[quote=FlyerInHi]CAr, you’re romanticizing the past. I don’t miss much of anything about the past. The products we have now are so much better price/quality wise. Remember, in the past appliances cost a lot more as a portion of income. Now they are commodities.
Kitchen aid are the high end whirlpool. It’s all about marketing, but Maytag is rated commercial and have 5 year warranty, i think.
I have an 5 year old IKEA/whirlpool panel ready dishwasher. I love it because it’s beautiful and blends in flush with my cabinets. Wish we had more euro style choices of appliances.
If you want spotless dishes, use Lemi Shine detergent booster.[/quote]
It’s not just about romanticizing the past (though I do like retro-style). I like things that are built to last. Paying $1,000 for a dishwasher that will last 20-30 years is a heck of a lot cheaper than buying a $400-$800 dishwasher that needs to be replaced every 7 years (or less!).
Add to that the fact that planned obsolescence is one of the main causes of environmental pollution — mining and transporting raw materials, manufacturing and transporting finished products, transporting from point-of-sale to customers’ homes/businesses, and the pollution created by transporting and then recycling or dumping the item being replaced. It’s a HUGE contributor to environmental degradation.
Personally, I’m a “function over form” kind of person. I like things to be clean and orderly, but don’t need extra frills or shiny “new” features that, more often than not, aren’t nearly as durable (or as efficient) as what they are supposed to be improving upon.
I would argue that we got better quality for our dollar in years past. FWIW, the Bosch, Viking, and even Miele dishwashers don’t seem to be that much better than the KitchenAid dishwashers (based on consumer feedback). We even purchased slightly more expensive KitchenAid dishwashers that were supposed to be more durable. All three (we have two dishwashers in our kitchen, and one already had to be replaced within 3 years!) have had problems, problems that are major enough to render the dishwashers unusable; these issues are well known, but KA refuses to do anything to fix the problem and make their customers whole. That is totally inexcusable. We did not have these problems 20+ years ago.
Not sure if you know this or not, but most of the major appliance companies have been bought out or merged with other companies so we essentially have only one dishwasher manufacturer. Whirlpool owns Whirlpool, Maytag, Hotpoint, Amana, KitchenAid, Jenn-Air, etc. The difference between most of these machines is just branding.
I’ve been trying to convince Speed Queen (commercial washers and dryers that are still built to last) to get into other appliance lines, with no luck so far. Still working on it. 😉
