Electrical Appliance Brands You Would Never Buy Again

[VK3DRB]

What brand of electronics and appliances you would never buy again, based upon your own experience of them selling lemons? I think it is helpful to let others know about such products because it gives them an idea of the mentality of the company behind the product, and also allows us to avoid buying such brands in future. Review sites generally don't discuss long term reliability.

Let me start:

Whirlpool.

I bought a two door Whirlpool fridge about 10 years ago, made in Italy. When it arrived, it did not get cold. The technician said there were no gas leaks, but in fact the fridge had never gas in it in its life which proves the manufacturer never tested it in Italy and neither did Whirlpool in Australia. There were four call-outs during the warranty period, with gassing once, circuit boards replaced twice and some other issue. After the warranty ran out, I fixed things myself because I was not going to reward Whirlpool with profits on replacement parts. The designers of the circuit boards used low quality MKT capacitors, resistors and bridge rectifiers to reduce the 230 VAC to a lower DC voltage, rather than using a small isolated step down transformer. Their cheapo capacitors lose their value over time, reducing the rail voltage so intermittent faults show up, like the PIC processor resetting whenever anything that draws current comes on. Connectors are poor quality too, becoming burnt and brittle. Many other issues too, but in a bizarre way, I actually enjoy keeping this piece of rubbish going. I have even 3D printed parts to reinforce the shoddy vegetable drawers which crack and break. Next fridge won't be a Whirlpool. No siree bob!

Anyone else who would like to name a brand of appliance or electronic instrument and have a lemon horror story?

[Circlotron]

Anything electronic from Aldi.
Had a PVR with a 12 month warranty and it quit at 13 months.
An analog video to USB converter who’s software locked five different computers solid.
Several other things that I can’t remember now, but yeah, Aldi, pffft..

[djacobow]

We had a front loading Whirlpool washer with matching stacked dryer, all tucked into a very small alcove in our kitchen.

Washer failed multiple times due to things i could fix from the front: door latch and switch, motor controller. Once it started leaking while we were away on vacation and the technician our house sitter called offered to "maybe" fix it for $400. Glad she called us.

In the end, it started giving error messages nobody could make much sense of and another technician said he could replace the main board for $500. No promises, of course. I couldn't find them much cheaper on eBay, so I was dinner. This was on a unit that cost $800 new.

Age at death: 6.

Sadly, I found out you can't really safely stack mismatched units -- and this is something that matters if you live someone seismically active. So i had to replace the working dryer, too.

Whole thing was a huge CF. Never again.

We also have Whirlpool fridge they started leaking from the water hose inside of five years, and Whirlpool range, whose lighter is dying. Both easy fixes for diyer, thank goodness, but still.

Overall, i just think appliances suck now, but I definitely avoid Whirlpool.

[tom66]

Beko and related brands.  Built to a very low cost, almost no service documents available, many fires of tumble dryers in the UK due to faulty temperature sensors.

Samsung (televisions specifically.)

Vestel (make products for many other manufacturers.)
 

[SeanB]

Appliances to avoid by me are Miele and AEG, because of the cost of the spares, but Hisense, AIM, Defy, KIC and LG are well worth the buying. Fridges and freezers I just buy on price, irrespective of brand, because so long as it fits in the space it will last 6 years before it gets a gas leak in the inner steel tubing, rendering it useless. Impossible to repair foamed in place coils, I just took apart a small Red Bull branded fridge to see where the leak was, right inside the foam in the first bend.

LG washing machine I had lasted 15 years, only parts in it I replaced were a pump motor and a filter sock, but it was replaced because it needed a new gearbox, which, as a pattern part, is 80% of the cost of the new Defy I got to replace it. Freezer is Hisense, and fridge is KIC. Microwave is Daewoo, and is around 20 years old, but really is going to be replaced soon, I see the cheapest ones are R700 ( $50 roughly), though I did fix a friend’s convection microwave one this week, fan motor failed, probably due to a dead turntable motor. Luckily I did have a spare fan motor that fitted, from another scrapped one, but did have to spend the $10 for a new turntable motor. Replacing that one would be around $150, so well worth repair, but for cheap ones I just replace, strip for the spares and scrap the rest.

[shakalnokturn]

I don't by much new, mostly too expensive for what it is, besides I don't want to be the customer paying to do the final tests that were overlooked before an appliance was dumped on the market.

Generally, even buying new I wouldn't rush for the newest models, leave them a little time on the market for defects to show-up.

From my repair experiences over the years, older is better, build quality just keeps falling.

[station240]

Any Samsung washing machines, after these incidents.

http://consumersfederation.org.au/samsung-spin-on-washing-machine-recall-given-a-shonky-award/

These faulty top loader washing machines have caused more than 224 incidents, including 76 fires, and there are still around 58,000 potential fire hazards in homes across Australia,”

https://www.thechronicle.com.au/news/man-save-home-carries-burning-washing-machine-outs/3186435/

[jfiresto]

Anything electronic from Aldi....

The stuff from Aldi is a mixed bag.

I have a digital dehumidifier, an electronic tea kettle and a projection digital clock that are still working fine after roughly 5, 1 and 5 years, respectively. The first two are almost perfect, particularly the kettle which is from Strix. The clock is at least competent. My neighbors have had bad experiences, however, with Aldi refrigerators and TVs.

I would avoid major Samsung household appliances if you don't want to tinker.

I have a mid-range Samsung refrigerator and washing machine which have both been troubled by design defects. They are both still working – the washing machine after twenty (20) years, which is 13 years longer, so far, than  its predecessor. I have to scrape ice out of the bottom of the 'fridge, every third week, because of a not quite comprehensive defrosting system. I have had to repair the washing machine twice. First, the door cracked near a slightly too weak hinge attachment. I re-enforced the area with metal filled epoxy. Then a drain hose stiffened, unsealed, started to drip and set off a Rube Goldberg / Heath Robinson chain of consequences that loosened a massive, concrete counterweight / drum-excited hammer. I replaced the hose and introduced measures to neutralize two steps of the failure chain.

I have read that the problem with Samsung is that they are so big, you don't know who actually makes their stuff.

[unknownparticle]

Anything Hotpoint.  After my experience with a Hotpoint fridge freezer (UK) they won't be getting any more of my money. Not only from a quality perspective but also design and engineering.  Problems so far, door hinge bushings repeatedly wear out, freezer compartment cold air ducting ices up continuously, so I just ripped it out,  temperature control has failed so the compressor just keeps running and overheats-so I now run it via a time switch, 45 mins on, 30 mins off-works ok so far, crisper compartments condensate-so I had to modify them to circulate air and space management design is terrible-nothing seems to fit the spaces conveniently.  I'll run it until it terminally fails then get a Bosch, AEG, Meile or LG.

Also, Vax cordeless vacuums.  Inadequate power, block up easily, poor usabilty design.

Aldi power tools. Some work sort of OK but if they have rubber co-moulding over plastic housings, the rubber will turn to a sticky mess within a few years.  Bought a HD SDS hammer drill a few years back. It runs very hot if drilling a quantity of holes in masonary, sort of the reason you buy a HD SDS drill! I neede to use the standard chucka few weeks ago, as the drill I needed to use had a plain shank. Within a few seconds the chuck exploded!!
Their vehicle battery chargers are a total bargain though!  I have several, 3 of which are permanently connected through winter on maintenance charge duty and they have been faultless.  They tend to be priced at around £12-15, this is amazing compared to say Ctech, which are at least £50!!  I highly recommend them.

And obviously anything Dyson, the Apple of domestic appliances!! Those prices 

Almost anything modern seems to be of absolute s**t quality, compared to appliances from 30 or more years ago. Unless you pay premium prices for high end brands. 

[HobGoblyn]

Often its down to individual experience.  (all quotes taken from ukwhitegoods.co.uk)

For example, I have a Samsung front loader, best washing machine I've ever had (about 7 years old now), yet they aren't spoken very highly of if I google,

Samsung are not renowned for innovation in the whitegoods industry choosing to compete on price with what seems uninspiring products.

Like LG (another Korean company) in the appliance market they seem to come up with marketing hype and little support for the claims, often a lot of the "features" tend to be very much gimmicks that are scrapped and replaced with a new sales gimmick for the next range. We've had silver-nano, eco-bubble, VRT, steam, diamond drums and goodness knows what else but, in the the end, very few of these features survive a single generation of washing machines. Mostly because they're not much good.

Only problem I had is with the rubbers holding the motor, disintegrating and Samsung refusing to sell them to me (wanted me to buy an entire motor), so I spent about £5 on some exhaust rubber things and cut them down to size, that was two years ago, still going fine. Yes their attitude has put me off Samsung washing machines a bit, but the competition that I've had over the years, has always been far worse.


I have a Beko American style fridge, over 7 years old, still as perfect as the day I bought it.

The Beko brand name is owned by Arcelik A.S. is a household appliances manufacturer in Turkey. The company is controlled by the Koc Group, seriously it's no joke these are the real company names. This is Turkey's largest and most prestigious group, and is the market leader in Turkey's appliance sector with its Arcelik and Beko brands. It is also one of the biggest household appliances companies in Europe.

We think it was a very good idea to use only the Beko brand name in the UK.

Currently Beko commands a 14-15% share in the refrigerator sector and an approximate 14% share in the washing machine sector of the UK market. This is aided, as is the increasing share of the overall European market, by the fact that Beko now owns the following brands:

Arçelik
Grundig
Altus
Elektra Bregenz
Blomberg
Arctic
Leisure
Flavel
Arstil
Artic
Defy

There are not many repairers that will turn away from a Beko machine as they are generally very serviceable.

I personally think Hotpoint are the worst for washing machines, yet they out sell all of their competitors.

I see Whirlpool own Hotpoint, in fact they own the following

Whirlpool
Hotpoint
Creda
Indesit
Scholtes
Bauknecht
Brastemp
Consul
Estate
Gladiator GarageWorks
Ignis
KIC (in South Africa)
KitchenAid
Laden (France)
Polar
Roper
Speed Queen Mexico (but not Speed Queen in the United States)
Maytag
Admiral
Amana (appliances)
Dixie-Narco
Hoover vacuums (now sold)
Jade
Jenn-Air
Magic Chef

Whirlpool also manufactures under the Kenmore label, (manufactured for Sears, Roebuck and Company). Whirlpool sells more of its appliances under the "Kenmore" name than under its own "Whirlpool" brand in the US.

As the range of brand names would suggest, like other large players in the industry, Whirlpool appears to be spreading across several sectors, from budget appliances right up to the higher end. Bauknecht was supposed to represent Whirlpool in the higher end of the market but appear to be not much more than re-badged Whirlpool products.

I've always found Samsung and Sony to be the two best TV makes  I've ever owned.  Mind you, I haven't bought a Samsung TV in the last 7 years, got a Sony 7 years ago and a Sony just over a year ago (first Sony is still working fine in the bedroom) And while I prefer iphones over Android, both my wife and daughter swear by their Samsung phones

[HobGoblyn]

I've just read the following about Aldi Tools

There’s also no grantee that the drill they’re selling next week is the same one they sold last year, because Workzone and Ferrex are what’s know as private (or phantom) brands. These are brands owned not by a manufacturer or producer but by a retailer or supplier who gets its goods made by a contract manufacturer under its own label.

As such, The Ferrex power screwdriver you purchased last week was likely manufactured by an entirely different company to the table saw you’re going to buy next week.

https://maker.rip/2019/11/12/are-aldi-workzone-and-ferrex-tools-any-good/

[TimNJ]

As mentioned, so many household appliances with different brand names use essentially identical components from a limited number of OEMs. If you've ever seen any washing machine repair videos, you'll notice that the difference between different brands is slim to none, internally. And even crazier (but I guess not surprisingly, given the industry), they've looked almost identical for 30 years!

[German_EE]

Anything made by Sony, even second hand. I once bought a very expensive notebook PC and within six months the DVD drive had failed, the letters were wearing off the keycaps and I had a line of dead pixels. My warranty claim was refused as I had wiped the hard drive and loaded linux (and therefore unable to run the diagnostic software)-

Quite how diagnostic software would help with the rubbed off keyboard letters is left as an exercise for the reader.

I then bought a Thinkpad which lasted nine years.

[Bud]

Sony is not known as a laptop/PC brand, is it 

[Gyro]

I've just read the following about Aldi Tools

There’s also no grantee that the drill they’re selling next week is the same one they sold last year, because Workzone and Ferrex are what’s know as private (or phantom) brands. These are brands owned not by a manufacturer or producer but by a retailer or supplier who gets its goods made by a contract manufacturer under its own label.

As such, The Ferrex power screwdriver you purchased last week was likely manufactured by an entirely different company to the table saw you’re going to buy next week.

https://maker.rip/2019/11/12/are-aldi-workzone-and-ferrex-tools-any-good/

A lot of Aldi's bigger special buy stuff over the past year or so (track saw, bandsaw etc.) have been re-branded Scheppach products, at considerably lower cost than other retailers. Ok not mega brand but certainly respectable. It's worth looking around the manufacturer sites for matches. You also tend to get a 3-year warranty, which you wouldn't get from the full price retailers!

[james_s]

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.

[Veteran68]

Just goes to show how different our experiences can be.

GE and Kenmore (yes I know they were rebadged from a variety of manufacturers) appliances used to be king in my youth, but in recent years most American brands have gone to crap.

We love our Samsung front-load washer/dryer and TV's. And our LG refrigerator and dishwasher too. We do have a Frigidaire oven that's been pretty good though.

Aside from my MacBooks, probably the best Windows laptop I've owned was a 17" Sony VAIO (which I still have and still works fine, I keep it out in the garage on the workbench for when I need to look up something or watch a YouTube video out there). It was one sexy beast of a laptop back in its day. 1920x1200 native resolution too. But Sony got out of the VAIO business in 2014, they don't sell them anymore. I've also had good Sony TV's and audio gear. The XAV-AV1000 head unit (with Apple CarPlay) I recently bought for my old truck is amazing for the price, I love it. Beats the crap out of the 10-year old Clarion I had in there which cost $100 more and didn't have half the features.

And we love Dyson vacuums. While I won't go so far as to pay $350 for a hair dryer or desk fan, with Golden Retrievers their Animal upright vacs and their rechargeable stick vacs for sweeping hard surface floors have been great. We've owned 2 of their uprights and abuse the hell out of them (again, Golden Retrievers). Between our 1st and 2nd upright I decided to save a few bucks and went with a high-end Hoover Windtunnel -- not cheap mind you, probably within $100 of a Dyson. It was the worst vacuum I'd ever used, and I sent it back and bought another Dyson. Their quality and support is outstanding. When I accidently broke the brush head on our rechargeable vac, I contacted them to buy a new head. The vac had about a month left on the 3-year warranty but I wasn't asking for warranty service (I broke the thing, after all). Instead they sent me a box with a prepaid shipping label and told me to ship it to their service center, where they would not only repair it but service/clean it and send it back, at no cost. Well, that was nice enough, but then they had some sort of logistics issue where they lost(?) it in their service center, so they apologized just shipped me out a brand new one. With a new 3-year warranty. They will have my vacuum business for life now.

[rrinker]

 Very true. The names just get passed around, a company milks it for all its worth, cheapening quality and relying on the name, until finally enough people badmouth it, then they sell it on to the net manufacturer, who may make short term improvements to get at least some of the reputation back, then proceeds to milk it once again. So you have a never ending cycle.
10 Print  "Never buy xxx, they are shite, this happened to mine.." and then a couple of years later, the reviews are all saying
20 Print  "brand xxx is the best <whatever> I ever owned, guess they solved those problems from a couple of years ago".
30 Goto 10.

On the electronics side, Weller is a good example. They certainly sell some top notch gear with the Weller name. They also sell absolute cheap crap. That's one that sort of gets to me, I grew up in the same town as Carl Weller, who invented the soldering gun. His last plant before selling and retiring was within walking distance of my house, still there, used for something else now. He used his fortune to sponsor many good projects in our area. And now you can go to WalMart and get an absolutely piece of junk soldering gun, but by golly, it's a Weller!

As for vacs - the cheap as Shark I have has no problem sucking up the hair from 2 Pugs (they shed a LOT) and random mutt, who also has a coat similar to the pugs. And the cat. I forget what the one I had before that was, also a bagless type, it too worked quite well, lasted about 10 years (sub $200 price, too) and would have lasted longer had someone (not me) actually cleaned it out completely - it did have a problem with pet hair bypassing the dirt cup, which is not an issue with the Shark.

[Red Squirrel]

Most of the ones from electronic companies that decided to get into appliances.  Ex: LG, Samsung etc.  They are nothing but trouble and too many complicated parts that can fail.  Best to stick with the traditional brands like Inglis, Frigidaire etc.   Though now days it's hard to tell, so much re-badging going on and most companies don't even make stuff anymore they just put their name on it.  In grand scheme of things I think you need to look at the features.  A mechanical washer/dryer combo for example is going to be better than ones that have a front that looks like the control panel of the death star.

[MrMobodies]

Hoover... Put the Queens Royal logo on it. The one I had had an air powered brush with exposed the cogs in the suction part of the head. Something broke the fins and sounded noisy. Unpowered time wasting like all the other Hoover's before. After that I brought a German hoover 14 years ago with a proper electric powerhead and still works.

In 2008, I was looking for a new laptop and lot of the laptops selling in the shops, Toshiba, Acer, Hp, Dell had these tiny little fan vents and most of them were painted.

7 years later I received boxes load of parts and broken laptops of the same typw for scrap that someone stored up for years but didn't want anymore.
Most of the heat pipes and solder points on the board were nearly black obviously from overheating.
The palmrests look terrible with the paint worn off them and I am pleased I made the right decision not to buy them like that.

There was Sony VCR in 2001, I think it was a lot of money and boasted about some features such as "tri picture filtering" etc. The picture didn't look good compared to the old Panasonic recorder and it had a fault where when you set a recording time it use to change or not record. When I tore it to bits it didn't have much on the circuit board and I think it was a Hitachi chip. I found a datasheet and it did quite a lot of things, video inputs/outputs, tracking but didn't do any tri picture filtering or much filtering at all... or maybe I got the wrong datasheet. Also the Sony television had no stereo out, horrible sounding speakers and the aspect ratio was in such a way that a 16:9 was either stretched or look too small and with a 4:3 picture. It was very disappointing.

I am also pleased I didn't buy anything from Sonos as I would be having any regrets as of now from meddling with the equipment that would have been in my possession and do things like turn the software against me just to speakers all because I didn't want to accept features I may not want and update that may either change, interfere and break things (according to some recent reviews) or offer to remove/ features or even brick my things for free... Not free for me if paid for it and I had plans and it bricked if let unchecked.

[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]

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.

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]

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.

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.

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.

[floobydust]

My Hoover vacuum cleaner fell over and shattered, plastic pieces everywhere. The handle is broken now.

"Hoover was part of the Whirlpool Corporation, but was sold in 2006 to Techtronic Industries, a Chinese multinational, for $107 million. Hoover Europe/UK split from Hoover US in 1993, and was acquired by Techtronic Industries, a company based in Hong Kong."
"...  Today, the Hoover Europe brand, as part of the portfolio of brands owned by Candy Group."
"On 28 September 2018, it was announced that the Chinese multinational Haier had acquired the Hoover Candy group."
Haier has 7 brands: Haier, Casarte, Leader, GE Appliances, Fisher & Paykel, Aqua and Candy.

Anyhow, getting parts for it turned out to be a clusterF as the part numbers, manuals etc got tossed with all the brand name shuffling.  Even bags are hard to find for it.
The chinese are scooping up old brand names and doling out low quality products under them, in the race to the bottom I guess.

[Veteran68]

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.

IMO they were king of CRTs. Their Trinitron and Wega TVs were the best tubes I ever had. Their SXRD rear-projection LCD was also awesome -- I had a 65" I paid $5500 for with the matching stand that was amazing in its day. Its only major drawback was its huge bulk (although still smaller than rear-projection CRTs). It still worked great 10 years later when I handed it down to my daughter, who eventually sold it to someone else when she got a flat panel. It's probably still working today, wherever it is. I still have a 46" Sony Bravia LCD that's about 8 years old. It's been a good one, but I'm loving our last two Samsung 4K models.

[james_s]

The chinese are scooping up old brand names and doling out low quality products under them, in the race to the bottom I guess.

I remember seeing a lot of that starting around 20 years ago. Well regarded 70s HiFi names like Dual showing up on cheap crappy car stereo head units and older names like Crosley on junky AM/FM radios.

[shakalnokturn]

IMO they were king of CRTs. Their Trinitron and Wega TVs were the best tubes I ever had. Their SXRD rear-projection LCD was also awesome -- I had a 65" I paid $5500 for with the matching stand that was amazing in its day. Its only major drawback was its huge bulk (although still smaller than rear-projection CRTs). It still worked great 10 years later when I handed it down to my daughter, who eventually sold it to someone else when she got a flat panel. It's probably still working today, wherever it is. I still have a 46" Sony Bravia LCD that's about 8 years old. It's been a good one, but I'm loving our last two Samsung 4K models.

Sony did make some great TV's, most of them were good actually, the FE2 chassis however was a real pile of crap, up to standard with what most other TV manufacturers were building at the time, by then the CRT TV was declining.
Sony also made a few fantastic hifi products.

[vk6zgo]

IMO they were king of CRTs. Their Trinitron and Wega TVs were the best tubes I ever had. Their SXRD rear-projection LCD was also awesome -- I had a 65" I paid $5500 for with the matching stand that was amazing in its day. Its only major drawback was its huge bulk (although still smaller than rear-projection CRTs). It still worked great 10 years later when I handed it down to my daughter, who eventually sold it to someone else when she got a flat panel. It's probably still working today, wherever it is. I still have a 46" Sony Bravia LCD that's about 8 years old. It's been a good one, but I'm loving our last two Samsung 4K models.

Sony did make some great TV's, most of them were good actually, the FE2 chassis however was a real pile of crap, up to standard with what most other TV manufacturers were building at the time, by then the CRT TV was declining.
Sony also made a few fantastic hifi products.

And, for many years "top of the line" TV Broadcast Studio equipment.
Of course, a lot of these cost from as much as a small car, to as much as a small house!

[VK3DRB]

I would like to see an appliance reliability review website, where brands and their products are reviewed for reliability and spare parts cost after the warranty runs out.

By the way, Sony Trinitron picture tubes were sharp, but did not last as long as some other quality Japanese brands like NEC. For some strange reason, the green cathode gun used to deplete first in the Trinitrons in Australia, ie: the screens went purple. I could hypothesise that was because we watched a lot of cricket for hours or days on end, where the screen was mostly green grass. It was more like white is made up of 59% green, 30% red and 11% blue, so the green gun goes first, but why the Trinitrons were more susceptible than other picture tube types for the green gun to deplete first baffles me. Each RGB drive circuit, and each cathode inside the picture tube was identical.

Most marketing hype is , but AWA Thorn gets a gong for marketing their new picture tube in the 1980's as having "Shot Vision". In Australian vernacular, shot means it is stuffed .

[Electro Detective]

No issues or returns on Aldi tools or electronics EVER over the years (fingers crossed)
but fwiw I am an occasional user manual reader.

I'm no fan of Belkin wireless router products, unless they've lifted their game in the last few years.
Easy to set up and use, but tend to die just after the warranty period has died..

DLink stuff became my 'go to' after that, no issues 

All whitegoods MIC are a coin toss, no matter what reputable badge is slapped on

i.e. make sure it has a L O N G warranty
and don't lose the receipt 

 

[GeorgeOfTheJungle]

"Realistic" (Radio Shack) was very bad. Another brand I hate is Citroën, the worst cars ever (IMHO!).

[coppice]

A lot of people's impressions of brands have more to do with the local distribution company than the actual brand - delivering the product in perfect order, dealing with warranty issues well, doing out of warranty repairs at reasonable cost, etc. Therefore people in different countries can have very different impressions of exactly the same product.

[jfiresto]

... By the way, Sony Trinitron picture tubes were sharp, but did not last as long as some other quality Japanese brands like NEC. For some strange reason, the green cathode gun used to deplete first in the Trinitrons in Australia, ie: the screens went purple. I could hypothesise that was because we watched a lot of cricket for hours or days on end....

I bought a demo 32-inch Trinitron that went purple shortly after I got it. Every time I had looked at it in the store, it had been showing music videos. This was some years before video and film makers became infatuated with blue and orange.

[Veteran68]

DLink stuff became my 'go to' after that, no issues 

And this proves my point about how different people can have vastly different experiences with the same brand.

Every single DLink product I have owned -- with literally no exception -- have failed on me. I've been through switches, NICs, routers, and something else (an IP camera I think) that have all failed in a very short time (days to months, maybe a year at the longest). I finally stopped submitting warranty claims because I knew it would just happen again. I will never spend another penny on a DLink product.

I feel exactly the same way about Seagate hard drives. Although many swear by them, every Seagate I ever had failed prematurely. I've been buying components and building computers since the early '90s, including well over a hundred hard drives, and I learned that lesson the hard way.

Anything can fail, but some brands have a much higher likelihood than others, and that describes both DLink and Seagate for me.

[VK3DRB]

...DLink stuff became my 'go to' after that, no issues. 

All whitegoods MIC are a coin toss, no matter what reputable badge is slapped on...

Maybe it is a coin toss as you say, but I had a DLink ADSL2/router once. Had to reboot it at least twice a day. Also the parallel printer spooler only worked once, then ceased. After one year of hell with this product, I ground it up into little pieces, put the lot in a zip lock back and mailed it to the CEO of DLink Australia with a comment on what I thought of his DLink product. The router had serious firmware issues. The warranty was worthless, as was DLink's support and help desk.

Unfortunately I had brought it from monkeys, who refused to take it back under warranty. The reviews are at least entertaining... https://www.productreview.com.au/listings/computer-parts-land.

[Electro Detective]

I've seen a lot less Seagate hard drives die, versus WD, Hitachi, IBM offerings,

and the WORST of the lot have been Toshiba hard drives, always an early/earlier/earliest demise,
beginning with accumulating mystery bad sectors and delays, coupled to the tune  'knock knock knocking on hard drive hell's door..'

the Trashiba Toshiba laptop quality and badged USB sticks aren't that flash either 


Re DLink, I've always hit them with a full reset and then the latest firmware, be they new or used, maybe a bit of luck too?
and if new I buy from Officeworks or anywhere that does exchanges AND refunds, without any sales counter monkey BS. 

TP-Link stuff either doesn't work out of the box for me, or too much stuffing about 

New IT gear that doesn't work straight up, or exhibits 'plug and PRAY' intermittent operation,
is someone else's wage earning problem to work out, not the customers..

i.e. I take the FAIL shyte back after exploring EVERY possible avenue first,
rather than waste any more time surfing the web for a solution, workaround, 'hack', play fill the CONTACT US form game,
especially on a new product I doubt manufacturing bosses, designers and staff bothered to take home for a weekend, to try their duds for themselves.

Perhaps they are a bit kinky    and get off on dealing with recalls, irate customers and losing money   

 

[NiHaoMike]

At one point, Cisco was more or less the best brand of network hardware out there, then came the infamous blue boxes that weren't really any better than much cheaper products from other manufacturers. I've had one break down at 2 years with bad caps and 3 of my friends have had similar problems with theirs. Then, many years after that, I came across a dual band router that would go unstable if the 5GHz is enabled, defeating the point of having it.

HP laptops have also been poor quality. In college, I had to fix one for a friend, then years later at work, I found out that even the enterprise grade HPs break down all the time.

Agilent scopes were also infamous for breaking down around that time, in particular the 13GHz ones. So many broke down at work that even the Agilent service tech couldn't get enough spares to replace them all. (Also remember that Dave had his review unit break down?) I'm pretty sure the Keysight scopes are more reliable, but how much more?

[coppice]

I've seen a lot less Seagate hard drives die, versus WD, Hitachi, IBM offerings,

They've all gone through phases of producing low failure products and high failure products. Overall I'd guess Seagate has been the worst, but I might be biased by their super hot running drives in the 90s.

[MyHeadHz]

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.

Schrödinger's appliance: one cannot both be able to purchase a product, and know if its quality will last.

To be fair, there is the odd product that actually improves over time.  But more often than not the quality goes down.  I stopped recommending appliances years ago for that reason.  Even if I recommended one to avoid, it would imply that other brands would be better, which is not necessarily the case.

[Veteran68]

I've seen a lot less Seagate hard drives die, versus WD, Hitachi, IBM offerings,

and the WORST of the lot have been Toshiba hard drives, always an early/earlier/earliest demise,
beginning with accumulating mystery bad sectors and delays, coupled to the tune  'knock knock knocking on hard drive hell's door..'

Once again, opposite experience for me! 

The most reliable drives, by far, have been Hitachi/HGST and Toshiba for me. Hitachi sold the rights to manufacture to Toshiba. Once IBM spun off the "Deathstar" line to Hitachi, quality went way up. And Toshiba has maintained it. I ran a 16x500GB NAS for years without a failure running Hitachi drives. Later I upgraded to 1TB drives. I'm now looking across the office at my 8-bay QNAP NAS running 3TB Toshibas. And they're not even NAS drives, they're 7200 RPM desktop drives. 24/7 operation and that NAS gets beat to hell every day. It streams media throughout my house and backs up all the computers. According to the QNAP stats I just pulled, they're up to 4.5 years of power on hours now. Rock solid all the way.

As I mentioned before, I've bought, installed, and run well into the hundreds of hard drives. Seagate by far the worst, Hitachi/Toshiba the best, and WD a good second place.

The company BackBlaze, a cloud-based backup service similar (but better IMO) to Carbonite, today has well over 100K drives in their datacenter. At that volume they can no longer source consumer drives in the quantities and capacities they need, but just a few years ago they bought off-shelf consumer drives, even resorting to shucking external USB drives when drive shortages hit. On their blog they post drive stats/reliability studies they've done. Here's a graph from 2015 showing their failure rates:



My experience mirrors theirs exactly.

[bob91343]

I bought a brand new Eureka vacuum cleaner and it didn't do much.  I returned it for warranty service and the guy said it was fine.  I took it home and it still didn't do much.

So I bought a different brand.  The Eureka sits in my garage, still practically brand new.  I will never see that $100 again.

The Hoover brand seems to work a lot better.  I have a Kenmore that works okay too.

I don't buy new stuff unless there is a good reason.

[AndyC_772]

A couple of months ago our washing machine died. (Miele, 13 years old).

I did a lot of research into which make and/or model might be the best replacement in terms of reliability and serviceability, and the conclusion was that *every* brand, with one exception, was now making crap machines with sealed drums that mean the bearings cannot be replaced and something as simple as a trapped sock can leave the machine uneconomical to repair.

That exception was Miele, who apparently do still buid machines to last even though spares are expensive and difficult to come by unless you pay to have the machine repaired by one of their own authorised technicians. That's still a really disappointing state of affairs, but they're by no means unique in this.

In the end I narrowed down the choice of new machine by simply dividing the cost of each candidate by the length of its warranty, to give a figure for the cost/year of being guaranteed a working machine.

I ended up with a new Miele, £900 with a 10 year warranty = £90/yr and a fair chance that it won't break in that time and have to be scrapped.

[Black Phoenix]

My experience mirrors theirs exactly.

Same were on my side:

I've been had most failures with Samsung and Seagate drives, some with Western Digital and basically none with Hitachi/Toshiba.

Regarding laptops - Acer and HP was the brands were I saw more failures and problems with construction, but probably because their price at least in Portugal was very competitive, so it was basically the ones that I had to fix most of the times. Toshiba not so much, and they were the easiest to access something inside. Just pop the screws on the bottom a full access to the motherboard, same as the Sony Vaio. I use Asus since I started to own laptops myself.

From my Asus M51TR with 4GB (2x2GB) and a RM-70 that I later upgrade to a ZM-82 and 8GB (2x4GB) and a SSD+HDD in the CD-RW bay until it died from a unknown problem with 9 years to the current Zenbook UX303UA I only have good stuff to say about them.

Although I still want to one day have the chance to use a Lenovo ThinkPad (In Portugal they are extremely expensive, here in China not really and the one that I see more around).

[jfiresto]

... That exception was Miele, who apparently do still buid machines to last even though spares are expensive and difficult to come by unless you pay to have the machine repaired by one of their own authorised technicians....

That was the opinion, a few years back, of a local, independent appliance parts and repair company. They advised me to spend the extra money and buy a German Miele rather than one built in Poland, if I wanted the traditional Miele quality.

[coppice]

... That exception was Miele, who apparently do still buid machines to last even though spares are expensive and difficult to come by unless you pay to have the machine repaired by one of their own authorised technicians....

That was the opinion, a few years back, of a local, independent appliance parts and repair company. They advised me to spend the extra money and buy a German Miele rather than one built in Poland, if I wanted the traditional Miele quality.

I think the real difference is the model you chose. A few years back Miele started making some lower priced machines that look more like machines from other makers, and felt like they were built more like machines from other makers. They seem to have backed away from this. I guess it was hurting their name more than it was creating new sales.

[james_s]

... By the way, Sony Trinitron picture tubes were sharp, but did not last as long as some other quality Japanese brands like NEC. For some strange reason, the green cathode gun used to deplete first in the Trinitrons in Australia, ie: the screens went purple. I could hypothesise that was because we watched a lot of cricket for hours or days on end....

I bought a demo 32-inch Trinitron that went purple shortly after I got it. Every time I had looked at it in the store, it had been showing music videos. This was some years before video and film makers became infatuated with blue and orange.

There were a few runs of larger Trinitron tubes that were notorious for wearing out early, IIRC the 32" was one of them. I'm not sure why, maybe they didn't adequately beef up the cathode design for the larger tube. I remember seeing a lot of those with weak guns in the early 2000's. I would also never buy a store demo CRT, plasma or OLED set as the demos are always run with the contrast cranked way up to make the picture pop under the bright store lighting. Combined with the long hours they typically run, a TV can get the equivalent of years of typical domestic use in just a few months in the showroom.

[james_s]

"Realistic" (Radio Shack) was very bad. Another brand I hate is Citroën, the worst cars ever (IMHO!).

Realistic was a store brand that was stuck on all sorts of different stuff, it was never a manufacture. Most of the scanners were made by GRE or Uniden, I think some of the audio gear was Pioneer but not all of it. The stuff varied widely in quality, some of it was very good, some was junk. I still have a few high end Realistic scanners that are about as good as analog scanner radios get.

[E-Design]

Duracell brand batteries - these days, they have a high chance of leaking.
(not an appliance, but worth a mention)

[Towger]

Amstrad - Sir Alan you owe me.

D-Link - Spent 600 on crap...

[Veteran68]

Duracell brand batteries - these days, they have a high chance of leaking.

Agreed! Duracell used to be my go-to brand, but they leak everywhere now. Energizers seem to leak more now too, so I've been on a mission to find other brands.

Some of the best off-shelf batteries these days are the Kirkland branded batteries from Costco. Reviews have shown them to hold up as good or better than the major brands. I'm on a 72-count box of the Kirkland AA's now, so far so good.

AC Delco branded batteries were also highly rated. I've gone through a 50-pack of their AA's and never had a leak.

[Gyro]

Amstrad - Sir Alan you owe me.

D-Link - Spent 600 on crap...

I never did work out what he got the 'Sir' for. It can't have been for quality, or even innovative products. Maybe it was for self-publicity, rather like Dyson. After all, Trump made it to President on the back of the US version of the Apprentice!

Ah, it was for "for services to the Home Computer and Electronics Industry" 

[dzseki]

Sony CRTs: My father used to run a TV repair shop, his observation was too that Sony CRTs were looking nice while good but had less life time compared to other "less regarded" tubes.

Seagate HDD: personal experience I've had 2 (completely different) Seagate HDD that failed around 200 days of operation mark, ( they both spin up and down randomly), I have had good health rate from WD HDDs the only one that has weak sectors ran already 1200 days or so, but it still works better than the Seagates... But I am not a HDD eater, so ymmv.

Side note: We moved to a new (used) house last year and built in a new kitchen. I spent a lot of time figuring out what brand appliances should I buy (I would have Miele, but really could not afford it..). I ended up with appliances from Amica (Poland), they while not very old brand as is, but seemed to be a genuine brand who do all manufacturing in house, they offered longer warranty than most competitors. Obviously these appliances haven't served enough to form an opinion on their reliability, but we are happy with them so far.

[tom66]

Duracell brand batteries - these days, they have a high chance of leaking.

Certainly for their AA size, there's negligible difference between Duracell and generic Alkaline. Hence why when Duracell promote their batteries they always compare them to ZnCl or ZnC batteries.

[SilverSolder]

Duracell brand batteries - these days, they have a high chance of leaking.

Some of the best off-shelf batteries these days are the Kirkland branded batteries from Costco. Reviews have shown them to hold up as good or better than the major brands. I'm on a 72-count box of the Kirkland AA's now, so far so good.

Kirkland batteries are apparently made by Duracell.  I can confirm from personal experience that the Kirklands can leak like a very leaky thing (unused, in a drawer) after a couple of years.

[james_s]

Duracell brand batteries - these days, they have a high chance of leaking.

Agreed! Duracell used to be my go-to brand, but they leak everywhere now. Energizers seem to leak more now too, so I've been on a mission to find other brands.

Some of the best off-shelf batteries these days are the Kirkland branded batteries from Costco. Reviews have shown them to hold up as good or better than the major brands. I'm on a 72-count box of the Kirkland AA's now, so far so good.

AC Delco branded batteries were also highly rated. I've gone through a 50-pack of their AA's and never had a leak.

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.

[Brutte]

A couple of months ago our washing machine died. (Miele, 13 years old).
(..)
I ended up with a new Miele, £900 with a 10 year warranty = £90/yr and a fair chance that it won't break in that time and have to be scrapped.

So you made an assumption that durability == warranty length. Interesting but not very common approach, I am afraid we are not there yet. With progress, this equation becomes a limit case as manufacturers are better and better with estimating when appliance breaks and maximizing profit. Of course this always comes with some random factor but the ultimate goal (perfect design) is the one where all components fail a day after warranty period is over.

[Veteran68]

Kirkland batteries are apparently made by Duracell.  I can confirm from personal experience that the Kirklands can leak like a very leaky thing (unused, in a drawer) after a couple of years.

Interesting. I'd read some thorough testing of alkaline battery performance a year or two ago and Kirkland were one of the highest rated (if not the highest), well above Duracell, so it didn't seem like they shared the same chemistry or construction at all. I'm about 1/3 through this 72-pack that I've had for about a year and no sign yet of leakage, but I'll keep an eye out.

[Veteran68]

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.

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.

[coppice]

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.

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.

[SilverSolder]

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.

[...]

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.

I find my flash units work better (faster cycle time) with NiMH rechargeables than plain alkaline.  The rechargeables can really supply a lot of current...

My experience mirrors what is on this site:  https://scantips.com/lights/flashbatteries.html

[AndyC_772]

A couple of months ago our washing machine died. (Miele, 13 years old).
(..)
I ended up with a new Miele, £900 with a 10 year warranty = £90/yr and a fair chance that it won't break in that time and have to be scrapped.

So you made an assumption that durability == warranty length. Interesting but not very common approach, I am afraid we are not there yet. With progress, this equation becomes a limit case as manufacturers are better and better with estimating when appliance breaks and maximizing profit. Of course this always comes with some random factor but the ultimate goal (perfect design) is the one where all components fail a day after warranty period is over.

I really made an assumption that warranty length == minimum interval before I next have to buy a washing machine, which is a time consuming and expensive pain in the butt that I could well do without. I don't think I'm too far from being accurate here, unless the machine turns out to be such a total basket case that I choose to ditch it early.

Speaking as an engineer, I don't know how I'd go about designing something for a lifetime as long as 10 years without it crossing over into the realm of being actually fit for purpose, ie. likely, in practice, to go on for a great deal longer. A part which makes it to 10 years should be comfortably at the bottom of the bathtub curve in terms of failure rate by that point.

I bought the cheapest model in the range for which the 10 year warranty was available. It seemed like as objective a criterion as any.

[coppice]

A couple of months ago our washing machine died. (Miele, 13 years old).
(..)
I ended up with a new Miele, £900 with a 10 year warranty = £90/yr and a fair chance that it won't break in that time and have to be scrapped.

So you made an assumption that durability == warranty length. Interesting but not very common approach, I am afraid we are not there yet. With progress, this equation becomes a limit case as manufacturers are better and better with estimating when appliance breaks and maximizing profit. Of course this always comes with some random factor but the ultimate goal (perfect design) is the one where all components fail a day after warranty period is over.

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.

[SilverSolder]

A couple of months ago our washing machine died. (Miele, 13 years old).
(..)
I ended up with a new Miele, £900 with a 10 year warranty = £90/yr and a fair chance that it won't break in that time and have to be scrapped.

So you made an assumption that durability == warranty length. Interesting but not very common approach, I am afraid we are not there yet. With progress, this equation becomes a limit case as manufacturers are better and better with estimating when appliance breaks and maximizing profit. Of course this always comes with some random factor but the ultimate goal (perfect design) is the one where all components fail a day after warranty period is over.

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.

The repairmen tell me most modern appliances simply aren't built to be repaired - taking them apart is like extracting a rat's skeleton out through its anus and putting it back in again -  it just isn't a job anyone with a life and things to do would attempt, and it isn't affordable to pay someone to do it.

[Veteran68]

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.

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]

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.

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.

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]

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.

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.

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]

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.

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.

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]

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.

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.

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.

[bob91343]

I agree that extended warranties are a poor investment.  The same is true of an automobile lease.

Rechargeable batteries aren't good for me, as I don't have enough use for them to get a statistical advantage.  NiCd cells die all too soon.  Any battery operated device always seems to run out when I need it.  And the conservation of energy applies; the wasted energy from all the recharging will add up.

Having said that, perhaps the least efficient battery is the AAA.  It's mostly case and label; the innards aren't much and the cost is about the same as the AA cell.  Alkaline is better than carbon-zinc, which is also called heavy duty.  I wonder where I can buy light duty cells.

Cells do leak.  However, I try to make a point of looking every now and then, and not leaving batteries in stuff I don't use much.  I have spent a lot of time burnishing battery contacts that have corroded.

I have had problems with US brands of cars and won't buy them any more.  The Germans and Japanese have left the Americans in the dust for too long.  While today's cars may be a different story, I am still smarting from the crap foisted upon me in years gone by.

[MyHeadHz]

I've seen a lot less Seagate hard drives die, versus WD, Hitachi, IBM offerings,

and the WORST of the lot have been Toshiba hard drives, always an early/earlier/earliest demise,
beginning with accumulating mystery bad sectors and delays, coupled to the tune  'knock knock knocking on hard drive hell's door..'

Once again, opposite experience for me! 

The most reliable drives, by far, have been Hitachi/HGST and Toshiba for me. Hitachi sold the rights to manufacture to Toshiba. Once IBM spun off the "Deathstar" line to Hitachi, quality went way up. And Toshiba has maintained it. I ran a 16x500GB NAS for years without a failure running Hitachi drives. Later I upgraded to 1TB drives. I'm now looking across the office at my 8-bay QNAP NAS running 3TB Toshibas. And they're not even NAS drives, they're 7200 RPM desktop drives. 24/7 operation and that NAS gets beat to hell every day. It streams media throughout my house and backs up all the computers. According to the QNAP stats I just pulled, they're up to 4.5 years of power on hours now. Rock solid all the way.

As I mentioned before, I've bought, installed, and run well into the hundreds of hard drives. Seagate by far the worst, Hitachi/Toshiba the best, and WD a good second place.

The company BackBlaze, a cloud-based backup service similar (but better IMO) to Carbonite, today has well over 100K drives in their datacenter. At that volume they can no longer source consumer drives in the quantities and capacities they need, but just a few years ago they bought off-shelf consumer drives, even resorting to shucking external USB drives when drive shortages hit. On their blog they post drive stats/reliability studies they've done. Here's a graph from 2015 showing their failure rates:



My experience mirrors theirs exactly.

That data is quite old.  That was during their peak of drive failures after they were having issues from the tsunami in Thailand.  Yeah, they lowered their standards and let some drives out that shouldn't have been sold like that, but that was a long time ago.  The vast majority of those drives have long since been phased out because of obsolescence.  The Seagate drives are now much more reliable now.  It is worth noting that Western Digital is replacing much of their branded drives with HGST technology, which traditionally has the highest reliability.  Whether this will mean WD branded drives will become more reliable with the new tech or if they will just lower the HGST high water mark to that of WD standards remains to be seen.  The following is all Backblaze HDD data that has been released so far.

https://www.backblaze.com/b2/hard-drive-test-data.html


edit: It is also worth noting that HDD's follow a horseshoe curve for failure.  There are high rates of failure in the beginning, then a long period of low rates of failure, then they start climbing again because of EOL failures (if they aren't obsolete first).  So they all need to be replaced eventually anyway.

[andy2000]

Let me start:

Whirlpool.

I'll second that!.  My Whirlpool dishwasher is a top end model and in 10 years has needed a new fill valve and a new main motor/pump.  It also has a poorly designed detergent dispenser that often doesn't open.  Even when it does open, it's located in a position where the detergent door hits the rack so it can only open partially.  Quite often, some, or all of the detergent gets stuck in the dispenser.  It's almost a requirement to open the door early in the cycle so the detergent dispenser door can open fully.  It takes about 5 hours to do a wash, so it's extremely annoying when you have to redo it because the detergent got stuck. 

[tom66]

Rechargeable batteries aren't good for me, as I don't have enough use for them to get a statistical advantage.  NiCd cells die all too soon.  Any battery operated device always seems to run out when I need it.  And the conservation of energy applies; the wasted energy from all the recharging will add up.

Err... what?  I'm sure it costs a bit more energy to produce an entirely new battery and ship it half-way across the planet, oh and not forgetting the disposal of the old cell, but sure, the few Wh that a NiMH cell wastes during charging is important.

[Brutte]

A couple of months ago our washing machine died. (Miele, 13 years old).
(..)

So you made an assumption that durability == warranty length.(..)

He clearly only considered 10 years to be a lower bound for the product's life, set by the warranty.(..)

The repairmen tell me most modern appliances simply aren't built to be repaired (..)

Yes, this is also my observation - we get closer and closer to the:

Code: [Select]

durability == warranty lengthand there is no repair cost involved.

Now, if a company does not receive a feedback from the field about bearing failures, a natural consequence is that next version of their washing machine gets a thinner bearing. Of course this process does not take weeks but rather generations (10-20 years) in appliance business.

To be clear, unlike "Brands You Would Never Buy Again" negative opinions in here, my remark is not a rant. I am interested in the equations that govern the "mechanics of appliance industry" from one side and "consumer choices" from the other. The fact that Joe bought fridge made by W company for X$, which failed after Y years and estimated repair was Z$ is a mere consequence of the above "pair of equations". With his choice Joe created a demand for such XYZ product and this was the only reason why W designed and manufactured it. And because Z is so high for this particular fridge and Y is so short then Joe has just forced some repair shops to go bankrupt, but that was Joe's will.

There is nothing bad with that - it is called reality. And it seems to me it is not that difficult to understand why the (industry+consumer) pair is evolving in this direction.

[bob91343]

I wasn't comparing batteries with batteries.  I was comparing them with power line operation.  Unless the power cord is a major burden, I am good with using the grid to run my tools.  I don't even mind climbing the antenna tower with a cord dangling; not only is it no big deal but offers a way of lowering the tool without having to carry it down the ladder.  And it will never run down while I am up there.

Add to that the usually greater power (and often less weight) a line operated motor possesees and (for me at least) it's a no brainer.

[Veteran68]

That data is quite old.  That was during their peak of drive failures after they were having issues from the tsunami in Thailand.  Yeah, they lowered their standards and let some drives out that shouldn't have been sold like that, but that was a long time ago.  The vast majority of those drives have long since been phased out because of obsolescence.  The Seagate drives are now much more reliable now.  It is worth noting that Western Digital is replacing much of their branded drives with HGST technology, which traditionally has the highest reliability.  Whether this will mean WD branded drives will become more reliable with the new tech or if they will just lower the HGST high water mark to that of WD standards remains to be seen.  The following is all Backblaze HDD data that has been released so far.

https://www.backblaze.com/b2/hard-drive-test-data.html


edit: It is also worth noting that HDD's follow a horseshoe curve for failure.  There are high rates of failure in the beginning, then a long period of low rates of failure, then they start climbing again because of EOL failures (if they aren't obsolete first).  So they all need to be replaced eventually anyway.

Well the graphic does say 2013-2014, while my experience dates back to the mid-80's.

And the link you posted, which I'd already seen but I felt the graphic I posted was a better visual depiction than a text table, still tell the story of higher Seagate failure rates through Q3 2019 than any other brand they measured:



My point was, my experience with Seagate drives since the 80's has formed my view of them. They may be super reliable now (although BB's stats say otherwise) but they burned me and my IT colleagues enough that we will never trust them. As I mentioned before, my hands-on experience with HDD's numbers well into the hundreds by now, and my current stock of Hitachi/HGST, Toshiba, and WD (which number in the dozens currently just in my office here at home) have served me incredibly well with an extremely low failure rate.

[VK3DRB]

No hard disk was worse than IBM's 20GB Deskstar, (aka Deathstar). Almost 100% failure rate within 2 years. The real cause was IBM's lack of quality control where these were made.... contamination inside the drives assembled in Asia (the Philippines?) would damage the disk surfaces or damage the heads. IBM shafted all their Deathstar customers outside the USA, but those in the USA received a US $100 cheque as compensation. Having destroyed their reputation and with the IBM drive brand in tatters, IBM sold their drive business to Hitachi.

IBM also sold laptops, "Thinkpads" with Windows ME. More like Stinkpads. Dreadfully unreliable with terrible warranty service. A neighbour bought one for his daughter for school. It was repaired under warranty FOUR times in the first 12 months, and IBM would take several weeks to fix it each time. Pathetic when the poor kid needed it for school. Fed up with IBM, my neighbour sold his daughter's laptop it to a pawn broker for a few dollars as junk value and bought a reputable brand which was reliable. IBM violated the consumer laws here by selling a product unfit for purpose.

Since then, I have never bought anything IBM brand or Lenovo brand (who bought Thinkpad) and never will.

[tom66]

I wasn't comparing batteries with batteries.  I was comparing them with power line operation.  Unless the power cord is a major burden, I am good with using the grid to run my tools.  I don't even mind climbing the antenna tower with a cord dangling; not only is it no big deal but offers a way of lowering the tool without having to carry it down the ladder.  And it will never run down while I am up there.

Add to that the usually greater power (and often less weight) a line operated motor possesees and (for me at least) it's a no brainer.

Ok - comment retracted!  I've found battery power tools to be quite useful but yes, there is no beating having several kW available on demand.  When the electrician recently came around to do some drilling, he was moaning that his battery-powered hammer drill was flat.  And so he had to wait 30 minutes to charge the pack up in his van while the engine idled (he didn't even have a mains charger).  I can figure why the gentleman wouldn't want *only* mains operated kit (sometimes power is not available on site) but surely, one of each battery and mains, makes more sense, so that you have some additional facility? Relying on just battery-powered tools when you are working all day seems a bit folly.

[bingo600]

My point was, my experience with Seagate drives since the 80's has formed my view of them. They may be super reliable now (although BB's stats say otherwise) but they burned me and my IT colleagues enough that we will never trust them. As I mentioned before, my hands-on experience with HDD's numbers well into the hundreds by now, and my current stock of Hitachi/HGST, Toshiba, and WD (which number in the dozens currently just in my office here at home) have served me incredibly well with an extremely low failure rate.

+1 For NEVER Segate again.
I used to like Samsung (mech) disks , but after they were bought from Segate. Have had disks fail after 1..2 years , whereas "Original/Old" Samsungs have been running for 5+ years.
WD is also Segate 

I'm only buying Tosh or HGST mechanical disks today ... And Samsung EVO's for SSD.

/Bingo

[AndyC_772]

I've found battery power tools to be quite useful but yes, there is no beating having several kW available on demand.

Mind you don't get left behind by technology. Unless you're talking about *really* heavy duty kit like concrete breakers, the current generation of battery powered professional tools is every bit as capable as its mains powered equivalent. I certainly can't think why I'd ever buy another mains powered drill, saw or similar tool.

I deeply regret not making the switch earlier. I bought an electric drill back when I was a student - mains powered and with a nice, healthy power rating. For a long time I figured I have a drill, so why buy a new one if it's still working?

Big mistake. The cordless drill I eventually bought a couple of years ago is incomparably better in terms of power, torque and controllability, and I've never even come close to running the battery down even after a full day of DIY.

Seriously... if you're still thinking battery == weak and underpowered, think again. I was shocked.

When the electrician recently came around to do some drilling, he was moaning that his battery-powered hammer drill was flat.

That's just incompetence. Something like a 5Ah battery pack will easily last all day unless he's literally drilling non-stop, and there's no excuse not to have a spare or two.

[dzseki]

WD is also Segate 

I'm only buying Tosh or HGST mechanical disks today ... And Samsung EVO's for SSD.

/Bingo

Hm? Wikipedia tells otherwise:
WD bought HGST, but Seagate is a separate company.

[james_s]

Aside from my worm drive circular saw the tools that I use are all battery powered. Indeed they are every bit as powerful as the mains powered variety, and with a couple of packs you can easily work all day. Modern brushless motors and lithium ion batteries are pretty amazing, you can easily have multi-kW cordless tools with more torque and better control than the corded variety.

[Circlotron]

Probably the biggest attraction of plug in power tool nowadays is the price.

[james_s]

They are a bit cheaper, but not tremendously. The biggest attraction I see is that you don't need to deal with trying to replace obsolete battery packs 10 years later, although I did have the packs for my Swiss-made Bosch cordless drill re-celled a few years ago with good results.

[SilverSolder]

Probably the biggest attraction of plug in power tool nowadays is the price.

To me, the attractions are:
1) Not having to deal with charging batteries, including the clutter of charging stations, extra batteries, etc.
2) Not having to deal with batteries losing their performance and finally becoming useless over a period of a few years,
3) Not having to deal with batteries losing their charge (tool losing performance) from heavy use of the tool during a working day.
4) Strong performance of mains power

The downsides are manageable, in comparison - it's called an extension cord, and is not hard to use (and quite tidy, if on a reel).

[james_s]

I hate dragging cords around, they always seem to snag on things, or they're 2 feet shorter than I need and I have to go find another cord and chain it together, it's especially annoying when I'm up on a ladder. With the exception of very heavy duty stuff like large saws and stationary tools I wouldn't buy a corded tool again.

[Veteran68]

Modern Li-Ion battery tools are miles better than the big bulky nicads of old. I've had zero battery problems out of my Dewalt 20v MAX tools. And the power is unbelievable. My Dewalt 20v hammer drill and impact driver will almost break your wrist. I can't tell you how many bolts I've sheared off by letting the impact driver go a bit too long.

Last year my old gas powered Poulan 16" chainsaw had given up the ghost when a tree fell in my backyard after a storm. On a whim, but with not an abundance of confidence, I bought an 80v Li-Ion battery powered 18" chainsaw from Lowes. I was amazed. I was able to buck a 30' 30" diameter red oak tree (i.e. hardwood) 2/3 of the way on a single charge (about 25-30 minutes of cutting). Then a full recharge took only 30 minutes for me to finish the job. No gas & oil to deal with, and it was much quieter than a 2-stroke gas saw too.

I will never deal with cords, mains, or gas & oil again if I can help it. I am 100% sold on modern battery powered technology for doing real work.

[SilverSolder]

Modern Li-Ion battery tools are miles better than the big bulky nicads of old. I've had zero battery problems out of my Dewalt 20v MAX tools. And the power is unbelievable. My Dewalt 20v hammer drill and impact driver will almost break your wrist. I can't tell you how many bolts I've sheared off by letting the impact driver go a bit too long.

Last year my old gas powered Poulan 16" chainsaw had given up the ghost when a tree fell in my backyard after a storm. On a whim, but with not an abundance of confidence, I bought an 80v Li-Ion battery powered 18" chainsaw from Lowes. I was amazed. I was able to buck a 30' 30" diameter red oak tree (i.e. hardwood) 2/3 of the way on a single charge (about 25-30 minutes of cutting). Then a full recharge took only 30 minutes for me to finish the job. No gas & oil to deal with, and it was much quieter than a 2-stroke gas saw too.

I will never deal with cords, mains, or gas & oil again if I can help it. I am 100% sold on modern battery powered technology for doing real work.

If you compare the 2 stroke chainsaw with the electric unit in, say, 5 years,  chances are the battery will be significantly weaker, whereas the gas engine will be as strong as the day it was made.  Then try 10 years, 20 years, etc.

Gas engines are not maintenance free, of course.  You have to change the oil (4 stroke engines naturally), and remember to add marine grade stabilizer to the gas to prevent it going bad when the equipment sits unused for long periods.   But replacing failing batteries in electric tools every few years shouldn't be considered 'maintenance free' either...   it is, in fact, very expensive maintenance and there isn't much you can do to avoid it.

Over 20 years, the cost of ownership of a large number of battery tools is high.  For these reasons, everything is gas or mains electric powered in my garage today. 

I used to have a whole collection of battery powered tools, but that was then, and this is now...  these days, every tool I reach for starts instantly and works at full force, no worries mate!

[james_s]

If it's anything like my experience with small 2 stroke motors there is also the cost in time (and parts like gaskets, primer bulbs, hoses, etc) to take apart the carburetor and mess with it every time I end up using the thing and forget to flush it out. Spark plug, points (in older stuff), recoil starter, reed valves, all things I have had to mess with at one point or another. Then there is acquiring and storing fuel and oil, disposing of stale fuel, cleaning up spilled/leaked fuel, and the environmental and noise pollution of small 2 stroke motors. They have their place, I do love classic 2-stroke outboard motors but for small tools like string trimmers and blowers, even my lawnmower (small yard) I have replaced mine with electric and got rid of the gas ones years ago. For heavy duty chainsaws I don't think there are electric options yet but I don't have or need one of those personally.

Batteries are cheap, ~$50 or so, lasts at least a couple years, then replace it when it starts to get worn. They're only getting cheaper and more powerful. The electric tools are quiet and clean, no stinky exhaust or messy fuel, no tinkering, just slap in a fresh battery and go. I can't see myself ever buying another gas powered tool again other than maybe a classic fixer-upper if I'm feeling nostalgic. I've been using the same cordless drill now for over 15 years, I had the original battery packs re-celled about 5 years ago and those are still going strong. In another 5 years I'll probably have them re-celled again.

[SilverSolder]

Yeah, a lot of my gas powered stuff is "fixer upper" nostalgia items.  Nothing with points and condensers though! 

E.g. re-engined 1980's snow blower:



When I buy gas, I buy a 5 gallon can and add the stabilizer straight into the can at that point.  I've not had problems with gummed up carbs for the last 10 years, since I started doing that.

[bingo600]

WD is also Segate 

I'm only buying Tosh or HGST mechanical disks today ... And Samsung EVO's for SSD.

/Bingo

Hm? Wikipedia tells otherwise:
WD bought HGST, but Seagate is a separate company.

Hmm

Maybe i misunderstood this (Would be a nice info)
https://www.storagenewsletter.com/2014/04/01/seagate-acquires-wd-for-16-billion-new-company-named-seawest/

/Bingo

[rdl]

That was 5 years ago and "Seawest" still does not exist. Check the date of the article.

April 1st

[SeanB]

I have some nice cordless electric drills, where the original NiCd batteries died, and I was not going to replace them with the same cells again, as they all die fast in there, because the chargers tend to cook the cells to get a fast charge.  So now I have 2 sort of cordless drills, with a short cord, that connects them to a 7Ah SLA battery, that is charged externally when required. So I have drills that works almost everywhere, but hav a much longer run time per charge over the original 1.2Ah battery pack, and batteries are a lot cheaper as well. Not as convenient, but they do go up ladders, and work well there with a little thought.

[SilverSolder]

I have some nice cordless electric drills, where the original NiCd batteries died, and I was not going to replace them with the same cells again, as they all die fast in there, because the chargers tend to cook the cells to get a fast charge.  So now I have 2 sort of cordless drills, with a short cord, that connects them to a 7Ah SLA battery, that is charged externally when required. So I have drills that works almost everywhere, but hav a much longer run time per charge over the original 1.2Ah battery pack, and batteries are a lot cheaper as well. Not as convenient, but they do go up ladders, and work well there with a little thought.

Super cool idea, I'm going to try that with the pile of dead battery tools that I have here...

[VK3DRB]

...Last year my old gas powered Poulan 16" chainsaw had given up the ghost when a tree fell in my backyard after a storm...

I also own a 16" Poulan chainsaw. I am not sure they were ever sold in Australia, but I bought a Poulan 2150 from a Home Depot on a super special in New York, just hours before leaving the US about 25 years ago. It was risk buying it due to getting pare parts but it was about 1/5 of the price of anything similar here. Very happy with the chainsaw which has done a lot of work. A common issue with the Poulans is the fuel primer bulb and the plastic fuel line perish. Replacing these parts is easy enough and cheap from eBay. Other than that, they are simple enough, reliable and hard working. Battery chainsaws would never last the distance as a petrol driven one; and battery packs would never last as long as my Poulan. I would buy Poulan again.

Makita blowers - expensive and and mine lasted 15 years before the magneto failed. The replacement part was far too expensive, so I replaced the Makita with an Echo which is what the professional gardeners use - worth every cent. On the the other hand I have a Makita circular saw I built a large steel framed house with in 1987. The Makita is still strong 33 years later.

The best lawn mowers are Honda. Professional lawn mowing contractors use this brand above all others due to their reputation of performance and reliability. Too expensive for me though, I bought the second best - a Rover mower with a 4-stroke Briggs and Statton engine. Still going well after 21 years of lawn mowing.

[SilverSolder]

...Last year my old gas powered Poulan 16" chainsaw had given up the ghost when a tree fell in my backyard after a storm...

I also own a 16" Poulan chainsaw. I am not sure they were ever sold in Australia, but I bought a Poulan 2150 from a Home Depot on a super special in New York, just hours before leaving the US about 25 years ago. It was risk buying it due to getting pare parts but it was about 1/5 of the price of anything similar here. Very happy with the chainsaw which has done a lot of work. A common issue with the Poulans is the fuel primer bulb and the plastic fuel line perish. Replacing these parts is easy enough and cheap from eBay. Other than that, they are simple enough, reliable and hard working. Battery chainsaws would never last the distance as a petrol driven one; and battery packs would never last as long as my Poulan. I would buy Poulan again.

Makita blowers - expensive and and mine lasted 15 years before the magneto failed. The replacement part was far too expensive, so I replaced the Makita with an Echo which is what the professional gardeners use - worth every cent. On the the other hand I have a Makita circular saw I built a large steel framed house with in 1987. The Makita is still strong 33 years later.

The best lawn mowers are Honda. Professional lawn mowing contractors use this brand above all others due to their reputation of performance and reliability. Too expensive for me though, I bought the second best - a Rover mower with a 4-stroke Briggs and Statton engine. Still going well after 21 years of lawn mowing.

The pros use a lot of Stihl brand garden tools in the US.  Now that you mention it, I have never seen a pro gardening crew use electric/battery equipment...  it's gasoline all the way with those guys.   Mowers, strimmers, blowers, ...   all gas powered.  Obviously they can't be dealing with recharging etc. when they have a busy day of work...

[james_s]

Professional gardeners work all day long and travel from location to location so charging would be more of a challenge. There's also I'm sure a cultural thing, they use the tools they use because those are the tools they all use.

The only one that ever really bothers me are gas powered leaf blowers, I truly wish they would be banned. I'm not sure someone living in an area where they are not common can understand how obnoxious it is to live with a cacophony of screaming 2-stroke engines all day long all over the neighborhood blowing leaves from one place to another. It has gotten totally out of hand and during certain times of the year it's impossible to have anything resembling peace and quiet. We even have a neighbor near our little cabin who built a big fancy house out there with a perfectly manicured suburban lawn out in the woods amongst the vacation cabins. He'll be out there for several hours on a Saturday blowing leaves around making an obnoxious racket and then 10 minutes after he finally goes inside the wind gusts and there are leaves all over again. I loathe gas leaf blowers, one of the dumbest and most obnoxious inventions ever made.

[SilverSolder]

Professional gardeners work all day long and travel from location to location so charging would be more of a challenge. There's also I'm sure a cultural thing, they use the tools they use because those are the tools they all use.

The only one that ever really bothers me are gas powered leaf blowers, I truly wish they would be banned. I'm not sure someone living in an area where they are not common can understand how obnoxious it is to live with a cacophony of screaming 2-stroke engines all day long all over the neighborhood blowing leaves from one place to another. It has gotten totally out of hand and during certain times of the year it's impossible to have anything resembling peace and quiet. We even have a neighbor near our little cabin who built a big fancy house out there with a perfectly manicured suburban lawn out in the woods amongst the vacation cabins. He'll be out there for several hours on a Saturday blowing leaves around making an obnoxious racket and then 10 minutes after he finally goes inside the wind gusts and there are leaves all over again. I loathe gas leaf blowers, one of the dumbest and most obnoxious inventions ever made.

I'm sure the blowers could be re-engineered to be much quieter, if someone really put their minds to it.  Of course, America being America, the government will not legislate for this kind of thing....   no matter how much sense it makes....   Don your earplugs and think of freedom!   

I have a restored 5hp Briggs leaf blower, which sounds more like a motorcycle.  It insists on a really loud exhaust explosion every time the engine is turned off...   later models of this engine have an electric fuel cut-off to prevent it...  It sounds like a gunshot...   The neighbours' kids all come over when I use it, just to hear the loud "Bang" at the end!   

[Veteran68]

I seriously think you guys poo-pooing the thought of a battery operated chainsaw needs to try one. Don't go with the cheap 40v saws though, mine is an 80v model and was decidedly not cheap (I could have bought pretty beefy gas model for the same money, but I don't need beefier than this).

I was pretty skeptical myself, and was pleasantly (very much so) surprised at the power, reduced noise, and overall convenience/cleanliness. I'm not exaggerating when I say it was an "order of magnitude" difference in experience for me. I don't run a chainsaw for a living. I take it out a couple times a year to handle jobs around the house, and I expect this 80v saw will last me as long as I need it to. I can buy extra batteries, and in fact intend to buy its sister string trimmer which will come with the same 80v battery, so I'll have two. If they'll come out with a backpack blower on the same battery system, I'm sure I'll pick up one of those too.

I hate 2-stroke engines, and the Poulan was the last one I had -- I upgraded to a 4-stroke trimmer and backpack blower years ago. I'm aware of the fuel bulb and lines disintegrating over time, I've replaced many of those over the years in various gas-powered yard tools. That wasn't the issue with my old Poulan, but if I cared to I'm sure I could have got it running again. But I didn't want to. I needed an excuse to get rid of it, and this cordless model was just the ticket. I gave the Poulan to my son-in-law to play around with.

If I were in the professional landscaping business, I would likely not depend on battery operated tools -- although, just as with most carpenters these days, I'd probably have some for where they made sense. As a homeowner however, they fit my needs very well. I'm all-in on modern battery powered tools and don't see myself continuing with gas power yard machines beyond my lawn tractor.

[SilverSolder]

[...] upgraded to a 4-stroke trimmer and backpack blower  [...]

Two-stroke engines have about 1.8 times the power of an equivalent displacement four stroke, and much simpler (lighter!) construction.  So they are perfect for "wearable" engines like blowers, backpacks, chainsaws, and the like.

I once owned a two-stroke Saab (car)...  Loved the sound!

[james_s]

Those Saabs do sound cool, I saw one at a car meet once. They sound very much like a 2 stroke outboard boat motor, I'm a fan of those. The exhaust is discharged underwater so they are not loud like the lawn equipment engines.

[MT]

The hive of bees!