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| Electrical Appliance Brands You Would Never Buy Again |
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| Veteran68:
--- Quote from: coppice on January 13, 2020, 06:32:21 pm ---He clearly only considered 10 years to be a lower bound for the product's life, set by the warranty. However, it depresses me how many people now see warranty duration as the expected service life, and wouldn't even consider paying the inflated repair costs they know they will face from the vendor outside warranty. --- End quote --- I know a lot of people disagree with me on this, but this reason is why I promote the purchase of extended warranties/service plans on major appliances where even a single minor repair typically costs more (sometimes several times more) than the cost of the plan. I have had numerous appliances break shortly after the factory warranty, and had it not been for an extended service plan that cost me maybe $100 for an extra few years, I would have been faced with spending hundreds on repairs or buying something new. Now I just factor in the cost of an extended plan with any major appliance purchase of more than a few hundred bucks. |
| james_s:
--- Quote from: coppice on January 13, 2020, 04:42:22 pm --- --- Quote from: Veteran68 on January 13, 2020, 04:26:48 pm ---Also rechargeables can't handle the voltage/current loads that alkalines do, which rarely but occasionally causes an issue with devices with tight operating specs or high drain. My DSLR flash unit, for example, specifically states NOT to use rechargeable batteries, and only alkalines. --- End quote --- Quite a lot of camera equipment says not to use rechargebles, and if you put rechargeable cells in them they just don't work. They need more than 1.25V per cell to function. This means that when used with alkaline cells they stop working when the cell still has some capacity left, so these products are rather poorly designed. NiMH cells have a low internal resistance, and are capable of supplying high currents. The issue with products that can't be used with them it purely their rather marginal voltage requirements. --- End quote --- If a product won't work with NiMH cells then I consider it defective by design, there's no excuse for that in this age. Can't say I've had that problem with any photographic gear made in about the last 20 years though. A digital camera was the first thing I ever bought NiMH cells for, my flashes have never seen alkalines as long as I've owned them. |
| james_s:
--- Quote from: Veteran68 on January 13, 2020, 08:22:35 pm --- --- Quote from: coppice on January 13, 2020, 06:32:21 pm ---He clearly only considered 10 years to be a lower bound for the product's life, set by the warranty. However, it depresses me how many people now see warranty duration as the expected service life, and wouldn't even consider paying the inflated repair costs they know they will face from the vendor outside warranty. --- End quote --- I know a lot of people disagree with me on this, but this reason is why I promote the purchase of extended warranties/service plans on major appliances where even a single minor repair typically costs more (sometimes several times more) than the cost of the plan. I have had numerous appliances break shortly after the factory warranty, and had it not been for an extended service plan that cost me maybe $100 for an extra few years, I would have been faced with spending hundreds on repairs or buying something new. Now I just factor in the cost of an extended plan with any major appliance purchase of more than a few hundred bucks. --- End quote --- The reason stores push extended warranties and service plans so hard is because they are very profitable. In the real world appliances just don't fail that often, if they failed enough that the warranty was a good deal then there wouldn't be any money in offering a warranty. I've always bought used appliances with no warranty at all. I'd rather fix the thing myself than call someone up, spend time on hold, try to find a time when I'll be home so they can send someone out, be without the thing while they do that. More than once I've fixed an appliance for someone because the warranty tech was going to be a week or more out and they preferred to pay me rather than wait. Extended warranties are a scam, it's a mathematically provable fact. It's gambling plain and simple, a few people win big, but odds are stacked in favor of the house and if you play long enough you will always lose. |
| coppice:
--- Quote from: Veteran68 on January 13, 2020, 08:22:35 pm --- --- Quote from: coppice on January 13, 2020, 06:32:21 pm ---He clearly only considered 10 years to be a lower bound for the product's life, set by the warranty. However, it depresses me how many people now see warranty duration as the expected service life, and wouldn't even consider paying the inflated repair costs they know they will face from the vendor outside warranty. --- End quote --- I know a lot of people disagree with me on this, but this reason is why I promote the purchase of extended warranties/service plans on major appliances where even a single minor repair typically costs more (sometimes several times more) than the cost of the plan. I have had numerous appliances break shortly after the factory warranty, and had it not been for an extended service plan that cost me maybe $100 for an extra few years, I would have been faced with spending hundreds on repairs or buying something new. Now I just factor in the cost of an extended plan with any major appliance purchase of more than a few hundred bucks. --- End quote --- Extended warranties are very profitable, so they are clearly overpriced, and I don't think they are a good deal. However, it is worth looking at the relative price of the extended warranty for different products, as it probably reflects their relative failure rates. :) |
| james_s:
--- Quote from: Veteran68 on January 13, 2020, 04:26:48 pm --- --- Quote from: james_s on January 13, 2020, 02:23:39 pm ---I haven't bought disposable AA batteries in years now. LSD NiMH have gotten really good, I have Eneloop, Fujitsu and some of the Japanese made Amazon branded cells and have not had a single failure or leak since I started buying them almost a decade ago. Alkaline AAs are obsolete IMHO. --- End quote --- I used to be a die-hard rechargeable fan too, and went years without buying disposable alkalines. I have a collection of Eneloop, Energizer, and some Chinesium generic NiMH. But it became a chore over time to ensure I had charged ones on hand and ready. Especially for the wife. When she manage to find charged batteries, she'd never put the dead ones in a charger, so when I needed a battery I'd have none charged. So I kept alkalines on hand for her to grab when I wasn't around, and then I gradually just started using them myself out of convenience. Also rechargeables can't handle the voltage/current loads that alkalines do, which rarely but occasionally causes an issue with devices with tight operating specs or high drain. My DSLR flash unit, for example, specifically states NOT to use rechargeable batteries, and only alkalines. --- End quote --- I have a system, the charger lives on a desk and charged cells are stored in the desk drawer. Whenever batteries are needed they are taken from the drawer, discharged batteries are either put in the charger or deposited in a bowl next to it. Whenever I see cells in the bowl and vacant slots in the charger I load it up and whenever I see charged cells in the charger I put them in the drawer. When there are so many in circulation that the drawer is getting low, I buy a pack or two of new cells and toss them in. The end result is there is always a stock of charged ready to use batteries in the drawer. |
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