Tried to buy an appliance lately ??

Our Jenn Air POC 27" wall oven took a dump today. It was originally a combo microwave unit STUPID STUPID STUPID idea. but hey I didn't build the house. OK So several years back the original unit died and I upped for a complete new unit. About 5 K at the time. About 5 years later the microwave take a dump. They want 900.00 to repair it. Remember it's a combo unit. So I adapted in a Kitchen Aid MW. fabbed up some panels and it looked like it belonged there from day 1.
So today the oven portion dies. I am looking into repairing it but was surprised to find out I can't buy a new anything that will fit etc. The oven by itself, or a new combo unit. They're just not out there. Delivery dates of mid April or later are being quoted.
I've had issues with parts but a flippin oven? I may be looking in Des Moines of KC rant off

A buddies wife is in the family furniture store business. She gets up at 2-3am to buy whatever she can from a distributor that releases them at that time. It’s been tight but they do get things regularly doing that.

Just received our fridge and stove on 2/5/21. Ordered them/paid for them on 6/22/20. Fridge has 2 damaged drawers, stove has a dent in the storage drawer on the bottom. Kitchen Aid has ordered replacements, but there is no ETA.

We ordered new furniture on 7/4/2020. Received it in November. 2 of the pieces had incorrect trim. Replacements were ordered the next day, and we were told we'd receive them "probably in April."

Bought GE stove/fridge/microwave/dishwasher from Home Depot on11/21/2020. They estimated 12/19/2020 delivery and much to my amazement I got them on 12/19/2020!

Some stuff has been hard to get, we looked for a long time to find a chest freezer last year around July or August, now they seem to be readily available. We bought a new washer and dryer in November. Had to order the dryer, it's gas, and the washer was on it's way to the store already but came in damaged. We got the dryer in two weeks but they couldn't get the washer so we took the display unit for 15% off. Covid of course is the excuse.

My son and his wife bought a new (old) house last year. They didn't read the small print on the home warranty. Consequently when the oven died (double) they were on their own (fortunately they had plenty in the bank). They looked around and didn't like the prices. Then their daycare provider told them about a special order over that was in a local Lowe's. $6,000 oven that the person didn't like the color of the handles when it came in so there it sat. They had been discounting for several months. I think they got it for about $1,800. We picked it up, but he paid for an install...

So, check with the local stores to see if there's a special order that was refused when it came in...

That is one thing I am not looking forward to when I move this year after 32 years of living in the same house. Our appliances were all bought at the Sears Outlets but they are all gone now. I really don't care about a dent or scratch here and there, so it has been easy getting great appliances at these stores! All of our current appliances are at least 15-25 years old and when something broke, I got the part and fixed it. I know just how much sticker shock I will have when we go to move into a new house, and hearing of all the issues and how long new appliances last, it is daunting...

I just remodel our guest house, and had to wait an average of 3 months for all of the appliances to come in. Luckily all arrived damage free.

The appliance repair guy we've used in the past...local guy, huge customer base, perfect reputation...said that he tells all of his customers to purchase an extended warranty when the buy a new fridge. He said the likelihood you'll need it is very high. He said it's not a bad idea to buy one for a dishwasher and a washing machine, but it's not nearly as important. He does not recommend them on ranges or microwaves or dryers.

Doing a kitchen reno and ordered all new appliances the last week of December. Everything except the stove is Bosch. The stove is GE. All the Bosch stuff is in. The stove won't be in till April !!

I WILL NOT buy appliances from a "big box" store. The selection is limited to only a few brands and they push Samsung and LG which have ZERO spare parts availability. Their salespeople are not very knowledgeable and just about any "appliance store" will match the big box pricing.

I'm doing this reno and with covid restrictions getting materials can be a chore. If I order from a big box store There is a minimum four hour wait before I can pick up. Then I have to sit in queue in the parking lot till they call me up to the pickup area. There are no lengthy delays with the smaller retailers. Often I can pick up as soon as I can get there.

I bought a house with a Jenn Air also but mine is a combo downdraft cooktop/oven. I had to replace it this summer and new ones are $3000.
Being cheap when it comes to appliances I found a really nice used Jenn Air on craigslist for $200. I read the reviews on the newer units and they are bad.
Sure enough the oven stopped working. Figured out it was the control panel and it cost $250. Didn't have problem getting one multiple vendors online had the part

I might add that replacement electronic parts are not available unless you want to roll the dice on used or refurbed and even those are over $200.00. Gotta love this throw away society not too mention cr-p that is designed to fail. If this unit had the old dial knobs I'll bet it would still be working.

thanks for the responses, at least I'm not alone

We have a built in wall double oven 2 doors. I supposes it is 20+ year since I bought it new. Unfortunately, at the time, a simple control with knobs wasn't available. So it has a digital display with a smooth film control panel. The circuit board of this panel has failed twice, and the meat probe jack shorted leading me to think the board was failed. The first time the board failed, I bought a new board/control panel assembly. It was about $400, but thousands cheaper than a new oven.

The second time it failed, I had the circuit board rebuilt here:

Circuit Board Medics
800-547-2049
www.CircuitBoardMedics.com

They did a good job and it fixed it.


When the meat probe jack failed, it made the board go so wacky that the consensus from the experts I called was that the board had failed. I sent it back to Circuit Board Medics, they said it was fine, it must be the control panel, not the board. So I had the control panel rebuilt, and that did not fix it. So I did a bunch more diagnostics with the schematic, studying the error codes, and my digital VOM, and discovered the shorted jack, which I bypassed.

So My point is that you can fix it. I have about a grand into parts over 20 years. A replacement oven is about $5000+, and probably would have failed by now as well.

It's frustrating that this stuff is now built to fail so you buy a new one every 5 - 10 years. I choose to defeat that scam.

If you can keep old Mopars running, you can keep major home appliances running if you choose to.

For example, our front load Whirlpool washing machine has a hard life--10 years old and doing tons of laundry for a family of 7 people.

Over the years I've replaced the drain pump (twice), both hot and cold fill valves, a circuit board, 3 shock absorbers, and most recently the front and rear bearings and seal. Sure, I've spent probably $180 over the years keeping an "old" washer running, but it would cost over $800 for a new one just like it.

Steel is going to be hard to find in 1st quarter , not sure about beyond that .. due to businesses being idled for 0-12 months over covid

Bought a GE convection microwave last month from Home Depot. It took a little less than a month to get it.

We just finished a kitchen remodel, we bought a new dishwasher and an under cabinet microwave. The stove and fridge are about 5 years old. When we went shopping, we had specific items we were looking for. We heard the order and pay now and get your stuff in 16 weeks a few times. No thanks. We shopped several locations before we found the "in stock" items on our list. It seems the people that have stuff in stock are willing to sell it at a discount, which surprises me.
The dish washer was delivered to our front door or into the garage for free, but they wanted $99 to sit it inside the front door. We have no steps to climb, just a 2" rise above the sidewalk at the door. We brought it inside the house ourselves.

Summer time our AC went out. Took 6 weeks for a new unit to arrive. Then ordered a new couch. 13weeks!!! Then our basement fridge went on the fritz. Wen to the appliance store, bought a scratch and dent. Small scratch on the side and ding in the door. Deliverd the ne t day

We were lucky, had a family friend that retired from Hoover, we were able to use his inside pass and save a grand. Appliances (fridge, dw, range and microwave) ordered 2/3 and they have confirmed delivery for 2/23. That works out well. I'm remodeling the kitchen and have to install new tile and cabinets yet. Hopefully there won't be any damage to any appliances.

My parents fridge is from the 80s and keeps going. Several people have said it should be replaced over the years yet they've gone through several while the old GE keeps going. My fridge is newer but my stove is from the 60s.

I've gone through 2 fridges in my shop now. The current one is a side by side with water dispenser and ice maker. Hopefully it lasts a while...

I live in a town known for building furniture. One of my buddies is a materials purchaser for a factory. Apparently, the material used for the masks is the same material used in the furniture business to cover the bottoms of sofas & chairs so they're constantly hunting down alternatives to use. They've had shortages on other building materials as well. He also said they had record orders last year & they're backlog is outrageous.

They can't build them as fast as usual at time when orders are through the roof!

Bought a new dryer the other day and the guy said to my wife, where are we delivering it to, my wife said you it's going in the back of that truck right there. The last time I had them deliver an appliance, the delivery guys made comments about some of the things that they saw in the house, and the next day two unsavory characters showed up at the door. My wife went to the door,but didn't open it,and told them to leave and that she was on the phone with the police right now! They left! Be careful about who you let in your home!

a couple of years ago, our microwave wouldn't heat any more.
we liked the brand and it's features, so we got another one. [this thing had lasted 8yrs !]
as i NEVER throw anything away, i gutted the old one and kept anything that worked. [like the control, the plate, the plate spinning motor, etc]
i guess i can fix this thing for a little while............

KA just called me. Giving me an additional year factory warranty on the microwave, and a $200 prepaid bank card, in exchange for me letting them repair the microwave instead of replacing it. I took it. I think that's a decent deal, and they told me they are expediting the parts to the repair company, as well as the parts to replace the damaged drawers on my new fridge/range.

we recently bought some livingroom furniture.. if it wasn't in stock some places were saying july before we saw it.. we lucked out the chair and couch we bought were in stock.. took the chair that day and couch was delivered a week later...

just bought a washer and dryer. American made in Wisconsin. washer will be here tomorrow dryer is 3 weeks out.. got lucky i guess..

I have never ordered any appliances or furniture, still don't know why anyone would do that?!? I see something I want in a store and take it with me right then, I never had a need for anything to be delivered, I bought a used appliance dolly and have a truck and trailer. I have always been that way, if I can't get it immediately I have no use for it. BTW, the JC Penney microwave we got as a wedding present still works great and it will be 39 years old in July, and our dishwasher was bought when we moved to Chicago in 1986 and still works great!

Because they didn't have the ones we wanted in stock. How hard of a concept is that to understand? The same reason people order a car/truck, or a birthday cake with someone's name on it, or any other number of things.

As far as my microwave breaking so quickly...I mean, I bought a made in the US microwave, so shouldn't I have reasonably expected it to last? We got 22 years out of our previous microwave, only replaced it because we remodeled. The old microwave works fine, and will be going off to college with our daughter in the fall.

Im not too picky on things, ive got a few nice items off the web over the winter that were in stock and ready to ship.

My one place I use two window ac units and I got two new brand name units 140 cheaper then mid summer prices.

Im skid-dish to replace the units in my one place as they are all 30-32 years old but ALL work and Im always getting the letter saying im in the upper #15 of low energy users out of 100 in my area so its hard to justify a replacement.

The grand I saved was why I ordered. I could have gotten everything when I looked at them. But I wanted to see what my discount was going to be using a friends inside pass. I saw it was a grand so that was a no brainer. That savings would have almost paid for my dishwasher and microwave at store price.

My 36 yo Kenmore electric dryer gave up the ghost in August. So I bought the top of the line Speed Queen with the moisture sensing feature for around a grand. Took delivery in 10 days. Made in Wisconsin, btw.

The moisture sensing feature never was quite right from the git-go, so after talking to the local store and trying their lame suggestions, I called Speed Queen's customer service. They want to troubleshoot using email. Nuts to that. I left 4 messages before they finally called me back - on New Years Day!!! At least they called. After explaining the problem and giving them the s/n, they suggested I setup a service call. Okay

The service tech shows up and without doing any troubleshooting, he tells me that it needs a replacement motherboard. And that all of these $1,000 Speed Queens need replacement boards. So I ask, why not replace the board before you deliver it? He gave me some flimsy excuse about his service dept or something.

I have experienced a lot of crappy products and customer service the last few years and finally learned at least one lesson. From here on out I am going to call the customer service department before I purchase any big ticket items. If I don't like their CS, I won't buy their product.

But getting back to the bad circuit board, absolutely no rational excuse for a manufacturer to build, ship and then install known defective products.

The dryer does have a 7 year warranty and the board was installed this morning. Haven't tried it out yet.

This is interesting I know a few people who sold their houses this year and couldn't sell their used furniture They ended up giving it away.
Most of the furniture was well taken care of and high end expensive stuff. I guess nobody wants used furniture. The good news is I refurnished my house for free.
.

More than likely its because of bed bugs. Not that the people had them it's just been an ongoing problem reported in the news. I had some nice stuff and even the Goodwill wouldn't accept them. The cited because of bed bug problems in the area.

Correct. We were able to donate our old furniture back in June, but that same group told us they can't take the incorrect couch/chair we received. We were planning to donate them once the correct pieces arrive. Now, we'll just have the furniture place haul them away.

a couple of years ago, i had to replace our kitchen faucet because the "life time" guarantee didn't specify "whose lifetime" it referred to, and surprise, surprise ! [in my best Gomer Pyle voice] the cartridge[s] needed for the faucet were no longer available.
so when i got the new one home and installed, i called the service number. i explained to the guy we [my wife and i] were almost 70yrs old and had no kids living with us that could possibly wreck the assembly, and we were concerned that down the road a year or so, the repair parts were going to be "no longer available" for our "lifetime guarantee" , thereby forcing us to AGAIN replace our faucet in the kitchen.
the guy asked for our part number and where we bought the fixture. then, to our astonishment, he sent a BIG box of replacement parts to be used in the future ! how unbelievable is that in this day and age !
the next time we replace any plumbing fixtures, i will call and see what happens BEFORE the "lifetime guarantee" expires before the part[s] do !

we just bought the speed queen washer dryer. went with the 5 year one because i didn't want all that digital crap.. kept it simple with good old dials.

But we now have "smart appliances' that one can control with their flipping smart phone. But the people making the big decisions aren't smart enough to foresee this mess coming. Sorry not interested in either one

My time right now does not allow me to dive in as deep as I wanted to, believe me. I am not one who gives up easily. But at a certain point one has to ask what is more valuable, getting back to my work of continuing the fight. In addition the suspected board is nowhere to be found. After 2.5 days of battling, in which I likely lost more $$ than I'd like to admit to, I buckled and bought a new unit from Home Depot with a promised delivery of 2-22. We'll see. In the meantime the wife picked up a toaster oven and it's doing just fine so far.

About 10 years ago we remodeled our kitchen, bought new appliances. The bottom of the double oven didn't work from day one. 3 service visits and a replacement controller didn't fix it. The 4th trip a different tech came in and found an internal fuse missing, installed fuse and all good.

I'm waiting for the fridge to act up, I made sure it's aware that it's replacement is standing by, a 60s vintage Westinghouse!

The Westinghouse is a nice match for our 50s vintage Philco. Both were acquired for free and both work.

We have a gas cooktop that should be easy to keep functioning forever.

That leaves finding a vintage double oven our last challenge, I can go gas or electric.

i have a 1951 crosley "shelvadoor" beer fridge that still has the original gas fill.
it will literally FREEZE my beer if i don't keep a close eye on the temperature control !
it takes two defrosts per year to keep it going.

Yep, the Philco is pretty much the same way.

The local small town appliance store is 3rd generation. Every 3 months or so he puts an ad in the paper saying new load arrived.
First couple times he had every appliance store in the region trying to buy his inventory. Would not do it, for his community. I asked how he gets the appliances, and he said he travels down to several warehouses he's been dealing with for years and buys whatever he can get form cancelled orders or overstock. The thing is some are bottom line and others are top of the line.
He said the warehouses are huge buildings with only one corner being used. Manufacturers are having problem getting stok because it can be only a couple small parts preventing completing the units and the factories shut down because lack of those parts and storage space.
Parts are sourced offshore even those built here.

I bought all new samsung units a couple of years ago and luckily bought insurance on ref. It works fine except it freezes the water line so no ice or water. It has some weird themo thing going on. I had 5 bottles of water next to each other on same shelf and 1 was solid ice and the other 4 had no ice at all. Temp was tested and it was 36. Has to get to over 45 not to freeze.They tired fixing it but finally declared it unrepairable and refunded purchase price so I have new ref. that works great except ice/water for the $300 cost of insurance. I've also had to repair my over stove microwave twice. A $6 part but pain to have to take down to repair. First time I went to work on it I found the 2 tamper proof screws were gone! Turns out HHGreg who was out of business by then sold me a unit that had been tampered with.