RANT: trying to buy quality isn't worth it anymore

Jayne

Jayne

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The whole disposable culture is sad, but it's the way things have to be I think based on intentionally stupid designs.

Way back in the day we got a dyson vacuum as a wedding gift, and 10-ish years into service the hose failed. I replaced it for $30 with a knock-off part as the actual hose was $150 from dyson. Greedy bastards, that's half the cost of the unit. Another 5 years of service and it started to literally suck less. Something was just worn out. I figured 15 years was pretty good so we just got a 2nd dyson and it was the 'good' vacuum for the house and the old one soldiered on as the garage/car vac.

Few weeks back the brush head on the 'good' one wasn't spinning. None of the usual things was wrong, eventually the multimeter told me that the head wasn't getting power. I figured a switch inside the 'tilt' mechanism had failed, and it was fixable but not so easily by me. Took it to an actual vacuum shop and paid $50 toward the diag/service.

Today I get the call, and the 'circuit board' has failed and it's $300 to repair. WTF? A 'circuit board'? Why the hell would a vacuum cleaner have any sort of circuit at all, it's an AC motor with two switches. Again, WTF? It's not a 'smart' appliance, it doesn't do bluetooth or wifi or have an app or a display or anything. It's got two damn buttons on it. Pretty sure that doesn't require a PCB board to run, but here we are. Something that's so simple and had been solved with 1920s tech suddenly has to be 'upgraded' to something that won't last much longer than the warranty. If that's not planned obsolescence I don't know what is.

The replacement price for that unit is.... $300.

So, the 'new' one gets turned in to the car vac (since the hose still works) and I'll be ordering a shitbox cheapo vac for the house. I'll just assume that my $79 vacuum has to be thrown out every 5 years. Bet it doesn't have a CPU.

This is the same route as our washer/dryer. Got a good set that crapped out with a repair bill that was more than a cheap ass unit. Cheap ass unit works fine, and when it dies it goes into the trash to be replaced with another cheap ass unit.

ok, rant off.
 
Ha, we have a Dyson with the same problem. Spent $600 on a Bissel Pet Smart that fried the motor in no time. My mother gave us her Miele (cha Ching) which we’ve been using and she bought two Sebo vacuums (cha Ching cha Ching), one of which we will get after the renovation is done,
 
Yeah everything is disposable. 15/20 years ago a friend of mine whose wife ran a cleaning service said Dyson was trash. When I did environmental services we ran some loud metal thing that looked out of the sixties. At home, Shark, solid function and don't bother fixing anything not obvious, they last 5+ years.
 
I don’t think it’s so much poor design as it is intentional business practice. Why sell a $5 at cost when they can sell you a new vacuum.

But there is some poor design in that runs of parts, once gone, probably aren’t being made too often anymore.

Anyway, screw Dyson.
 
Yeah, all consumer household items seem to just die way to early. Pisses me off as well....

On the vacuum front. Don't let a shop vac dissuade you. I have a little 4 horse/4 gallon Stanley I got on sale for $30 a decade ago. Spent another $25 on a quality hard surface roller head (I don't have carpet) and it handily out does the wife's $600 Bissell standup, power head whatever she has to have because my tiny shop vac couldn't be doing as good a job as a "real" vacuum🤣

Small, light, cheap, powerful for size, robust and simple as hell. Don't forget it'll hold 4 gallons of dog hair compared to the fancy ones tiny bin that can't do half of my little place without dumping it. Oh and the filter size and cost difference. And on, and on..
 
Engineers and their designs to help purchasing and the bean counters 🤦‍♂️.


Not a fan of it but def seems to be the way now.
 
25 years ago Dyson licensed their canister vacuum design to Kenmore and my wife and I had one of those for like a decade. I stupidly gave it away to a less fortunate family member.
I replaced it with a Miele upright. That was a great vacuum as well, but it was heavy so my wife hated it. She intentionally tried to kill it and chuckled it down the stairs. I was able to fix it. Now it it dedicated to the upstairs only so it doesn't need to be lugged up or down the stairs.
The new downstairs vacuum is a midrange Shark model we got at Costco. It's very lightweight and feels kind of chintz, but it works nearly as good as the Miele.
 
After disappointments with Dyson, we’ve settled on a Shark robot for the daily maintenance (cheap parts, and decent warranty service when it inevitably fails), and a Miele for the serious vacuum. The Miele has survived several years of severe service, and still works great, despite being rather scarred.
 
hp468 said:
I see nobody is complaining about their Rainbow or central vacs. 🤔😜
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We had central vac growing up, never had an issue except for us kids throwing who knows what down all of the tubes. 😂

My MIL’s rainbow finally began to act up after 25+ yrs so she bought a new Meile recently.

I’m happy with my Shark, it’s so far been more durable and a better performer than my previous Electrolux. But I also realize vacuums have been a race to the bottom over the past 15yr, so spending more than $150 on a vacuum may not be the best money spent unless you go high end (no, Dyson is not high end despite what their marketing team thinks.)
 
Crap, I guess they’ve gone downhill.
I’ve been very pleased with our Dysons. We’ve a pair of very sheddy Rotties and the Dysons have been great. I did commercial carpet and upholstery cleaning for a few years. Our Dysons way out performed the commercial vacs we had.
 
Refrigerators are the same, we are on our 3rd house fridge In 21 yrs…but the fridge that was in the house (who knows how old that was)when we bought it was demoted to garage beer fridge and is running to this day without issues
 
Our apartment is 5 years old. We had our refrigerator replaced last week.
The dad of a friend in school had a TV repair shop. He made a good living and put his two sons both through college. Today, TV's are disposable.
 
Geezer said:
The dad of a friend in school had a TV repair shop. He made a good living and put his two sons both through college. Today, TV's are disposable.
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This is a fact. I bought my first TV in early ‘79 when I moved out. I got the employee discount because I worked for the manufacturer. Sylvania Superset, 21” color, no remote. I think it was $400 plus or minus. It fried the power supply in 4-5 years. Had that repaired and the TV more or less crapped out after 10.

Bought some inexpensive 25” models during the 80’s, 90’s, then a 42” plasma for $1800 in 2006 that still works great. We don’t use that one much, never did. No failing on it’s part.

Latest TV? 55” from Amazon. 4k, last year’s model when we bought for $300. Great pic, performs as advertised. Exceeds my expectations.
 
Jerzsubbie said:
We had central vac growing up, never had an issue except for us kids throwing who knows what down all of the tubes. 😂

My MIL’s rainbow finally began to act up after 25+ yrs so she bought a new Meile recently.
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The house I grew up in had a central vac, installed sometime in the early 80s, it’s still in service today pulling shop vac duty in my garage, pushing 40 years old. I need to pick up another one, they are hard to beat.
 
hp468 said:
The house I grew up in had a central vac, installed sometime in the early 80s, it’s still in service today pulling shop vac duty in my garage, pushing 40 years old. I need to pick up another one, they are hard to beat.
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My grandparents had one 40+ years ago. I loved putting golf balls/marbles in, then run along to find where the hoses run through the walls.
 
Understand, and I am sorry. I am dealing with this now with my stove. I researched the hell out of it, it is a high-quality, 5/5 star stove. Three years in, I need a control board.

My top-of-the-line "intuitive" washing machine doesn't work worth a damn half the time.

I have stopped researching appliances, I just go in and point to one. That worked for my cheap-ass dryer, which aside from one transitory glitch, works like a Timex: "takes a lickin', keeps on ticking'."

Vacuums specifically, the only one we get now is a Shark from Costco. Best vacuum we've ever had.
 
Chuckman said:
Understand, and I am sorry. I am dealing with this now with my stove. I researched the hell out of it, it is a high-quality, 5/5 star stove. Three years in, I need a control board.
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I was actually able to order parts and repair our bosch stove myself when it crapped. I was also able to order parts to replace the part I broke while repairing the other part. Still cheaper than having someone else do it.
 
Wife was thinking about redoing the bathrooms. Had a guy come out to quote us on ripping out the old tub and replacing with a shower only unit.

I said i know this thing is old so we thought it might be time. His response was- "you'd be surprised but we actually change out more tubs from houses that are 5-10 years old than we do on older houses(20-40 years old) . Those things were built to last."

The quote for the cheapest basic shower only unit they had was $14,977... if i paid cash that day it was $11,000.
 
Jayne said:
I was actually able to order parts and repair our bosch stove myself when it crapped. I was also able to order parts to replace the part I broke while repairing the other part. Still cheaper than having someone else do it.
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I am keeping this one limping along. It mostly works, most of the time.
 
yard mongrel said:
This will sound snobby, but under 500 is not in the price range of a quality vacuum. Check out a Meile.
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We can put a 1970s supercomputer on our wrist for $50, but we can't make a 121 year old "thing that sucks junk into a bag" tech for the same that lasts. Something wrong about that.

yard mongrel said:
My mother has an Electrolux from 79 that costs 1100 bucks back then.
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My mom also had one. Wonder if dad still has it in the attic somewhere?
 
Mr. Bggs said:
Wife was thinking about redoing the bathrooms. Had a guy come out to quote us on ripping out the old tub and replacing with a shower only unit.

I said i know this thing is old so we thought it might be time. His response was- "you'd be surprised but we actually change out more tubs from houses that are 5-10 years old than we do on older houses(20-40 years old) . Those things were built to last."

The quote for the cheapest basic shower only unit they had was $14,977... if i paid cash that day it was $11,000.
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Our house was built mid-70s. We had one bathroom remodeled, the contractor asked if he could keep the tub and take it off the final cost. He said the same thing about tubs.
 
Mr. Bggs said:
Wife was thinking about redoing the bathrooms. Had a guy come out to quote us on ripping out the old tub and replacing with a shower only unit.

I said i know this thing is old so we thought it might be time. His response was- "you'd be surprised but we actually change out more tubs from houses that are 5-10 years old than we do on older houses(20-40 years old) . Those things were built to last."

The quote for the cheapest basic shower only unit they had was $14,977... if i paid cash that day it was $11,000.
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My wife wanted this done too. Reinforces why I will do it myself (eventually).
 
Itold
Mathieu18 said:
My wife wanted this done too. Reinforces why I will do it myself (eventually).
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Told him no thanks. They called me 2 days later. After reviewing your quote we realized we could cut costs and would like to come back and talk to you. I said unless you can do it for $1500 im good. The lady hung up on me😂
 
DC Bigdaddy said:
the complaint with a Rainbow, I would like to be able to walk into a store and say I want that one, pay for it and leave without having to deal with their pyramid scheme of a sales program.
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I saw a comic strip once. Vacuum salesman came in, dumped a pile of dirt on the floor and said, "If my vacuum can't get that up, I will eat it". Kid starts walking away and the salesman asks where he is going. Kid says, "to the kitchen to get a fork, because we don't have any electricity".
 
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