Submitted 2 weeks ago by FenrirIII@lemmy.world to technology@lemmy.world
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mz21ZF9eQOk
I literally have clothes hanging on a line across the living room because our just out of warranty $1,000+ Samsung “smart dryer” died again a month after I replaced every sensor and the heating element, and I just don’t feel like taking it apart again to “maybe” find the problem.
Before this we just had a plain white box from Maytag; easy to work on, cheap replacement parts. It was probably 30 years old when the motor seized and my wife asked for newer, fancier machines. Big mistake.
We have similar ‘smart’ Samsung washer and dryers that we purchased last year after our old Kenmore units bit the dust after many many years.
I am quick to warn anyone that I come across DO NOT buy Samsung machines under any circumstance.
Our wash times (and dry but especially wash) went up from astronomically. Even though the load size was supposed to be one of the largest we could find it no where near compares to what we had. Plus, a month or so after we had ours we received a notification from Samsung that they needed to log into our washer and do a ‘firmware’ update because several of those models were causing fires.
Imagine your washing machine causing a fucking fire and burning your house down.
And the fix is a firmware update not a total recall? So its either buggy overcomplicated software or the update tweaked things to reduce the power draw so you got less machine power than what you were advertised.
Samsung appliances have been like this for a while. I got a Samsung dryer in 2015 and it is by far the biggest piece of crap I have ever used. Thankfully I’m good at repairing appliances but this was a next level piece of crap. It was constantly wearing out drum rollers, belts, belt tensioners, and other parts. I was having to repair it almost on a yearly basis. I ended up just stocking a bunch of parts in a cabinet in the laundry room so when it failed I was able to fix it the same day. There are some 3rd party parts kids where they provide upgraded parts that seem to last longer. The drum rollers and belt tensioner pulley use low quality bushings that I upgraded to a 3rd party ball bearing parts and that made a big difference in reliability. I gave it to my mom and warned her about the issues with it and stocked her up on parts so anytime she has an issue she calls me and I can repair it the same day. Thankfully it’s not too difficult to work on.
A friend of mine got an entire Samsung appliance package and he dreads that decision every day. He hates his fridge, dishwasher, washer, and dryer.
Years ago I got two Bosch dishwashers and those have been great. Only minor repairs like replacement spray arms and a replacement rack glide have been needed on those. Otherwise they have been solid units and have fantastic performance.
A few years ago I got a GE combo washer/heat pump unit and it is definitely more convenient than separate units but it does have some flaws. The drain pump filter needs more maintenance than a typical unit. Some of the gunk gets past the drain filter and has caused the drain pump to clog. The dryer filter lets some lint past which causes the evaporator coil to clog somewhat over time. Cleaning the evaporator is difficult as access is quite limited so I had to buy some special long reach cleaning brushes and vacuum attachments. Sometimes the door doesn’t unlock when it’s supposed to because of a firmware issue. And lastly it causes more wrinkles in clothes than a conventional dryer.
I don’t keep up on the appliance world very much, but for many years I have been under the impression that when replacing one it’s always a good call to NOT get the Samsung.
I have literally never seen reason to doubt that rule.
I’m actually pretty happy with my current appliances, but I don’t stick all to one brand and I stick with the simpler cheaper designs. If paying for the next higher tier brings higher build quality or upgrades the core function’s power/capacity, then I’ll probably go for it.
That was one of my objections to replacing kitchen appliances for all too long. I’m not even going to consider all the same brand. But they’ve added enough “styling elements” that it’s tougher to fill a kitchen with similar appliances from different manufacturers
planned obsolescence (pretty much the cause of so much crap)
Add feature creep, so there’s more things to go wrong and there’s higher chances of something breaking.
From my memories, the price of appliances haven’t changed much in the last couple of decades. They maintain or increase margins with cheaper parts, less QA, looser performance tolerances while keeping the same sticker price. Whatever the quality sacrifice equivalent word for shrinkflation
Enshittification, just like with online services.
Enshittification means something more specific than just making a thing worse. It means making it worse in a way designed to exploit or take advantage of the the user by stealing their personal information or something like that.
This is more like “value engineering” and “planned obsolescence.”
More than that, it is the need to continually sell appliances. If you care to build to last (and we still know how to do it) then in the next quarter you sells will go down, the profit will go down and the board will go down.
Capitalism.
I watched a good video on tool quality.
It basically said the exact same old tool is better than the new tool now. But the new tool is priced much much less. When they compared it to a modern tool that was the same price or less it performed the same or better.
People just want cheap things and companies want to make money. People need to buy quality and companies will get an incentive to build quality.
That was also the conclusion of this video on the Speed channel for older version of things vs new one (included tools, shoes/undershirts, etc - I would ignore consumables that expire but they were there for s&g it seems):
The problem is it’s not really people’s choice. Companies have gotten very good at disguising quality traders and marketing has got very good at muddying the waters.
Since this is about tools, I’ll bring up Craftsman as an example. For many years, it was a quality brand accessible to homeowners. But as they changed to be cheaper they still marketed themselves as a quality brand and they seemed like the same price. It was only after the brand value was destroyed, that it became clear how “cheap” the tools had become and people were able to make a legitimate decision to move on
Our fridge is only 13 months old and failed 2 days before thanksgiving. It was like pulling teeth getting out warranty servicer to do something about it. Yesterday it was finally repaired. Defroster seized up somehow.
The fridge we had before this one was made in 1998 and it’s only failure was last year which was irreparable. Modern appliances are definitely less reliable.
avidamoeba@lemmy.ca 2 weeks ago
Good vid bur he’s falling a bit for the corporate propaganda that costs determine prices and that consumers have some power over price setting. Most firms maximize prices while minimizing costs. Consumers have especially little market power in a consolidated market like home appliances.
Krudler@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
I haven’t watched this video, but based on your comment I don’t think I’ll bother.
It is my sincere understanding that the degradation of quality is from the companies trying to leverage extended warranties as the true profit center of appliances.
avidamoeba@lemmy.ca 2 weeks ago
It’s still informative. His other stuff is good too.
123@programming.dev 2 weeks ago
He has other videos where he has explained that you can’t trust any brand any longer and you should not buy based on previous brand experiences alone but investigate individual models (and even revisions to them since it was a known trick to change them after the initial release to make them cheaper). Not sure if he mentioned it on this video since at the moment I’m not in the market for an appliance, but his takes seemed reasonable.
avidamoeba@lemmy.ca 2 weeks ago
Yup. I opted for mininally computerized Whirlpool based on some of his stuff in 2020. Mainly because they’re simple and there’s plenty of parts and repair people who can fix them in Canada.