ll keep you posted on how it all turns out.

Longer term, I am putting together a list of people/agencies that I want to inform about this situation, including Consumer Reports, Consumer Watchdog, the Canadian Ministry for Consumer and Corporate Affairs, Marketplace, etc., etc.

Thanks for your support in my struggle against these scurvy bastards.

11

It’s good to maintain your optimistic yet realistic attitude through all of this. :slight_smile:

12

Don’t bother, Consumer Reports already knows – they consistently list KitchenAid as poor reliability or needing frequent repair.

So why did you buy them?

13

Well, two reasons - one, decor. We wanted that brushed stainless steel look to contrast the natural wood floor and cabinets and silestone counter-top. It’s as if the kitchen makes a transition from nature through modified nature to man made. It was all a good compromise between my wife’s decor sense and mine.

And two, we had a kitchen aid gas range in the old house and it worked out very well. I’ll tell you for nothing, there are a couple of features on this new one that are fantastic - the double gas ring power burner is a great invention, the warming tray at the bottom, the fan thingy at the back, etc… I may say different things about it if it breaks down, but for now, I’m very happy with the stove. Hell, I was happy with the rest of it until it broke down and I found out their service is so fucked up.

And even when they aren’t working, they look pretty. I can console myself that my kitchen appliances are like supermodels - they sit around and look beautiful instead of working, and they’re a pain in the ass to maintain.

14

If you wanted that brushed aluminum/stainless look and reliability, you should have looked into Viking appliances. Expensive, though.

15

This just in - Saturday morning and the same god damn thing is going on with the dishwasher. No response from any of the controls, no sign that there’s any power to the thing at all and nothing wrong with the breaker switch. Called the repair service - nobody there til Monday. Called the place that sold it to me - nobody answering the phones. Sticking pins in a voodoo doll at the moment.

16

Last time this happened to me with my Kenmore dishwasher (which has a similar setup with digital feather touch control buttons at the top of the unit) it was just a fuse. We called our homeowners insurance and filed a claim, not knowing what the issue was, and it cost us $75 for a service call for a $4 fuse. Multimeters are your friend.

17

I think the fellow from Toronto Appliance Service must be in love with me, and that’s why the repair job lasted only 12 days. Yes, here we are again.

Some nice person from Whirlpool seems to have joined the SDMB for the express purpose of communicating with me about my situation - I’ll see what she can do in the morning. Meantime, I’m off to wash my own dishes. At least we’re having Thanksgiving dinner at my in-laws’, so I don’t have to hand wash 20 plates plus every pot in the house. Grrr.

18

I would’ve expected Canada to have a system of Universal Appliance Care, so you wouldn’t have to deal with all these private companies. Though I guess that might make your wait times even longer…

:smiley:

19

That made me laugh out loud for the first time in hours! Thank you for that.

20

A couple of years ago, hubby and I were ‘touring’ the aisles of our Costco Membership Warehouse, when a box of KitchenAid. . .minor gadgets (best way I can think to describe it) caught my eye. It wasn’t too expensive, so I tossed it in the cart.

The box of gadgets contained several pieces of apparatus for scrubbing dishes (scrubbing brushes, sponge-things with handles that held soap, etc) plus a couple pairs of kitchen shears. I’m wanting to say that within three months, more than half of what was in the box had deteriorated to the point of non-functioning.

So I look on the KitchenAid website, hoping to find replacement sponges/scrub brushes, etc. Nada.

So I email them (through the ‘contact us’ link), and explain my problem.

No response. None. Not a rep telling me no replacement parts are available, or telling me where/how I can purchase replacement parts. Nothing.

I allow a month to go by. I (ever the optimist!) email them again, informing them not only of the problem, but that I never received a reply to my previous inquiry. Nothing.

Another month lapses, I email them re-iterating all the above, and tell them that their sheer lack of customer service insures that I will never again buy anything with the name KitchenAid on it.

Still no response.

But I’ve never bought anything else by KitchenAid, and won’t.