Are new home appliances pure junk?

In the past 10 years, we've had our share of terrible experiences with brand new appliances. In most cases, they all broke-down right after the warranty had expired.

We had never purchased extended warranty coverage before we realized that “the appliances were not made like they used to”.

Our woes began with a nice, high-tech, LG refrigerator that broke-down twice, once under warranty, then again after we were on our own, and was immediately trashed and replaced, a 2-year old GE dishwater and 12 month later, a 3-year old GE washing machine that were both replaced.

That was until, last week, when the replacement washing machine, still-under-warranty, quit working. The service company came to repair it, but didn't have the central electronic processing unit that was fried, so we'll have to wait another week before, hopefully, everything works again.

The Whirlpool machine cost us less than $900, but if it were not under warranty, our repair costs would be a whopping $500! A five-year extended warranty at $330 looks cheap compared to the prices we were asked to pay.

What is causing this tide of terrible home appliances?

Outsourcing to Mexico and Asia has got to play a role; add to it an invasion of cheap plastic inside the devices to cut cost and make everything lighter, so less energy and water are needed, allowing for feeble and inexpensive motors. I almost forgot cheap, unreliable electronics and we have a perfect storm for a downward spiral into engineering mediocrity.

Of course, this kind of radical value-analysis pays for cute colors, sexy styling, low prices, high profits at the expense of reliability.

While cars have improved markedly over the years, appliances are going to the dogs and it's time well all start screaming bloody murder!