Our Maytag washer is on its last legs. Chris from C-Tech let us know on Friday that a part that needs replacing is no longer available and then made a minor adjustment letting us know that we might get as much as two years more use from it.
The machine was given to us as a wedding gift 50 years ago when Don Law was going out of business. It is interesting today that Jesse White—Mr. Lonely, the repairman from the old Maytag commercials) who was dubbed “the loneliest guy in town” when the campaign began in 1967—established Maytag as the one appliance company you could depend on for quality and longevity.
Our washer confirms that story. White was the star of those Maytag commercials for 20 years and made 68 commercials. The old Maytag was not fancy and did not have any of the modern conveniences of the time.
Today, looking at repair statistics, one would feel fortunate to get 10 or 11 years of service from a common household appliance. A washer to replace our old Maytag might get five or six years of use before it would find its way to the recycle factory. Old-fashioned quality in appliances was characterized by durability, the use of heavier materials like steel instead of plastic and simpler, more repairable designs that extended lifetimes. They depended on simple switches and mechanical linkages.
Many of todays appliances have changed due to safety regulations. The pilot light on a gas stove has been replaced with electronic ignition. The gas refrigerant in our fridges and freezers has been replaced with safer gas that will not harm the ozone layer. These changes have increased costs of those appliances. A much as 40% of the cost of vehicles is tied up in the electronic computers needed to operate trucks and cars. One only examines today’s fridges, and stoves to discover that, through Bluetooth and wireless communication, you can be anywhere in the world and adjust.
Those changes from mechanical to digital operations often make those repairs either more costly or impossible because electronics change so quickly. New appliances often come with new options. The self-cleaning oven came into being in 1963. Two years later Frigidaire introduced the ice cube making refrigerator. Manufacturers continue look to manufacture appliances with more conveniences.
The question posed to shoppers is often: Do you want all the extra conveniences or a simple-to-operate model?
But getting back to our washing machine, we were advised to buy the least expensive model with the fewest options. And we were advised to buy the extended warranty, because they are known to fail well before our old washer. As Lance Hussey of RKS Design (A product design and development company) advises sagely: “Simpler things have fewer issues just because they’re simpler.”
