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.