Seattle, WAOkay, I know that we live in a throw-away society. There's so much money floating around, and there is so little time to spare that we don't fix anything any more. We just replace it. It's easier. Less muss, less fuss.
But is that to suggest that the manufacturers need to actually buy into this? Does it give them licence to make inferior products, and in an effort to cut costs and boost profits for their shareholders, make it so bloody difficult for us to look at even the potential of fixing something that's broke, we'll break down ourselves and just buy a new one?
Damn them. Damn them all.
This is my story about Sears, and my Kenmore fridge. Now, let me say that I have always had the utmost respect for Sears and their products. Have shopped them for years. A loyal customer. I have always found their in-store employees to be helpful, generous and gracious. Thorough. Willing to go the extra mile, and ready to make the extra effort. Something doesn't work; they'll take it back.
And whenever it has come time to replace an appliance, I have always done my homework. And my research, time and time again, has shown that Kenmore appliances from Sears are reliable and offer good value.
But my recent experience has proven otherwise. And God help you if you ever need something fixed.
So here's the story.
Our old, primary fridge gave up the ghost in 1999, so it was off to Sears to buy a new one. A big one. A fridge big enough to handle the soda, the jugs, all the leftovers we could throw at it - even the ones that blinked when the light comes on, like we had awakened them from some deep, deep sleep. Sorry to disturb you, 6-week-old stew. I just need some milk for the coffee.
It wasn't tall, but it was wide. Took upon half the bloody kitchen. But it was a Kenmore, and it was from Sears, and it was new, and it had a spiffy EnerGuide rating.
What was there not to like about that?
Funny, but it never seemed to keep the ice cream as cold, or as hard as the fifty-year-old freezer that we have sitting in the garage, given to us by my sister 15 years ago. It wasn't expected to last 15 days.
But there it sits, chugging away, chewing up the fluorocarbons and giving us excellent service.
The fridge is another story. And the next chapter of my fridge saga unfolds in August 2005, while we were away camping in Parry Sound, Ontario.
We get an emergency call at the campground from the person in charge of checking on the place while we're gone.
The fridge has quit. Dead as a doornail. The compressor has bit the dust - a victim of the long, hot summer. They sent someone by to have a look four days after the initial call, the part was ordered, and a service call had been booked for the Thursday after we get back.
Meanwhile, we have stuff shifted to the ancient freezer in the garage, an old fridge we have in the basement, and the electronic cooler that some friends have loaned to us.
This is nuts, I say, after we had arrived home, thankfully without a lot of food leftover. "We have to wait until Thursday? Where are they driving in from? Saskatoon?
Almost. The service Call Centre is somewhere on the east coast. 'I sympathize with you sir," the operator says. "But there's nothing available until the following week. You'd be better to stick with what you have."
And so we did. We waited until Thursday. No one showed - but we did get a call from the service guy, saying that he was sorry, but he got kind of backed up, and someone would make it the next day. It should be noted, to be fair, that Sears Service was being run off its feet in the midst of a recent shutdown of the local service depot, requiring all service calls to originate from Durham, which is about 45 minutes away. 'We've sub-contracted your compressor installation to a local guy," they said.
Fine with me. And the next day the local guy DID show up. Changed the compressor. But the fridge still wasn't cooling properly. "There's something else wrong," he said. "Don't know what it is, but I wouldn't put any food in here."
Our food was all over the house, including a bar fridge that our neighbour across the road had loaned us. It had been nearly two weeks since the initial call, when the fridge first quit.
We were told to expect someone Saturday to have another look. No one came. I called the East Coast Call Centre. "We will check into this sir, but if you haven't seen him today, I'm sure you will see him tomorrow..."
We didn't see him Saturday. We didn't see him Sunday, either. I called the East Coast Call Centre. "I'm so sorry sir, but it's Sunday and nobody is working today."
And so I posed the question: Do you not, when you get a call for service, check back with the service department to make sure that service was performed? Or at the very least, that the contractor was able to respond?
The Call Centre operator, who was a thousand miles away, had no answer.
So I ranted, but politely. I called the store. Talked to a manager to express my displeasure. Wrote the CEO a fine letter. Might as well do something - I couldn't go to the fridge to get anything to eat.
Monday the service guys were back. Poured over the thing for 3 hours. They weren't sure, but at long last they figured out that a copper line going from the compressor to the freezer.... which in turn fed cold air to the fridge compartment- was blocked. Probably came like that from the factory. It probably never worked right in the first place.
No wonder our ice cream was always soft. No wonder my energy bills were so high, and little wonder the compressor gave up. It was working overtime for 6 years to get cold air through a blocked tube.
So now we're two weeks and a day without a fridge that needs replacing after 6 years that never worked right in the first place. If there was a recall, I never heard about it.
Imagine if this had happened to a senior, I said to the store manager on the phone. Imagine if the little old woman had just spent all her pension check on food, only to see it spoil in a fridge that wouldn't work - that didn't work all this time, and she never knew. And it's toast after six years?
I thought about the hand-me-down freezer in the garage that had been running faithfully forever. Beat-up and bedraggled, it was still going. And our spare fridge in the basement - an old one, a no-name one that I bought used for 90 bucks back in 1976 and it was 20 years old then. We had moved 7 times. Still works great.
"We'll loan you a fridge," they said.
Funny, but when our house-sitter asked about that two weeks prior, at the time of initial failure, she was told that Sears definitely did NOT do that kind of thing.
There is a happy ending to Part One of this saga. Sears decided to give us a new fridge for all our trouble. "We'll take what you paid for the old one, and put that value towards a new one. You can make up the difference."
That was more than fair. So off we go to pick out our new fridge. That was Tuesday. Maybe, we thought, we'd have it delivered by the weekend? That would be three weeks without a fridge - but worth the wait.
"Oh no, that's a floor model. We can't give you that. We have to order one, and y'know with Hurricane Katrina and all of that, it's delayed the shipments (these things are all made off-shore...).
"It'll be the first week in October."
October? For heaven's sake.
And so we wait. And wait. And wait. Until the day finally comes when the fridge, one of the newer designs with the freezer on the bottom, is brought into the house.
It won't fit. It's too tall.
Now, I don't buy appliances every day. I'm not handy. But we live in a relatively new house - less than 20 years old - with standard cupboard size and clearance. No one suggested to me that it would be prudent to measure it first, and I'm a whirling hurricane of activity all the time with a 1001 things on the go. I didn't think it was an issue. We had a huge fridge to begin with. How could this be any different?
Back it goes - and in the 5th week of being without a fridge, we return to the store to pick out another one. A smaller one. "Fine," says Sears. "But it'll be at least another 10 days, to two weeks. Katrina, y'know. Off-shore."
And so we wait some more. Finally, ten days later the fridge arrives.
With a dent.
Take it back, I say.
That was late on a Saturday and the 7 week anniversary of being without a fridge. I called the store the following Monday.
"Yes sir, you have every right to refuse the appliance," they said. "We'll order you another one. But you're going to have to wait...."
Bugger that. We were almost at Halloween.
"Bring the dented one back," I said. We'll live with it. "As long as it works.
And so eight weeks after our old fridge conked out, they brought back the replacement, and it was there to stay.
Does the saga end there?
No.
"Would you like the extended warranty?"
No, I didn't. I'd been told by a family member with a background in the Canadian appliance manufacturing industry that an appliance is an appliance - simple by design, and built to last. "It's just a money grab for the company."
"I really would recommend you take it," said Sears. "Really, they don't build these things like they used to, and if anything happens..."
Terrific. Now they're admitting that their appliances are crap. Okay, I've just been eight weeks without a fridge. And God bless them, they replaced it for me. The least I can do is protect myself, and contribute a bit of cash to the Sears coffers, by purchasing an extended warranty.
Damn good thing I did, too.
It is now July. The fridge is 8 months old, when the fan motor in the freezer starts screeching.
I could just see us, about to leave for an extended camping trip just like last year - and just like last year someone is going to call to tell us that our fridge is on the fritz.
So I called in the service guy. Took a few days to get him here. Nice fella. By the time he got here the fan was no longer screeching (it figures). He checked it over, gave it a bit of oil - it seemed fine. But we're going away in a few weeks, and I don't want to take any chances, I said. I have the extended warranty, and I want a new fan motor.
"Okay. But we have to order the part." For heaven's sake, it's a bloody fan motor. Can't they keep a few of those in the truck?
Another week went by before the service team came back. Two guys, one fan. It took them to install it. Which means, as it turns out, it took two of them to screw it up.
A few months later, when the fan started warbling again. and I called the Sears guys again, only one guy came this time and did not like what he saw.
"Who put this in here?" he asked.
Sears service, I said.
"Well, it wasn't me, that's for sure. This isn't my signature on the work order. Some dipstick put this in backwards..."
Sorry Sears, but I'm done with you.
I used to be a loyal customer. I used to like your products, which Consumer Reports claim, the last time I checked, are still good value. But when everything these days is made off-shore, with plastic parts where steel used to be, I ask...
Good value, as compared to what?
I long for the days when you could buy an appliance and it would last. When they were actually worth fixing. When they had a certain degree of heft to them. When you could buy a vacuum cleaner and have it last for more than four years, but you have to replace it because even the stress points are made of plastic. And when the plastic goes, you throw out the machine.
I'm tired of waiting weeks for an appliance to be shipped - and for parts to start going wonky after just a few months - and with parts that are installed incorrectly by someone who ought to know better.
I'm tired of calling an 800 number and talking to someone in Newfoundland, when I need my fridge fixed.
So they don't make things like they used to. Planned obsolescence. Fine. I'll accept that. But I think I'm going to alter my allegiance.
There's a local appliance shop just down the street that's been there forever. Owned and operated by the same proud family for 3 generations. They have appliances in stock. You buy it today, they deliver it tomorrow. I bought a new washer there, on a Thursday, on my way to work. Took me ten minutes. They delivered it Saturday morning. Bought our dryer there, too. Same good service.
When there's a problem - and there will be, one day - the service guy comes from the store. He isn't a sub-contractor routed through somewhere hundreds of miles from here.
Sorry Sears. I like the people behind the counter. But you've just gotten too big, too slick, too efficient, and too automated for me. You may have a better bottom line with all these economies of scale...
But you've lost the human touch. And we're humans, just as busy and frazzled as you are, just looking to keep our milk cold.
It shouldn't be this hard. And it isn't going to be, for this writer, any longer.