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[#] Wed Jun 15 2016 15:56:13 EDT from IGnatius T Foobar

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Disk drives with SMART on board (which is pretty much all of them nowadays) are really good at predicting failure. They go by the number and frequency of soft and/or recoverable errors. I have heard it said that they can predict within a margin of error of 24 hours when a drive is going to hard fail.

[#] Sat Jul 30 2016 05:13:35 EDT from the_mgt

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As a general advice: Don't buy LG. It is cheap shit and their service is even cheaper and shittier.

I do not buy LG anymore, after I had a phone/mail odyssee with the LG support in southern germany for a replacement part (small rubber hose) of our washing machine. They refused to believe the part number I told (and send as a picture) to them and behaved like total Untermenschen. If I ever happen to come to that part of germany, I go all Ramsey Bolton over them.

I also stopped selling LG screens, cdroms, etc. to my clients and tell anyone not to buy any of their products.



[#] Sat Jul 30 2016 08:45:59 EDT from zooer

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Ten years ago during a hurricane we lost the roofing at our work building.  The building had a cement slab roof that was covered in tar and paper.  Once a weak point was found, the paper lifted up and the water flowed between the cement slabs.  There was an attic but water still made it down to the work area.  The damage in the work area wasn't bad but it was damp.  We purchased a LG (Lucky Goldstar, not Life's Good) dehumidifier.  The thing worked great, ran constantly for a while, then failed.  We called service and they replaced it under warranty.  I was very happy with LG.  My parent also purchased the same model for their house and that has been running with no problems.

My parents had an LG washer and dryer set.  After the warranty expired it started to have problems, however having a good salesman convinced them to get an extended warranty, so it was fixed.  About a month before the extended warranty expired the washer developed a major problem.  The washer was several years old at this point, they went nuts trying to find a replacement part so they didn't have to give us a new machine for free.  They found one, "that would work" and it lasted but another small problem developed with the dryer and my mother replaced both units with another brand.

I was not disappointed with LG and had a better experience, however I have heard of others having a problem with LG.

Sears on the other hand, I wont do business with... which is nice because they closed the store in our city.



[#] Sun Jul 31 2016 19:12:35 EDT from IGnatius T Foobar

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Unfortunately with consumer appliances, planned obsolesence is pretty much universal now.

[#] Tue Aug 02 2016 12:48:52 EDT from Ragnar Danneskjold

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I had an LG washer and dryer for 10 years. Just replaced with another pair from LG. The old washer had the control board fry and they don't make the replacement any longer.


Meanwhile, I've been cleaning out my father-in-law's place preapring it for sale (as he died last year). His 40 year old washer and dryer are still going strong.

[#] Tue Aug 02 2016 13:27:37 EDT from zooer

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The expected life span of an appliance is seven to ten years now.  Gone are the days of things lasting.  We are a consumerist society. 

With the short life spans I can not understand why someone wants to purchase a high end model.  They have all these foolish features that don't justify the price/lifespan.  I laugh that they have clothes dryers that mist the clothes as they dry.

My mother is looking for a new refrigerator.  The current one works, it has issues.  She wants a new one before it fails.



[#] Tue Aug 02 2016 21:11:41 EDT from wizard of aahz

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Picked up a LG dishwasher. I happen to like it a lot as the old one was a disaster. But now I wonder just how long it might survive.

[#] Wed Aug 03 2016 05:50:31 EDT from the_mgt

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Our LG washer still washes fine, the motor is rather silent because of this "direct drive" feature.

But the support insulted me, mocked me, was condescending and in general full of the most vile assholes I ever witnessed on any support place. It was as if their sole purpose was to piss off customers even more. And a quick research revealed, that I was not the only one with this experience.

I have a LG bluray player, which died shortly after being purchased, too. That might have been caused by a weird power circuit in the living room, which I then fixed. The "repair" of the bluray player took over a month, but they just send me a new one. It was replaced with a Marantz UD5005.

So, while the products are ok from the feature point of view and they last a bit, I solely hate them for their shitty support and the time I "lost" while dealing with them. I try to make up for my anger by giving them a bad reputation.



[#] Wed Aug 03 2016 09:36:04 EDT from IGnatius T Foobar

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I had an LG washer and dryer for 10 years. Just replaced with another

pair from LG. The old washer had the control board fry and they don't

make the replacement any longer.

Replaced both of them? Does the washer-dryer pair have fault propagation to guarantee they both fail at the same time? :) (Yes I know, the wife won't tolerate an appliance pair that don't look like twins.)

I have one of those LG direct drive models and it's been running for about four years now, I think. The words "10 year warranty" are silkscreened right onto the front of the appliance so that's probably when it will break. My non computer controlled Kenmore dryer, on the other hand (my wife doesn't care that they don't match) is 21 years old, very repairable, and I hope to keep it going for decades.

"Connected appliances" are going to be even more fun. I predict that within the next ten years (maybe sooner) there will be a scandal uncovered by someone who disassembles a connected appliance's microcode, or unpacks the network traffic, and discovers that the appliance verifies that the warranty has expired before initiating a self-destruct function at a random date during the following 12 months.

[#] Wed Aug 03 2016 12:30:18 EDT from Ragnar Danneskjold

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Maybe your wife will put up with a non-matching set. Mine will not. They've changed the bases on them, and the front panels. They look significantly different.

[#] Wed Aug 03 2016 13:17:11 EDT from wizard of aahz

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Look at the wife and ask "Does it wash??" "Does that one dry?" Be grateful! What's the problem?


<laughs> I know better. But still.

[#] Wed Aug 03 2016 13:19:46 EDT from IGnatius T Foobar

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I know, it just seems wasteful to throw away a working appliance just because it doesn't match another one.  Most homes don't have them on display in a high-traffic area of the house.

This is what my laundry room looks like when no one is doing laundry:

 (text client users, go to https://goo.gl/photos/mgy56qsvScUmVayPA )

And this is what it looks like when we are actually using the machines:

 (text client users, go to https://goo.gl/photos/iTLhioZbywGqDgea8 )

So there's our 1995 dryer next to our 2013 washer.  When we bought the new washer and I told my wife that I hope she wasn't expecting the matching dryer to go with it, she looked at me like I was crazy, why would we replace a perfectly good machine.



[#] Wed Aug 03 2016 14:20:12 EDT from the_mgt

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My mother in law uses the exact same dryer model we had in our house when I was a child. It might be around 35 years old.

And I doubt there are ways you could have made drying clothes more energy efficient in the meantime.



[#] Wed Aug 03 2016 14:58:45 EDT from IGnatius T Foobar

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The only real change in that area has been the addition of sensors that shut the dryer off when the job is done, instead of running it for a pre-determined length of time.

[#] Wed Aug 03 2016 17:14:22 EDT from zooer

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Yes dryers have sensors and "anti-wrinkle" where they rotate the tub every few minutes to prevent any clothes left in them from wrinkling.  

The new washers are "high efficiency" which uses less water.  You can buy top loaders with this as well.  I don't know how much water they save vs how well they clean.



[#] Wed Aug 03 2016 22:38:52 EDT from IGnatius T Foobar

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Generally, a "high efficiency" washer (or dishwasher) will use less water and energy, but the tradeoff is that they take forever to complete a cycle.

[#] Thu Aug 04 2016 02:21:49 EDT from the_mgt

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Ah, yes anti-wrinkle and a sensor for dryness might be nice. But I guess that energy saving margin does not justify building and buying a new one.

Our dish washer is a new, energy and watersaving one. Takes 3h to complete a wash in eco mode. The watersaving is done by reusing the water from the previous run. If you do not use it regularly, I guess that opens an opportunity for ugly stuff, like maybe legionella.



[#] Thu Aug 04 2016 15:58:30 EDT from IGnatius T Foobar

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It doesn't matter whether it works well or not.

The government, at least over here, sets a bunch of ridiculous energy efficiency targets. The manufacturers then have to re-engineer the machines to hit those targets. The problem is, in doing so they raise the cost of the machine beyond what the market will bear. So then they have to find ways to lower the cost, which usually means lowering the quality of the build.

So you almost always end up with a machine that costs the same as an older one, uses less water/energy, takes longer to run, and will certainly need to be replaced in three years.

[#] Mon Aug 08 2016 02:25:41 EDT from triLcat

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yeah - my parents bought the simplest American (Maytag) machines in 1998, and they're still in working order. 
DH and I have been forced to buy the European machines (which heat their own water.) because we didn't have the opportunity to bring from the US, nor did we have the space for an American machine (they're much bigger).
We've been married 10 years, and we're on our second washer and 4th dryer. Fortunately, we managed to score an old American dryer now (like older than my parents' machine) which is loud as hell and overheats on the top setting, but otherwise a great machine.

 



[#] Fri Mar 31 2017 10:13:08 EDT from IGnatius T Foobar

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Because I tend to ride waaaaay behind the technology curve...

My new laptop arrived yesterday. Not too long ago, I attended a nationwide meeting of all of our senior engineers, and the guy who heads up internal IT noticed that I had a computer that was roughly the size and weight of a paver stone, so he moved me up in the queue for a refresh.

It's an ultrabook, and my first SSD-based computer. It's a bit surreal - no spinning disks, no fans coming on all the time. The hum from my external monitor is the loudest thing in the rig right now. I think I need to put on some music or something.

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