Venturing into the Land of the Unknown otherwise called
Buying a New Appliance.
Aren't appliances great! I mean how would the modern home function if it weren't for the dishwasher, oven, cooktop, refrigerator, washing machine and dryer. Modern appliances define multi tasking. You can wash dishes, cook a meal, and do a load of laundry all at the same time. But when an appliance goes down the adventure starts! Maybe I wouldn't be so passionate about those multi tasking appliances if I hadn't been plagued with two of them going out in a matter of months. First our dishwasher stopped working. My husband and I did research on the best brand for the price replacement. We checked a well known internet magazine for consumers, read several articles with ratings and made a decision based on those recommendations. To say we didn’t “choose wisely” would be an understatement. We contacted the manufacturer and the retailer, when it became obvious something was wrong with the new dishwasher, and we scheduled, corresponded, and rescheduled with them more times than I care to mention. After getting little satisfaction we took to social media with our complaints. That’s where we discovered the hundreds of others who had purchased the same dishwasher we had bought. And it turned out that it wasn't our imagination that something was terribly wrong with the design of the appliance. It became an ongoing soap opera where friends and family would check to see the latest development in our cause to get some satisfaction. After 3 months of persistence the manufacturer and retailer agreed to give us our money back. We then purchased another dishwasher and it works! So when the washer started acting like it would take out a wall during the spin cycle, we knew that it would need to be repaired or replaced. When the cost to repair exceeded the cost to replace we choose to replace it. Thats when we applied the lesson we learned from the dishwasher experience: that many appliance manufacturers pay internet resources to give positive reviews! What is a consumer to do? Well ,if you use the internet for research verify the source! Make sure the reviews are independent from the manufacturer. Ask neighbors, strangers, anybody for their opinions on the appliance brands they use. Our best resource for the purchase of a new washing machine was the repairman who came to look at the old machine. We asked him what did he think about new washers and what kind of machines was he called out to repair. His honest opinion gave us more information than we found anywhere else. The moral of the story: don't rely solely on the internet for your information. Instead ask real live human beings, especially the repairman human beings for their recommendations. I believe you will get the right appliance and one that will actually work!