That's the only explanation I can think of. Out in the wild I hear nothing but bad reviews of Samsung appliances from other owners. On the repair forums, they have a similar reputation (they're great for business, if you are a repair pro).

I still rely on CR, however, in the absence of personal experience, bias, or that of someone else I trust. I just bought a new induction cooktop and Samsung was nowhere to be found on their recommended list, so I thought maybe they were starting to get wise to all the problems, but I noticed that the top gas cooktops are Samsung. Maybe those particular models are that good, but I'd never risk finding out. Gas cooktops are awfully simple devices, though, so the risk is limited.

For anyone worried they were going to need to adjust their world view, don't worry. Samsung makes a line of "Smart" gas cooktops and managed to Samsung-ify them.

Lots of reviews of poor build and materials quality ("stainless" surfaces bubbling or being scratched by paper towels, knobs breaking, the finish on the grate coming off during regular use and it rusting, etc), burners failing, burners melting the knobs, samsung denying warranty for various and sundry reasons, service techs being unavailable in many areas, service techs saying samsung doesn't supply parts and half the cooktop needs to be replaced for these issues, etc.

In products ranging from a couple weeks to a year old.

I'm dreading the day when we have to replace our decades old propane cooktop + oven.

Can't edit my old post, but I went and checked, and for the actual appliance reliability ratings on CR, Samsung rates pretty low currently: https://www.consumerreports.org/appliances/which-brands-make...

Sandwiched between "Fisher & Paykel" and Asko.

Surveys seem like a reasonable methodology for products where you can get large user samples, like with appliances and cars, but I have often had reason to question how well they understand what they are doing. For example, in the days of pre-digital photography, I was a close follower of technical reports in magazines like Modern Photography. When CR would do testing of of photography equipment, they seemed to be relatively clueless.