I was just reading a thread about a dryer pooping out and my first thought was none of my dryers ever hit the dust on me yet; they never died but just faded away (we left them behind as we moved on). Then I wondered what common household appliances, electronics, etc fails the most.
Not a very detailed or thought out survey by any means. I’m just curious what fails the most in SDMB households.
Well after I voted I realized 17 different product category out of 25 failed on me (some multiple times). If this is the case mostly this poll will be about what fails the least! :rolleyes:
I’ve had 2 microwave ovens and a printer break down on me in my present apartment.
Two items:
(1) (A few years ago) My cell phone! Well, not the whole phone. Just the battery. And it didn’t actually fail unnaturally. It got about five years old and wore out and wouldn’t hold a charge. The problem with that? Nokia didn’t make those batteries any more! What’s the f’ing point of making the battery removable (as opposed to hard-wired built-in) if they are going to discontinue making the battery by the time it wears out? What if auto parts makers did that with car batteries? The phone company said I could get a whole new phone free but only if I signed a new two-year contract. I closed the account and have never had a cell phone since, and never regretted it, if they are going to pull that kind of shit.
(2) Currently: My router! (Not totally pooped out, but pooping out in progress.) I have been in the habit of turning it off when I’m not on-line, and only turning it on when I need it. Apparently, turning it on and off a lot puts a lot of extra wear on all those little electrons inside. Now, when I turn it on, 9 out of 10 times it doesn’t boot right, and I have to re-boot it anywhere from 5 to 10 times before it does. The only way to do that is to power-cycle it. Now I leave it on all the time, which seems to be working so far (for the last week or so). This is an Actiontec GT724R DSL modem / router with 4 LAN ports.
Both the dishwasher and the central air conditioning in my current apartment died in the last couple of years. The AC was annoying; every year, it would conk out during some incredibly hot week and then get repaired by management after a week of them delaying and me bitching. And every week, I’d stay in a hotel and then send them the bill (my apartment routinely would get 20+ degrees hotter than outside temps when it went out). Last year, it conked out again, and it took them two weeks to even begin looking at it, and another two weeks to repair it. Their delay in replacing a low-end AC unit cost them $2,000 in hotel fees. Idiots.
A lot of the dead electronics I voted for are designed to be cheap and be replaced on occasion. I have old printers from the 1980s, but haven’t had a printer made in the last 10 years that lasts more than a few years. Same with scanners, phones, computers, DVD players, etc. Then again, the total outlay is still very small; I might bitch when a sub-$100 DVD player dies, but despite owning 5 of them over the years, my total outlay is still well under half the cost of a single low-end laserdisc player from the mid-90s.
The longest-lasting daily-use appliance is my microwave; it’s about 30 years old at this point, and still works fine. I have older things-- old video game systems and such-- but none are used daily like the microwave.
Our longest last appliance might have been our first microwave, which lasted 30 years. We’ve been through 2 more since that dies about 5 years ago.
Some people need to take better care of their cars based on this poll. I have one car that’s over 25 years old now.
Since I’ve moved into this house in 2002 I have replaced the heater, AC, my car, several computers and the water filter/softener.
Likely the water heater will go this year, and I may be proactive and replace it before it goes.
I have never owned a gas dryer or gas range, central air or a/c. The only scanner I have ever owned is still attached to my current printer, which works fine but is also only a year old. I’m still on my first ever lawnmower and snowblower and have had both for about a year and a half.
Other than those…every single damn thing on that list.
I’ve had 2 fridges, 2 stoves, 2 microwaves, countless coffee machines, 2 dishwashers, 4 garbage disposals, 2 washers, 1 dryer all crap out on me.
Now, to be fair, the fridges, stoves, 1 washer and the dryer, and both dishwashers had come with the houses and had been very old so it wasn’t a shock when they died.
Garbage disposals are the bane of my existence, as are coffee machines.
I have never had an A/C unit die on me. The two window ones we have now are 2 summers old. The portable one is 4 or 5 years old and as far as I know, the 10 year old one we left at the condo we sold is also still working.
For phone batteries that MFG doesn’t make anymore you can find cheap aftermarket ones… though your luck might vary I’ve had very good luck with them and in some cases they work better than OEM batts despite their cheap looks.
None of my microwave ever crapped out except for my last one that OverStock replaced within 10 days of purchase.
All my printers died of premature death until I bought one of the last Canon models that took remanufactured cheap ink cartridges (I made sure of that before ordering). I’ve had it for at least 6 years and shows no sign of trouble at all. I love that thing. I actually bought another Canon that takes better/expensive ink cartridges for photo printing and in case the first Canon would fail… I thought, but I hardly ever use it and it’s just sitting on my shelf, pretty.
I didn’t list routers (wireless) because I’ve never had any trouble with mine: Apple Airport and Linksys.
When my water softener died I just moved to a town with better water; I hate putting salt in the thing let alone replace it.
I’d love a maintenance free car that just goes and goes, no scheduled maintenances and washes itself clean.
I’ve been in my apartment about 20 years and have used up maybe 4-5 window ACs because we run them year round (hot apt., over the boilers). Not on the list but I can safely say that it’s my appliance of constant sorrow.
When I moved into my apartment in L.A. there was a Frigidaire refrigerator. It was old, but stopped working after a few years. A coffee maker failed after I moved up here. A scanner failed, probably from lack of use. The surprising thing was the Goldstar microwave oven my dad bought me for my apartment. The darned thing only lasted 18 years! :mad:
My GE dishwasher years ago was one of those recalled because it could theoretically catch on fire? For some reason, I never got around to having it replaced or looked at (by GE). I store stuff in it… We are tiptoeing around the refrigerator. It is at least 5 years past it’s expiration date and I expect it to crap out on us at the worst possible time…We have an old Magnavox TV in the basement, jerry-rigged by us to turn on and off, it only shows channels in VCR mode. It’s at least 30 years old. I think it’s possessed.
We had a Goldstar microwave that worked since either late 70s or early 80s and it still works but now relegated to a friend’s country cabin. BTW you know Goldstar is LG 's G: when Lucky merged with Goldstar they became LG.
I clicked a ton of options, most of them fixtures in rental units so they already had many miles on them when I got hold of them -refrigerator, central air, electric stove, dishwasher and dryer. This was over 5 different apartments in 10 years. The only apartment I didn’t have something on this list die in was a shithole I left after 3 months, too soon for anything new to break, or so you’d think. In that place the plumbing under the sink fell apart catastrophically!
The dryer in the other thread was over 20 years old, I got it because its former owners left it behind when they moved out of a house my landlord sold (she’s a real estate agent) and the new owners had their own new ones. So the long decline was already underway when it came into my life.
The other stuff I checked fits into the “planned obsolescence” category - cell phone, dvd player etc. Drives me nuts, I can’t wait until I am able to buy quality tech that might last long enough to be worth it. Of course these days cost doesn’t guarantee longevity either. I don’t like getting new cell phones, so I tend to get a new battery or even two and keep them limping along until the phone itself just won’t work anymore. I also realized I’ve never owned a microwave - had the use of several through roommates, and had an installed in one apartment I lived in for a few years. Never been around for a pooping out of one though, not since I was a kid in my mom’s house.
I still have the oven. I wonder if it’s just an internal fuse? I could have it checked, but why? I don’t need it.
My Mom has a Kenmore Naptune washer that has a mind of its own. I don’t think this one is officially recalled but apparently a brain issue: it stops and you have to manually hit stop and start button back and forth random a number of times to get it restarted to continue washing again. If she’s lucky it only stops once, otherwise up to 3-4 times. A fancy large capacity washer with all the bells and whistles… it started doing this only after 2.5 years. We filed some type of class action thing that I found online and we’ll see.
I have a 2nd refrigerator that is possessed too: it makes this rattling creepy noise when the compressor runs. I’ve done everything to stop the noise from undoing some screws to jamming sponges and forms on the backside wherever the noises are seemly coming from. After a few days the irritating noise returns and taunts me… highly irritating noise as if some ugly hideous being is talking to me. At some point I started to think there is a thinking being in there set out to drive me insane. A ghost in the machine that I’d like to strangle the life out of if I can ever catch it. :mad: It works perfectly fine but I may have to donate it to an unsuspecting soul.
I’d add toaster to your list: I had a four slice model that turned into a two slice model. I’ve been pretty fortunate with appliances, although I replaced a dishwasher that was just old, and had a water heater start leaking. Also an HP printer that finally gave up.
Our DVD player died a few weeks ago, but nothing else on the list. Things have been replaced, but they were all running when we replaced them with something that ran better.
In almost every place I’ve lived, the refrigerator has died. I am the refrigerator killer.
Weren’t things more reliable?