Why Maytag Has Lost My Business

Why Maytag Has Lost My Business

Last month, I was pretty peeved because I had to get the dishwasher fixed. You see, the handle/latch mechanism, which is used every time a dish goes into or out of the machine, was made of plastic, and snapped. It cost almost $200 to repair (of course we were a few months out of warranty) and the repair guy said that enough of them had broken that they were making them with metal parts now. Well, ya know, if they knew it was a problem, don’t you think they should have offered to replace the parts to appliance owners as a courtesy? Isn’t that what product registration’s for? (Oh, wait – no. It’s for demographics so they can sell your name to target advertisers. My bad.)

So today, I’m doing laundry, as usual, in the Maytag washer that came with the house. It was a negotiating point, because the previous owners had just bought the washer, dryer, and refrigerator. Therefore, we’re talking about a machine that’s approximately two years old. SNAP! WHApwhap. . .smell of burning rubber. Now, replacing a belt in a washing machine is not usually a big deal, so I went about unhooking the water and drain hose, and unscrewed the back. Holy cow, the stupid machine is assembled in such a way that the back is not a removable panel. You need to unhook the control panel and take off the lid to get to the screws that hold on the FRONT panel, and the back is not a panel at all, but an integral part of the sides. So I called Jersey Coast Appliance again, and they’re coming out tomorrow. If they have the part, they can fix it right then. If not, I have to go take over a laundromat. AND it’s going to cost a minimum of $89, the cost for a service call.

When the dishwasher broke, I happened to be shopping in the same strip as JCA, and stopped in to ask some questions. Apparently, Maytag was bought by Whirlpool, which makes the shoddiest, cheapest versions of any major appliance, so the only thing that’s Maytag is the name. I was told that the best way to go was Bosch, because they had never gotten repair calls on that brand, and they consistently outlast all the American brands. My mom has a Fisher-Paykel (Australian) washer/dryer that she loves, and the JCA manager told me that they were also an outstanding brand, but about twice the price of Bosch.

Whenever I see an admonition to “Buy American”, it just ticks me off. Why should we reward these companies for shoddy workmanship and materials? Why should we spend more money than we have to just to appear patriotic? If American companies want people to buy their products, they should be producing things that are reliable and well-made, rather than pandering to some jingoistic ideology. When I don’t have to pay the price of the appliance all over again in repair costs within 5 years, then I’ll spend my money. If the products happens to be American, all the better. But if I have a choice between a non-American label that won’t cost me, inconvenience me, and frustrate me with repeated repairs (especially repairs of manufacturing defects) and an American one that will, patriotism won’t be the driving factor behind my purchase.

It Starts off Small

It Starts off Small

Everything does. Nothing is easy when it comes to home fixups, reorganization, you know the drill.

As I’ve said before, the house we’re in now was “fixed” by the previous owners. It is clear to us that much of the work was done quickly to help sell the house, and that in addition to that, they weren’t exactly experienced handymen. However, that was the case in the old house, too. Since this one is a hundred years younger, there hasn’t been as much opportunity to really mess things up, and most of the repairs can be tackled with a trip to Lowe’s instead of a search for an expensive restoration expert.

Our exterior work is done, and since we had to move all the furniture so the new window could be installed in our bedroom, hubby and I decided we might as well paint now. I love to paint, I really do, but I hate the prep. Boy, is there a lot of prep. the previous owners installed the bathroom door, the sliding glass door, and all the mouldings themselves. We knew is was poorly done, but put up a window treatment without giving much attention, figuring we weren’t ready to tackle the room quite yet. Now that it has to happen, lookie here what I found!
behind-the-curtains.jpg

Yeah, they put the doors in, but didn’t make sure they were flush with the wall. The door mouldings are, therefore, nailed into the wall, but have gaps at the door edge that range from almost touching to 3/4″ apart. It looks like when they got to the slider, they figured what the heck, let’s just hang the curtains, and it was suspended from one nail at the top. It took an entire tube of caulk to fill the gaps on one of the slider uprights and the bathroom door uprights. At least the guy who put the main door in for us did it right, but I have three walls of mouldings that need to be nailed, caulked, and primed.

So, ready to make a change, filled with optimism and energy, I dove into work yesterday.

I switched the furniture between the living room and the family room. I emptied the china out of the breakfront, moved it, and refilled it. I went through the family room closet and discarded the junk, set aside the stuff to save, and made one collection of stuff to donate, and a pile to assemble into a gift basket to auction for a Marching Band fundraiser. I dismantled the wire shelves, measured that closet and the girls’ closets for additional shelving, and made a list for shopping. I got the kids to go through the stuff in the old toybox, and sort out keepers and tossers, cleaned out the box, and called someone who might want it. I did laundry, and took out old towels to bring to the animal shelter.

I did not nail. I did not caulk. I did not paint.

But I did get a lot of stuff done.

Now, today I do have to get those shelves, and maybe while someone else puts them up and two other someone elses put things away on them, I’ll do some prep. We’ll have to see. Because, of course, nothing’s that simple. In addition to going out to get the shelves and dropping off the towels, I need to go to two animal shelters and put up signs around the neighborhood, because Rhonda’s gone missing. After I watched TV for a bit last night with the family, I spent over an hour looking for pictures of her on the computer so I could make a missing poster. She’s been using the dog door to go into the back yard for a while, but she learned how to climb the fence. She did it once, and we found her relaxing by the front door, waiting to be let back in. Then she did it again, and we haven’t seen her since. It’s been long enough that if she were going to be brought in to a shelter, she’ll be there. We’ve taken walks and have found no sign of her, dead or alive, within blocks. If we don’t find her, we can hope that she was taken in by someone who doesn’t have one of those canine creatures that pissed her off so much. We’ll see.
rhonda.jpg

So now it’s noon. I slept really late this morning. I’ll get myself started and we’ll see how much actually gets accomplished. I’m indulging my inner compulsive tasker this weekend.

Gaaaah!

Gaaaah!

OK, now I can say my day has been officially wasted. In between the errands, and for a good couple of hours this afternoon, I’ve been writing a tremendously long post. I thought I had saved it several times, but I got interrupted a lot, so I guess I actually hadn’t saved recently enough when the Internet pooped out. Pulling up the draft, I have two paragraphs. Two. F’in. Paragraphs. This could have been a doctoral thesis, fer cryin’ out loud. Stoopid cable service.