<p>Makes you wonder, doesn’t it? GE bottom freezer stainless steel (with rust) not cheap… compressor stops working just over 1 year after purchase. Original warranty is for 12 months. We have an extended warranty, but it makes you wonder if they engineer these things to fail after 1 year. No, they can’t be that good… and this bad at the same time can they?</p>
<p>Oh, and I guess they also engineer them to fail during the weekend so you have to wait at least 1 or 2 days for service. Must be a conspiracy between GE and the ice cream manufacturers. I bet GE makes ice cream.</p>
<p>This has been going on with car batteries for years. They’ve engineered it to perfection. Rare that one doesn’t fail within a month or two to either side of the life span, be it a 24 month or 60 month battery.</p>
<p>They don’t make anything the way they used to.</p>
<p>I abhor the new trend in downsized containers, from ice cream to OJ. What used to be 64 ounces is now 59, or 48. And at the same (or a slightly reduced) price if you’re lucky.</p>
<p>I’m starting to look around at refrigerators as ours has a compressor that runs constantly (repair man said $700 to fix)…haven’t noticed higher electric bill (just have to set the icecream out 1/2 hour before dipping) so will go till it quits…but did you say that your new refrigerator has “RUST”…guess I won’t be looking at one of those! geesh</p>
<p>I had no luck with GE refrigerators. In our old condo, the ice maker/water dispenser had some part that went that the made the whole fridge not cold. Years ago the cost to fix was 200-300. THen we (still did not learn) our GE side by side had the door gasket break (also a few hundred to fix), and a few shelves. It never lost cooling power, but money to repair is money you have to spend. Make sure that when you have the repairman come, you get every shelf or plastic thing that broke also repaired/replaced- the parts seemed to be made so cheaply. </p>
<p>We bought a westinghouse 2d fridge for our basement in our old house for a few hundred dollars - plain vanilla (but frost free) it always worked well.</p>
<p>Our GE fridge , fortunately, runs fine (crossing my fingers). Friends with the high end sub zero’s and Vikings complain about constant problems. </p>
<p>My car battery died 2 weeks before the dealer warrantee expired! Haha, they must have planned that wrong. I got a brand new battery at no charge, and they vacuumed out the car while they were at it :)</p>
<p>Somehow I just knew your post was going to be about a GE appliance. Their quality seems to have gone downhill. I’ve had problems with my new GE refrigerator and gas cooktop. I don’t normally buy extended warranties, but it might be worth it on these appliances.</p>
<p>Our refrigerator is about 20 years old. It was the cheapest thing that I could find at Sears that was also big enough. I think that it cost a few hundred dollars. It’s still going strong with no problems other me having to clean it once a year (the pipes and things; not the inside).</p>
Haha - it’s uncanny about the car batteries failing just after the warranty periods. Anymore I buy the battery with the longest 100% replacement warranty I can find (usually from Autozone or Kragen) and have had them fail a couple of times prior to the warranty period but at least it’s nice to just go to the store and exchange it for another at no cost as opposed to the ‘prorated’ warranties.</p>
<p>Is it one that needs to be serviced annually? I know on Sub Zero there’s something they need to do the the compressor every year. I’d had mine for years before a repairman told me this however.</p>
<p>Our GE refrigerator is 21 years old and still going strong (quickly looks for some wood to touch). Our stove must be 40 years old. But newer stuff - our Sears ride on mower, for which we did not but the extended warranty, went out 2 days after the warranty expired. That blooming Maytag cooktop - works fine but the knobs keep breaking off - we are in the midst of breaking the 2nd full set. And out expensive whirlpool over the range microwave had the magnatron go out after 4 years. It’s predecessor was probably 35+ years old and worked fine - I just wanted a pretty new one with some bells and whistles. Silly me.</p>
<p>The newer stuff does not seem to be made to last. But I expect at least a decade!!</p>
<p>It is with great pleasure that I report our GE refrigerator has risen from the dead. It started working again almost as mysteriously as it stopped. Perhaps it was in the defrost cycle afterall (which according to the troubleshooting area of the owners manual shuts down the compressor for 30 minutes) but it was nonworking for well over an hour. Service call canceled. </p>
<p>Maybe it received the silent secret call from the factory to restart once they realized we had an extended warranty.</p>
<p>While the most refridges have a one year warranty, the compressor is usually warrantied for more than a year–sometimes five years and sometimes even more. Check your paperwork in case it goes out again. Our last fridge had a "bumper to bumper"warranty for 12 mos, but the compressor (parts and labor) was for 4 years and the compressor (parts no labor) was for 8 or 10. We were amazed after reading the fine print.</p>
<p>^^ The Magnatrons in microwaves are the same. Unfortunately you have to pay a repair man to find out if it is in fact the magnatron. Then if it is the manufacturer will pay for the repairs. If not then you are out the $65 and still have no microwave (and it is too expensive to pay to replace the magnatron - not worth it). We just ended up buying a new one - with much gnashing of teeth on my part.</p>
<p>My H swears that the day before our fridge croaked, he saw a note on it that said, “Resistance is futile!” LOL. </p>
<p>Lucky us - the @#%* fridge did not fail during the heat wave. If it goes belly up once more, I will take the biggest hammer out of the tool chest and “fix” it.</p>
<p>Our microwave lasted for years and years. We spent literally about a year figuring out which one to use to replace it when it went bad. That replacement lasted maybe two years & we have since had to replace it again. We hope this one will last longer than two years. <sigh></sigh></p>
<p>Have never had a fridge that lasted only 12.5 months! Wow, that must be extremely aggravating! Have had our transmission go out on our car just before the 4 year mfgr warranty & dealer had to repair. Dealer wanted to charge me but I fought it & made them give me a free extended warranty. </p>
<p>It does make you crazy that things don’t last. Our kids cell phones die well before the plans end and they have to go back & use their old cell phones that are still going strong–go figure!</p>
<p>I just bought a new stove because my 20 yr old Caloric has a stuck dial- I don’t know if it’s the knob or something else- and you can’t get parts. I am also getting an energy star
refrigerator to replace my perfectly working 20 yr old Frigidaire- the inside plastic shelf supports and the gasket are falling apart and with an energy star refrigerator the cost of energy savings means it will start paying for itself in 8 years [ENERGY</a> STAR](<a href=“http://www.energystar.gov/index.cfm?fuseaction=refrig.calculator]ENERGY”>ENERGY STAR Flip Your Fridge Calculator | Products | ENERGY STAR)</p>