When we were purchasing a clothes washer and dryer, Samsung had a special promotion. The sales rep at the store told us that the Samsung machines got the most complaints and she would recommend the LG machines. But we wanted that promotion, it was oh so nice. We bought a 5-year warranty just in case.

Sure enough, it's year 3 and the washer has stopped working. Repair guy came and decided he needs to order new parts to fix it. It's been a week or so without doing any laundry. Glad we purchased the extra warranty, but maybe we should have gone with the LG like the sales lady recommended.

Get SpeedQueen next time. There’s still quality out there, need to stop listening to sales and do research.

The long-term brand you want is Miele. They're not cheap but my parents' dishwasher is approaching 30 years old.

Without knowing anything particular about Miele, all this anecdote suggests is that they were great thirty years ago. They could well have enshittified between now and then.

I'm at the point where I don't trust any brands at all anymore. The next time I need to make a major appliance purchase I'll buy a subscription to Consumer Reports and blindly follow their recommendation - I still trust them.

Apparently Miele has started to have quality issues. But they still might be a good bet, if only for the fact that they are (probably?) the last family run business in the market.

I did not know that! Thanks. Indeed, "family run", depending on where they are in the internal-to-the-family management-transition cycle, is more encouraging to me than "publicly held". ("Private equity" is always and everywhere a huge red flag.)

It's depressing to me that we have to think about those things. I mean, "buyer beware" has always been the case, but it seems like we have to be more wary (or more wary of more factors) than we did a decade or two ago. Or maybe I'm just getting older. I dunno.

It might be just the normal process of capitalism in which you see take-over after take-over leading to ever bigger companies?

"Capitalism" is very much in the eye of the beholder, and different regulatory models create market economies with different incentives. What you're talking about is "normal" in certain places.

I didn't mean that, though, and I don't think it's what the other people in this thread did, either. I was thinking of the practice whereby private equity funds purchase companies and exploit the "brand equity" they've built up over the long term, whilst deliberately enshittifying them, in order to make a short-term profit for the new owners. That's been normalized, in some places, but I wish it were not, and would prefer that financial markets be regulated in ways that make it un-profitable.

But isnt that the crux of the matter? You buy what consumer reports say, and the reviewers have no way of knowing if it will break down in 3 years. No one rates their gadget after three years so we have a massive blind spot where the best thing is still word of mouth.

My parents bought an Miele washing machine, rock solid even after pushing ten years.

Yeah, totally. That's where branding used to be a valuable signal, under the assumption that a company wouldn't deliberately choose to destroy their long-term value. I don't believe that anymore, so I'll place what remains of my trust in reviewers I know are independent (God help us all if it turns out CR is taking kick-backs or something) and figure know more about, say, washing machines than I do.

Miele now has cheaper models so you may be right to be cautious.

Personally I have had issues with Bosch and don't trust them anymore.

The result is that now either I car about specific look, some specific features, etc and pay a bit more for them, or I just go for cheapest.

I also have had the same experience with my Samsung appliances. I paid top dollar for a nice looking set of laundry machines only to find out that they have garbage components inside of them that are bad by design.

I had a squeaking drier fixed under warranty, only to have the same issue reoccur multiple times, because the rollers are just junk. It needs a new set like clockwork every year and a half or so, I have the replacement procedure memorized now.

The washer seems to be allergic to water and soap. I keep the unit in a dry location, leveled and raised off of the floor, yet, the body of the unit is rusting out, the chrome finish on the door is peeling, and when I clean it, the cycle labels wipe right off the front panel. The pump has also failed due to rust on the motor.

Absolute trash. I probably would have been better off with a $400 top loader.

> yet, the body of the unit is rusting out

Happened to my ~2016 Samsung. Turns out a hose clamp wasn't properly installed and water was dripping onto the steel floorpan and rusting everything nearby.

Fixed it and all rusting halted.