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Why New Refrigerators Fail
We all remember the old refrigerators: the appliances that lasted for decades and seemed like they could run forever. I wish I still owned one. I just had an expensive refrigerator die – a top-of-the-line Electrolux that keeled over exactly two years after we installed it. And now I understand why.
The repair guys have told me that all fridges and freezers sold now have a short life — something like four years on average. Why?
The answer is a combination: they banned Freon (for so-called “environmental” reasons), which did not corrode the heat exchanger pipe the same way. The new refrigerants have all kinds of nasty lifetime issues.
And, to save a little money, they use thin-walled copper pipe instead of the classic thicker walls, or aluminum. So with condensate comes corrosion, pinholes, and … the refrigerant goes bye-bye.
So I have just paid too much money (but still one-third the cost of replacing the fridge) to replace a flawed part with the same damned part – just newer. And now the clock is ticking anew.
This is nuts, of course. I understand about a manufacturer saving some money here and there. But on units that cost $1-3k… really?!
If anyone has a manufacturer who actually is willing to pay the extra few dollars needed to make long-lasting appliances (and is not a five-digit SubZero-type brand), please let me know. We have a big home and we feed a lot of people: I think we have seven full-size standing freezer-only units and three to four refrigerators. I cannot replace them all every four years!
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They make propane air conditioners, too.
My Electrolux vacuum cleaner is 42 years old. I’ve never bought another one. I look at new vacuums (I would like a lighter one) all the time, but they aren’t as good as what I have now. I bought vacuum cleaner bags about a month ago, made by 3M, and it says on the box they will fit all canister models made after 1954!
Three years ago I replaced a 19 year old GE DW with a Bosch. Their top model, I specified that I wanted the cleanest dishes. It’s crap. Took us weeks to figure a routine to get glasses clean (requires lemon wedges), does not take any crud off of plates (so hand wash first) and nothing of plastic is ever dry. Also takes a minimum of a hour, up to three, to do a load. My dealer, a neighbor who I trust, blames this on EPA water use limits.
There’s also shrinkflation. I have two glass skillet lids. The 25-year-old one is 2lb 7.5 oz, and the 5-year-old one is 1lb 14-1/8 oz — a 34% reduction in material. They both work, but I’ve dropped the older one on the tile floor and it didn’t break, so it’s got strength going for it.
My 25-year-old Minute Minder weighs 96g, and my 5-year-old weighs 92g; this is a 4.2% reduction is materials.
It doesn’t have to be planned obsolescence, it’s just less material.
I did some new research on CVT’s. To the extent the government forced that, they don’t have the slightest idea if fewer resources are going to be used in the end.
They cost less initially, they get better gas mileage, and I prefer the performance, but beyond that it’s all negative. Everybody that works on them has to get specialized training as well.
7 or 8 years ago I bought a Frigidaire dishwasher. It’s ultra-quiet. I was raised with loud dishwashers (when we finally got one) and I like to know when it’s running and when it’s not. Anyway, this washer has 15 buttons on it. 4 or 5 of these buttons toggle through various settings. I only use one button that reads “START”. But for all its fangled gadgetry, it gets the dishes clean.
I’m leery of anything made by Bosch. When I worked at Apple we used Bosch conveyors, which included Bosch gear-motors. We complained to them that the gear boxes were leaking onto our product. There response was, “No they aren’t leaking. We designed them.” No matter what we told them, they would explain that we are incorrect because they designed the gear boxes.
The expression we use is that “Germans never make small mistakes.”
My wife has said for years that dishwashers aren’t really, they’re dish sanitizers. She always at least rinses off dishes before she puts them in the washer.
The real problem with dishwashers is that most homes only have one. This means, especially with the longer washing cycles mandated by the government, that you always have dirty dishes stacked in the sink and counter while waiting for the cycle to finish. We just bought a home in Amarillo and that is the first upgrade we will make: I made sure we have room for a second dishwasher. You absolutely need two dishwashers. If you only have one, you might as well have none, because it often takes less time to wash them by hand, and you have to wash by hand if you’re going to clear off the sink and counters.
There’s only the two of us, so the load isn’t heavy.
You keep your counters clear?
I hope to once we get that second dishwasher installed.
Yeah, if you barely fill it up during the day, you can run it at night while sleeping.
One time we had 11 people to manage with one of those stupid eco-dishwashers. 2 1/2 hours.
The dishwasher tech I was talking about earlier was explaining to me that they have some Rube Goldberg gadget inside of them that allows them to use one less motor or something. It totally breaks down more and wears out early.
Lol. Lynda doesn’t run it til it’s utterly full, and that takes days.
Any chance the water limit thing relies on some kind of mechanical restrictor, that could be removed? Like I always do with shower heads.
Running a dishwasher utterly full, could be a problem with effectiveness. Granted that it SHOULD work fine like that, but if it DOESN’T, just running it more often and not utterly full, could be a lot simpler than having two.
No, that would not solve the problem of having dirty dishes accumulating on the counter.
How many accumulate while the dishwasher is running?
I’ve been running a refrigerator manufacturing company for the past 22 years. I don’t think the problem is the new refrigerants or claims of cheaper tubing. Electrolux is a good brand. I bought from their factory in Hungary for many years and the engineers were top notch. You are accepting information from a service tech and have 1 personal data point.
Unfortunately, the chances the service tech repaired the unit properly are not great. The factory manufacturing process is far more controlled. If you have a new failure within a couple of years, I’d bet it is related to the repair, not the OEM design.
I wish you had mentioned the exact part which failed and a description of the failure.
But to answer your question, most major brands are well made: Electrolux, Haier, Whirlpool, LG, etc. You likely will not have a problem with a new one. They will last ~15 to 30 years. You just had some bad luck. Don’t read too much into it.
He said it was the heat exchanger that leaked the refrigerant. It was identified to me (and shown) as the copper line (wrapped in insulation). He showed the corrosion on the line (claiming accelerated by thermal cycles and lots of condensate), but said he had to replace the evap coil assembly as well.
The original part had no dye in the refrigerant – the replacement does, so if it leaks, we’ll know from where.
Speaking from personal experience, I have had several Frigidaire freezer units fail within a year of purchase; the quality has definitely dropped in my eyes.
Others on this thread have suggested Samsung is a better bet than Electrolux. What do you reckon?
I have many LG appliances, having redone our kitchen in them 2 years ago. In those 2 years, the door closing sensors on two over-range microwaves have failed. And the circuit boards controlling the two dishwashers have also failed. When two units of each kind fail about the same time…. it screams out to me that this is a consistent design or manufacturing flaw. I am done with LG.
My other local repair guy who came out told me that the quality has dropped considerably. “Everyone makes crap now,” said he. My experience fits.
Not knowing the details of your experience, I wonder if some of this perception is based on all the bad ones from the old days failed already, and only the good ones are left.
I was never in the refrigerant biz, but I agree that factory controls and product quality is an order of magnitude better in any kind of high volume manufacturing.
The 2 year life on the new Electrolux fridge is a big counterexample for me, to be sure.
I swore off anything by a Whirlpool company years ago, after buying a new manufactured home that came with Whirlpool appliances. Usually, the warranty on the appliances starts from date of PURCHASE, which in this case would be when I bought the home. But when the refrigerator stopped working after a few months, I tried to get warranty service and they claimed the warranty period starts from date of MANUFACTURE, which is ridiculous. Even aside from manufactured homes which might take up to a year or longer before the appliances bought in quantity get put into a home and the home actually bought – the appliances haven’t been operating during that time – appliances sold by a Home Depot store or whatever might have been in their warehouse for a few months before being sold. Taking that off the typically ONE-YEAR warranty (you don’t get anything longer from any company now, unless you pay extra – they all want to have the lowest possible “sticker price”) is ridiculous.
The stove problem was actually worse, a few times I’d have something cooking on “low” to simmer a soup or something, and then I’d smell something burning and go back into the kitchen to find that the burner had somehow gone to HIGH despite the control being set on “low.” That’s dangerous.
One way that there could be an achievement in terms of using less energy would be for it to be easy to understand and use thermostats.
In my neighborhood during the summer, a lot of homes have AC going most of the day even when no one is home. I asked my gf across the street why theirs is always running. She replied neither she or her husband can figure the damn thing out. So although they should be able to have the AC come on, say at 3PM in the afternoon so the house is cooled off when everyone is home around five, the programming stumps them. Their solution is just to let it run all day.
Of course paying for that utility usage costs a pretty penny. He is a mechanic who has had jobs on oil rigs, so I can’t imagine what Honeywell or whoever does to make things so complicated even technically minded people can’t deal with the product.
We have figured out theoretically how to use our thermostat, except the thermostat just pretends we did not bother to re-set the settings to conform to a change in our AC needs. Money-wise, our house is set inside a hill, so we are well insulated and don’t usually need the AC on til around 5 each evening.
LOL. This reminds me of the Rolls Royce in Nigeria that was used for state visits. It had some very early version of electrically-operated windows (early 1960s). On one of the visits, the windows started going up and down uncontrollably and wouldn’t stop. The Colonial Office complained to R-R, who said they’d investigate. They flew an enormous plane down to Nigeria, drove the Roller into it, took it back to England, and returned it, a week or two later, with everything in proper working order. When the Colonial Office wrote and asked them to please send a bill for the repairs, they received a response to the effect of “we don’t know what you are talking about. Rolls Royce cars do not break down. We have no record of the problem you’re describing.”
I do have to say that my own Bosch dishwasher works quite well.
Now I’m curious about the nature of the failure. Do you have pictures. Please feel free to ignore my requests/nerdiness if it’s too much trouble. The wrapped copper line sounds like the cap tube/suction line HX. It would normally be wet, but the copper should not have corroded through. Strange.
Can you tell the the basic type of Frigidaire unit (Chest Freezers, Upright freezers, or upright combi’s) and approximate year? Depending on the age, the freezers might have been made in the St. Cloud factory (good factory, but now closed). The Uprights likely from South Carolina or Juarez. I don’t know much about the quality in the Juarez factory, but it might not be the best. (again, please ignore if this is more effort that you want to invest)
I also don’t know much about the Samsung product, but I’d presume they are good. Korea is probably a step up from China (Haier/LG).
I used to worry about adding die in the circuit, but compressor manufacturers tell me it is fine.
Are you in a harsh environment? Temp/humidy, near salt water? etc? Seems like a lot of bad luck.