Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Expensive fridges are dying, leading to fraud claims

nbcbayarea.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

121–130 of 191 posts

Re: Expensive fridges are dying, leading to fraud claims

#121

Post by nagisa »

zwieback wrote: post #55
haunter wrote: post #32

Don't buy korean (LG and Samsung). Personally I only buy Bosch whenever I can.

Having grown up in Stuttgart and son of a former Bosch advisor it hurts me to say this: Bosch stuff is very mixed. We have a Bosch fridge and do not like it: too small, bad door hinges, weird interior (probably better suited for German city living). We swapped it with our old American basement fridge and that's a better fit although the cheap compressor is annoying. What I'd like is a big "empty-box" fridge with a go…

Very mixed indeed. I love the dryer we got, but the washing machine sometimes stops washing mid cycle with a false-positive error which requires restart of the program and warranty ain’t fixing it. Very annoying. The dishwasher is alright if you ignore the fancy press-door-to-open function engaging sometimes when you close the door. The coffee maker has already gone to the other side of the styx twice due to an unscheduled rapid disassembly of internal components. The food processor although clearly the same kind of quality plastic as inside the coffee maker, has been holding up thankfully, but it doesn’t inspire much confidence when I see the whole thing straining and twisting around when mixing some pizza dough.

I’m hoping that by the time warranty ends on all of these things I manage to iron the major problems out. At the very least arranging for somebody to come in and take a look is a pretty painless experience...

Re: Expensive fridges are dying, leading to fraud claims

#122

Post by bombcar »

zwieback wrote: post #55
haunter wrote: post #32

Don't buy korean (LG and Samsung). Personally I only buy Bosch whenever I can.

Having grown up in Stuttgart and son of a former Bosch advisor it hurts me to say this: Bosch stuff is very mixed. We have a Bosch fridge and do not like it: too small, bad door hinges, weird interior (probably better suited for German city living). We swapped it with our old American basement fridge and that's a better fit although the cheap compressor is annoying. What I'd like is a big "empty-box" fridge with a go…

I'm tempted to go with a commercial "install the compressor on the roof" style design someday, because then you have a perfectly silent device.

Of course, that would need to be in your "final home" because nobody would want to buy a house like that.

Re: Expensive fridges are dying, leading to fraud claims

#123

Post by nicup12345689 »

apantel wrote: post #110
johngossman wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

May I politely suggest you step away from the computer and go read something optimistic? "Factfulness" perhaps? Or https://futurecrunch.com/ if you must continue to surf.

I’m actually generally optimistic. I’ve spent my whole life singing the tune of tech optimism. But it’s starting to seem like we’re passing an inflection point specifically with respect to being able to maintain a grip on the real. Most of the things I put in my rant have to do with losing our grip on the real: the platforms are degrading because search results are now mostly created by people who are in the business…

The blackpill is once you realize this all stems from democracy catering to the lowest common denominator in everything.

Re: Expensive fridges are dying, leading to fraud claims

#124

Post by bombcar »

black6 wrote: post #86
TedDoesntTalk wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's too bad, because the software and apps for them are far and above anything non-Korean. Not too important for a refrigerator, but it's important on ovens and microwaves. One tiny example: my brand-new JennAir wall-oven has remote start through it's phone app. Guess what? You have to enable "remote start" on the oven itself before the app works. Every single time! You can't just enable remote start on the oven o…

It's hard to cook when you're not in the kitchen, so it's not surprising that an excellent oven like JennAir skimps on what is at best a marginally useful marketing ploy.

There are two separate "remote start" philosophies - one is "put item in oven before leaving, remotely turn on at X time, done when home" which is pretty clearly what the JennAir is aiming towards. The other is "I want to preheat the oven" which is what the other leans towards.

Both honestly skeeve me out; I wouldn't want to use it unless I had remote cameras and could confirm the oven was empty/only had what I wanted in it.

Re: Expensive fridges are dying, leading to fraud claims

#125

Post by bombcar »

ncr100 wrote: post #41
legitster wrote: post #22

LG and Samsung are both notoriously awful for this. Even when they come with crazy long warranties, parts will never be available. The irony is that cheaper models are still crazy durable - less circuitry, less moving parts, less "economy" features, more off-the-shelf components. If you actually want appliances that last forever, think like a landlord and buy yourself the boring products.

This raises a good point worth repeating: realities of maintenance. Even for the 'best' refrigerators, it can be VERY painful to respond to a reasonable defect maintenance issue for certain manufacturers. And it may depend upon the locale you're in. Tip: Ask questions about repair ETAs when buying new, for each model.

And find a local repairman and talk with him. They will always list the models they hate, the models that break but are super cheap to fix and keep running, and then, if you're lucky, what they'd buy their mom.

Re: Expensive fridges are dying, leading to fraud claims

#126

Post by [deleted] »

jessriedel wrote: post #28

How onerous are the US energy efficiency regulations on refrigerators, and how does that interact with longevity? Modern washing machines and dishwashers are famously terrible because of stringent water- and power-usage requirements, often trying to save 5% on water usage but performing so terribly that people re-wash or wash by hand, thereby wasting much more water not to mention human time. (Some court push back: h…

[deleted]

Re: Expensive fridges are dying, leading to fraud claims

#127

Post by fulladder »

apantel wrote: post #13

We're currently living through a race to the bottom in everything: technology (degradation of platforms like Google and FaceBook — Google has become practically unusable; proliferation of bots, SEO junk, AI junk; also the degradation and over-complication of hardware, e.g. these fridges: overly-complicated smart appliances that don't last long; "they don't build things like they used to"), society (social media, pola…

I honestly can't tell if this is satire/trolling. Moloch? If it's trolling, bravo, well done!

If not: you're not wrong about any one individual thing but you have a completely distorted sense of proportions.

Re: Expensive fridges are dying, leading to fraud claims

#128

Post by DrinkWater »

pintxo wrote: post #66
timthelion wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://www.mieleusa.com/e/refrigerators-and-freezers-102212... has few bells and whistles but is a superpremium brand. I bought some of their stuff used and while expensive it has very high quality materials...

Note: Miele just rebrands Liebherr fridges. At least in Europe, guess the US is no different.

That’s not entirely true. They are manufactured by Liebherr but so heavily tweaked by Miele that „rebranding“ is not exactly the right word. That doesn’t mean they are better or inferior than regular Liebherr products though.

Re: Expensive fridges are dying, leading to fraud claims

#129

Post by bombcar »

rewsiffer wrote: post #38

Does anyone have solid recommendations of reliable household appliance brands? If all the consumer brands are shit, would it be worth going commercial?

Look for commercial brands that have a small residential market.

If it's large, it can become shit on its own, so beware.

Commercial things are great but BE AWARE there may be things unexpected about them. Like noise is usually not an issue for a commercial item in an industrial kitchen.

Check used prices on commercial gear. Anything that maintains a used price after 5-10 years indicates a valuable brand. If you can't find any used ones being sold, it probably becomes crap. Auction sites (not eBay, but like physical "business is shutting down" auctions) can be good for this, if you can see the price they went for.

The only brand I'm really "all in" on is Speed Queen. Everything else so far I have been in the "I'll buy it scratch and dent cheap enough that I won't be sad if it explodes" - Best Buy clearance has been good to me here.

Post reply on HN