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Electrical Appliance Brands You Would Never Buy Again
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james_s:
I don't know if Sony still makes anything good but I have a Trinitron XBR TV that is exceptional, I think many people would be blown away that it's not HD. It has very good sound too with speakers that hang off the sides and a small subwoofer on top. I have a couple of small Sony CRT studio monitors that are also excellent, they will do 1080p on 9" and 15" CRTs.
VK3DRB:

--- Quote from: james_s on January 08, 2020, 09:41:18 pm ---The concept of a brand is all but irrelevant these days, they are just a name slapped on something built by whatever company owns the IP or was contracted by the company that does. The item you buy today may have no relation to the one someone buys next year beyond having the same name on it. It's not really useful to think in terms of brand anymore.

--- End quote ---

Yeah, we had a company called Kleenmaid in Australia. They were just a two-bit badge engineering company which also committed a serious crime where at least one director of Kleenmaid was sentenced to jail for a long time. https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2016/aug/15/former-kleenmaid-director-bradley-wendell-young-sentenced-nine-years-jail-fraud

They badge engineered Speed Queen commercial washing machines out of the US. I bought one in 1987. It is still running today, after 32 years! Only had to replace a seal and a water pump in all those years. However Kleenmaid badge engineered a low quality dish washing machine made in France by Brandt. Brandt could not design themselves out of a wet paper bag. The handles break easily due to poor design and you cannot get them anymore as all stock is depleted.

So with badge engineering companies, it is often hit and miss.

I believe Bosch make very good dish washing machines.... those made by Bosch in Germany, not by Bosch in China. You might pay 30% more for a German made Bosch dish washer but I believe it is worth it in the long run.
vk6zgo:
Back in the day, Sony were excellent, but the "bean counters" took over & it all went to duckpoo!
Samsung----we have three Samsung TVs, but they are a bit "long in the tooth".
All of them are excellent performers.

One problem with that generation of Samsung TVs is the set of manual switches on the side of the cabinet.
If you use those a few times, they will fail, leaving the TV stuck on whatever function you switched to the most.
Quick fix is just disconnect the manual switches & live with the remote.

The worst two expensive items we bought in the last few years were:-

A "Wertheim" vacuum cleaner.
This is maybe a "house" brand for "Godfreys" who trumpeted its "German design", (it was made in China), had lots of features, but was horrifically expensive at $A600.
To make a long story short, it never worked properly, overheating after 15 minutes.

It had a 'power head", which necessitated running wires in the hose, but the idiots just ran them loose & "flapping around", so objects wrapped around them & blocked the hose.
Our little old "El Cheapo" Sanyo had wires in the hose, too (to the "on" switch) but imbedded them in the plastic body of the hose.

After several adventures of trying to get the thing fixed, it was "chucked in the shed" until the next council "verge junk pick up", & the poor old Sanyo put back into service.
When that finally croaked, we bought a $A50 "Ozito", which is still going strong.

A "front loader" washing machine (can't remember the brand --oldtimer's disease on its way?), which we bought after the old "top loader" failed.
After a couple of years of annoyance (it was hard to use), & lack lustre performance, it started making horrific noises, & refused duty.

The washing machine Tech took one look & diagnosed it "Drum mounting has self destructed."
He recommended going back to a top loader, which we did, with good results, so far.
vk6zgo:

--- Quote from: VK3DRB on January 09, 2020, 02:33:39 am ---
--- Quote from: james_s on January 08, 2020, 09:41:18 pm ---The concept of a brand is all but irrelevant these days, they are just a name slapped on something built by whatever company owns the IP or was contracted by the company that does. The item you buy today may have no relation to the one someone buys next year beyond having the same name on it. It's not really useful to think in terms of brand anymore.

--- End quote ---

Yeah, we had a company called Kleenmaid in Australia. They were just a two-bit badge engineering company which also committed a serious crime where at least one director of Kleenmaid was sentenced to jail for a long time. https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2016/aug/15/former-kleenmaid-director-bradley-wendell-young-sentenced-nine-years-jail-fraud

They badge engineered Speed Queen commercial washing machines out of the US. I bought one in 1987. It is still running today, after 32 years! Only had to replace a seal and a water pump in all those years. However Kleenmaid badge engineered a low quality dish washing machine made in France by Brandt. Brandt could not design themselves out of a wet paper bag. The handles break easily due to poor design and you cannot get them anymore as all stock is depleted.

So with badge engineering companies, it is often hit and miss.

I believe Bosch make very good dish washing machines.... those made by Bosch in Germany, not by Bosch in China. You might pay 30% more for a German made Bosch dish washer but I believe it is worth it in the long run.

--- End quote ---

Even back in the "good old days" Bosch had their moments.
My old HQ Holden was supplied with AC-Delco sparkplugs which were crap, so as soon as possible, I replaced them with Australian made  Bosch, which had given me really good service in my previous car.

The first lot were great, but such things always need replacement eventually.

Off I went to K Mart who had a good deal on that model spark plug, which, I noticed, in passing, were made in Germany.
I fitted them, but a few months later, they started to "play up" & upon examining them, I found evidence of  insulator breakdown where it entered the body.
Compared  to an Oz made plug, the layer of insulation was noticeably less.

I found some Oz made ones & fitted them, all OK.

Whilst at the auto parts place, I looked through their list of cars using that part number.
All the European cars using that part number had alloy cylinder heads, whereas the Holden was cast iron.

My theory is that the poorer thermal transfer of the iron meant that the thinner insulation was heat damaged in the Holden engine, so the Oz ones were modified.
Clever! Find a problem, design a workaround, but forget to give the modified version a different part number!

A different section of that company made some rather nice TV Picture Monitors, which had fold out PCBs to facilitate testing and adjustment.
The problem was to provide flexible connections between the boards.
Sony, in a similar situation, used the "rough as guts" method, with ribbon cables & plugs.

Bosch devised an elegant & totally stupid solution.

The hinges were painstakingly constructed so as to be the flexible connection between the boards.
After a while, those nice conducting hinges ceased to do so, especially if the Monitor was worked on fairly often (& unfortunately that was the case, due to other problems).
schmitt trigger:
Electrolux cordless vacuums.

Their battery packs are pure, unadulterated mierda.
And replacements cost about 70% of a complete new vacuum.
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