Our Whirlpool refrigerator is a piece of dirt. I’ll never buy another Whirlpool product.
My “side loading” washer. Really hate it. The rubber lining around the opening retains water and it smells awful.
Had a new furnace installed 2/22/16 and they have been back six times for no heat. Now it’s hot but I still don’t think it’s fixed
Bought a GE Profile French Door refrigerator when they were fairly new. It was unreliable right from the beginning, temps up and down. It had a “feature” where if there was the least bit of a power surge it would turn itself off. After a few years the thing just died. Needed a new “mother board” and at that point it was (in)conveniently just out of warranty. The electronics have worked ok since we replaced the board for $hundreds (until recently when it has started to freeze produce and anything on the top shelf), but all of the plastic pieces inside are falling apart–the drawer tracks have been broken for years, the bins on the doors are cracked. Just talking about it makes H really angry. He would never consider buying another GE appliance.
Oh, this is going to feel good. We remodeled a kitchen with all Viking appliances. I hate them. The dishwasher never worked right and after a year of fighting with Viking (and having all of my glasses ruined), we bought a new one and told the installer to just take the Viking to the dump. My oven doors are too heavy for the hinges and don’t close properly. They fixed them (twice) but said I must have a toddler hang on them or something. Um…no! No toddlers here. The Viking stainless is a nightmare to try to keep shiny and streak-free. The Subzero fridge and new Miele dishwasher are a dream in comparison. There…when they refused to fix my dishwasher I told them that I would tell literally EVERYONE I know how crappy their products are…but they didn’t care. Ahhhh…that DID feel good. :))
Love my Miele dishwasher and would never buy anything other than a Subzero fridge after living with one for 17 years. Only had one repair call in those 17 years!
My MIL has two big Viking ranges. They’re older models and they just have no good simmer. You turn the flame down that low and it spits and sputters and you’re afraid it will go out. The burners are all so large that the flames go up the sides of smaller pots too. They’re great for cranking out the BTUs when needed, but they’re not so good at other functions.
Well, given the cost of Subzero fridges, you could buy 2-3 regular fridges easily to replace anything that might break. 
I’ve had two bad experiences with the online retailer shoebuy.com . The first time, I ordered a pair of Naot sandals (an expensive brand). When they arrived, the strap on one edge had been attached on the outside edge of the shoe so that you’d need to pull it toward the inside of the foot to fasten it. The other shoe was correct/standard, with the strap attached on the inside of the shoe and fastening on the outside of the foot. Obviously the shoe had been repaired (and stupidly).
Recently I ordered another pair of Naot sandals. The website banner promises a percent off (I think it was 20%), and nowhere can you find a list of exempt brands. At checkout I discovered that Naot is exempt from the deal. Just for the heck of it, I tried several other brands by placing shoes in my cart, and they were all exempt from the sale, too. OK, so I went ahead and ordered the Naot shoes. Although I have this shoe in three other colors, the one from Shoebuy didn’t fit, so I had to send it back. Since they prominently advertise free shipping and free return shipping, I wasn’t worried. Only when I went to return the shoes did I find that there is a $6.95 “restocking” fee for each item.
I wrote a detailed email about the shoe not being the standard size for this brand and style, and the deceptive “free return shipping” claim while they charge a hidden restocking fee. I received a form email telling me how to return my shoes. When I emailed back clarifying that I knew how to return the shoes but would like a useful reply, I received another email that basically said – we already emailed you, and we have to send you a reply every time you email us, so that’s why I’m emailing again. And that’s all they wrote.
Bye-bye, shoebuy.
Zappos is my “go to” online source for shoes. Their customer service is excellent. They carry Naot sandals @zipyourlips:
Awesome thread. I hope it goes on and on…I plan to check in whenever I’m planning a purchase!
“My ‘side loading’ washer. Really hate it. The rubber lining around the opening retains water and it smells awful.”
Know what you mean. I have always done ridiculous things to clean under the rubber and last month finally pulled the stinky thing off just as I was nearly done with the job (one which almost always has suddenly overtaken me, and depends on different types of cleaning cloths, q-tips, old t-shirts, vinegar and mild soaps while wearing rubber gloves…). $185.00. Outrageous.
My youngest daughter ordered Uggs from Zulily, supposedly made to order from Australia. No shoes by the expected delivery date. Or a month later. Two months later, Zulily told her they would be unable to make good on the delivery and gave her a $10.00 consolation credit. I have forbidden her from ever ordering from them again. It broke her heart to hear me say that, but it had already been broken by Zulily.
I posted at some point on this forum about my horrible maytag washer. From the start, it used so little water (not adjustable by me) that it left blotches of liquid detergent on my clothes. Went through all kinds of hoops, different types of detergents, etc. and the problem continued. A Maytag person suggested to me that I didn’t know how to do laundry. Finally wrote to the VP of customer service, copying the CEO and indicating that I didn’t want to go to social media but I would…they finally approved the local shop where I bought the pair to pick them up. Never. Again. (Now have Speed Queen which is great.)
But, the one that came up today is timely and really ticking me off. I dropped my iphone Saturday and only had about 1/2 its functionality. DH works for a phone repair company and took it to their best tech today. He opened my phone and showed dh that my phone was refurbished. The battery wasn’t original and there were some other things that showed it had been worked on. Bought it from Staples. So Staples is selling refurbished iphones as new? I wouldn’t have thought it possible but this is the first time my phone has been serviced.
Not feeling all that trusting at the moment.
HarvestMoon, I’m with you in the Zappos fan club; it’s my main shoe source. Shoebuy had a color/size each time that was out of stock at Zappos, but I’ve learned my lesson. Zappos’ free one-day business shipping, free returns, and quick processing of refunds for returns can’t be beat.
@collage1 - we had the same thing with a Verizon phone. I bought my dd a phone at an authorized dealer, not knowing the difference between that and a real Verizon store. The phone wouldn’t charge correctly and it had someone’s contacts listed in it. Back it went and I won’t go back. I also tell everyone in our little town to be wary of the place.
Appliances will make a big presence on this thread I think!!!
Well, took the rug back to a Home Goods here. The manager was STUNNED that someone was stupid enough to write on the actual rug side. She said they often will write a tag number on the back of the rug - in case the rug tag is lost (weird, but that’s what she said) - but how lame someone was to write numbers in sharpie on the front!!!
She also was able to tell me that the reason the rug was on clearance was not because of the writing but the code on the tag indicated that it had just been on the “shelf” for a long enough period of time that they discounted it.
I have one to add - Pella windows. I bought three of the high end “architect series” and they are beautiful and function well. Except that they were installed slightly wrong and I couldn’t lock and unlock two of them. It took months of different people coming out to figure out the problem and fix it. 10 months!
The main problem is that Pella central (for my region, which is based in Maryland) is totally disorganized and they contract with different installers at different times. The guy who finally fixed the problem told us to just buy windows and hire our own installers, that way we can choose someone with a good reputation.
This brings up another point that paying more for perceived “higher quality” doesn’t really work anymore. We purchased several high end items in the past few years, with the expectation that they will perform well and last a long time, and they ended up disappointing.
The most recent purchase was a Technivorm Moccamaster (I pull out all the stops when it comes to getting tasty coffee!). $300+ for that thing and it couldn’t even soak the coffee grounds correctly. It turns out this is a known design flaw with these machines, and the workaround reported by many people is to stir the coffee grounds while it is brewing… There is no way I am paying $300 for a coffee maker that can’t even brew coffee without me helping it out. Needless to say, I ended up returning it. The plus side is that Amazon’s return policy is fantastic. B-)
My most recent debacles are a Ford Fusion and John Deere 54" riding lawn mower. The fit and finish on this new car are horrible. From day 1, it rattles and vibrates loudly with any wind against the passenger door. Been to 3 different dealerships, total of 8 times, head technicians and dealership GM have all ridden and hear the noise. Ford hung me out to dry. I won’t make this mistake again.
We have 2 acres of front yard; mow a total of 7-8/week. I work hard on my yard and want the stripes to look good. We have had 3 other John Deere mowers. New Z435, with a striping kit. No one checked anything out before delivery–this was at a John Deere dealership. The arm levels won’t go forward and grooved the metal. Not only does it not stripe–the middle blade isn’t even cutting the grass level with the other 2 blades.
@greenwitch, it’s not just in your area that Pella has problems. We specified Pella windows with the blinds between the glass for a house we had built and had trouble with nearly every window. Everyone passed the buck from the builder to his window supplier (local Pella store) to Pella corp. Twice we had a window broken during a repair/replacement visit. After a year, we gave up.
My more recent good buy (Not!) was an ottoman from Homeware. After about 9 - 10 months, the top half of the ottoman had slid more than an inch beyond the edge of the bottom half and the upholstery fabric had dimples on the top. I’d rotated the ottoman each time it was used, but that hadn’t helped. A medical crisis got in the way of me sending photos to the company, so it was about 2 weeks after their 1 year warranty period when I reported the problem. They refused to do anything but just fobbed me off on Hooker Furniture, the manufacturer. Hooker also refused to do anything. I would have settled for advice on how to fix the problem myself, but they declined to do even that. That experience soured me on both Homeware and Hooker Furniture.
I could write a book about Wolf ovens and their blue interiors (I might have previously in another thread.) I know that others love their Wolf/SubZero appliances, but when I get to replace ours it will be with a different brand.