Are all appliances, not just cheap ones, now considered disposable? Celia tells Consumerist that she paid $3,000 for her KitchenAid double oven four and a half years ago. The appliance broke down after she did something completely unreasonable during Thanksgiving: she tried to use both ovens at the same time. After a lengthy attempt to get it repaired, she learned that it wouldn’t be possible to get the oven fixed. Why? Because Whirlpool, parent company of KitchenAid, doesn’t make the part anymore.
I am having a problem with the Whirlpool Corporation and with A&E Factory Service, which is owned by Sears, and I wonder if it might be a story that is of interest to you, or a situation you could provide some assistance with.
I have a four and a half year old KitchenAid double oven. It was purchased new and cost around $3000.00. The day after Thanksgiving it quit working, for no reason other than I was using both ovens at once, something I may have never done before. I went on the KitchenAid website to find who they recommended for servicing of appliances, and called a company called A&E Factory Service. They came out on Dec. 2, 2010 and said the control board would have to be replaced. They required me to pay in advance for the part ($503) and labor ($129) before they would order it. This seems like a bad business practice, but I went ahead and paid.
A few days later a part arrived, but it was broken. A&E came and took the broken part and placed another order. A few days after that they called to tell me it was back ordered. I didn’t hear anything more from them after that. I did call to see if I could get a refund but they said they could only refund me for the part after I got the part, and that they could not refund me for the labor.
Today, January 4, 2011, I called KitchenAid, who informed me that the part is no longer being made and cannot be found. They did arrange for A&E to refund me for the part, but not for the labor. The refund is to a credit card and will take seven to 10 business days; seems kind of long. I think $129 is high for a diagnostic call, but that is not the main thing I question here. What I really wonder is how a large company such as Whirlpool can make an expensive oven and then only four years later no longer have parts available for it when it breaks.
That does seem unreasonable. Maybe the executive customer service contacts for Whirlpool that we posted here might have something to say about the situation.
Update: Celia wrote in with this information about the part, which some readers requested:
Thanks for posting it! The model number is KitchenAid KEBC247KWH05 and the part number is listed as “CONTRL-ELEC 22 664 8302305. 1027939.” I think that “1027939″ is the main descriptor. It’s the main control board. I’ve looked for it online and not been able to find the part but I am a novice at this.
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eBay!
Shouldn’t have to. It’s not like it’s a computer. The basic function and design is the same as one made forty years ago, especially if it is electric (as most wall ovens are). Maybe it’s better insulated, but that doesn’t affect the controls in any way. Even if it has an electronic thermostat, these devices are not rocket science; they only need to cycle the heater element on and off in response to temperature changes inside the oven. As such, there is no valid excuse, in my opinion, why a part for a four-year-old oven should be unavailable.
Lesson learned: buy a different brand.
You are incorrect. It is exactly like a computer. The logic boards in the KitchenAid double ovens are computer boards. It’s not an electronic timer like it was 40 years ago, it’s many different sensors that perform different tasks. Unfortunately, the way technology moves these days affects appliances as well. Appliances these days are extremely sophisticated. This stove likely has actual temperature control (as opposed to measuring heat by time heating like cheap models), convection, timer, keep warm features, etc. Sucks that Whirlpool doesn’t manufacture the part anymore. A 5-year service plan sure looks good right now…
How would a 5 year service plan help? If the part is no longer available, then it’s not available and you would be out the service plan fees.
Most service plans are ‘repair or replace’ which means if the appliance can’t be repaired, it’s replaced with an equivalent model.
uhhhhh… if they can’t repair it, they replace it…
They might be talking about installing a different kind of switch or control if the board isn’t available but the computer/logic circuts still would have to be figured in. That’s why I like the old mechanical controls. I know people who use the timers and controls on these things and the food frequently comes out undercooked. They have since started using a seperate timer and closer observation. I think the best way to cook is to get to know your oven or stove.
The manner in which it is not like a computer is not in how it is built, but in how its primary function is done. The primary function has not changed. I stand by my initial assertion.
Except that the other brand you end up buying uses control boards made by the same bozos who couldn’t keep ‘em in stock for your old oven. Or washing machine, in my case *cough*LG*cough*. Nine hundred bucks down the shitter in just two years. May as well have gone to the laundromat.
To be fair, LG did have the damn control board, but it would have cost me $450 to fix my washing machine…so it can break again in two years.
Even better, had she purchased an extended warranty on the oven when she purchased it then she’d most likely be getting a replacement.
Yep check eBay or also what on the boatrd is bad? Take it to a electricall shop. Could be a simple part that is common enough to put on another.
Yeah, these days repair people only replace boards, they don’t fix the boards themselves. Years ago, the furnace in our house went out. It was easy enough for me to diagnose that the control box was faulty. The only option provided by HVAC places and repair people was to replace the box for $400 (parts only, I can install it myself). I took the cover off and after a little poking around discovered that the problem was a bad solder joint, fixed it for free. It’s been running fine for 10 years since then.
Check other places too, all this means is that THAT repair person’s supplier doesn’t have them anymore. Go online to repairclinic.com and other sites and check there.
I buy appliance parts on eBay or repairclinic.com all the time, no problems.
She needs to push this. I actually doubt the part is not available anymore. There are a few websites that sell appliance parts that she could also look into. Even Whirlpool’s website should have an appliance part locator, although it might link to an external site.
Also, demand a refund for the labor, and do a chargeback if necessary. The agreement to pay for labor was based on the belief that the correct part existed. If they had told her, “We’d like to charge you $129 to look at your stove, but the part needed to replace it doesn’t exist” she would not have agreed.
It sounds like the $129 includes the truck roll and initial diagnostic time, so it would not qualify for a chargeback. It probably takes two minutes to swap, so they probably rolled the repair time into the mandatory minimum labor fee.
Um, no. They came to her house and replaced the board. It’s not their fault the board ordered was bad and that a new board can’t be obtained. But they are entitled to be paid for the service they rendered, especially since it doesn’t seem as though they charged her for the 1st visit.
A few days later a part arrived, but it was broken. A&E came and took the broken part and placed another order.
It doesn’t seem like they did anything – she may have not worded it correctly, but the way I’m reading that, it was obviously broken.
ANd the reason they didn’t charge at first is a tactic – they didn’t do what they promised (fix the oven) so they shouldn’t be paid for rendering that service.
Ugh, suck. My husband and I are upgrading our range, and he has pretty high-end desires when it comes to the kitchen, and this is the kind of crap I’m terrified of happening.
KitchenAid is rated as one of the worst for appliance reliability on Consumer Reports; stand mixers only for us.
Buy from a real company, not Kitchen AIDS. Wolf or AGA, AGA though expensive as HELL is the best on the market and design and function has not changed in decades, might I suggest one in Cobalt blue!!!!
I can’t think of a single reason to own an Aga. Crazy expensive and a huge waste of energy, with burners you can’t actually adjust? No, thanks. Like I said, KA is stand mixers only for us.
We’re actually probably going to buy a used Wolf from craigslist this weekend.
Also: “Kitchen AIDS,” really?
Yes Kitchen AIDS, gone to crap after they mover production out of the U.S. Aga, yes expensive but did you know you can plumb them to heat your water? Burn wood, coal, propane or natural gas? Not to mention heat your home.
Well, the AGA will be working just fine long after you’re dead, is one argument in its favor. They’re not nearly as energy inefficient as you might think, depending on how you’re firing it, though it does presume you live somewhere that heat is frequently a good thing (Texas, for example, is not a sensible place to install an AGA, to my great sorrow having grown up with them)
The non-adjustable heat is rendered largely irrelevant by the ability to adjust how much of your pot or pan is in contact with the hot element. This also presumes that you have decently thick-bottomed cookware.
At any rate, as crazy as it sounds, they’re lovely to cook with (in a hard to explain sort of way) and functionally indestructible. Long after every Wolf in the world has gone to meet its maker, there’ll be an AGAs trucking along just fine in old houses all over West BFE.
You seem to presume I didn’t spend years cooking on an Aga. I did, and as a rather proficient home cook, I absolutely hate it. Under no circumstances would I spend ten grand on an appliance that fails to meet my needs and keeps the kitchen fifteen degrees warmer than the rest of the house year round. Even if it will – and I have no doubt about that – outlive me by many decades.
Unless you live near the arctic circle and have to heat your house year-round (or actually use your oven 24/7), an AGA is a terrible energy proposition.
Holy hell that stuff’s expensive. Maytag is fine for my condo kitchen, maybe I could see that stuff if you were cooking for a small army…
Sad. Kitchen Aid used to be awesome. You can’t trust a brand name anymore.
Kitchen Aid = “Made In China” (crap)
Vivitar = Sakkar (crap)
Philips TV = Funai (not too bad, but not cutting edge anymore)
Converse = “we don’t make sneakers anymore, we just license our name to those that do make sneakers”
Yeah; KitchenAid was great when it was under Hobart instead of Whirlpool. 8/
Similarly, Cuisinart was bought out by Conair a while back, and apparently started using cheaper materials; those food processors are no longer anywhere near as good as they used to be, either.
But what do you do? I’ve been looking at a Robot Coupe or importing a MagiMix – both of which are going to set me back more than double what a higher end KA would run. Sometimes you have to evaluate price to priority.
I’ve had good luck with my Bosch range. It’s over 4 years old and I’ve never had a problem and it still looks like new.
Everyone comments on it when they come over too.
My Thermador range is doing great at 10 years old – honestly, looks like new….
Magic Chef is your friend. seriously.
actually…i stand corrected. apparently they no longer do ovens. pity, that…ours has been problem-free for 10 years.
They were bought by Whirlpool too. I believe they used to be a Maytag brand.
We have a Hotpoint that has never let us down, but my husband has some serious chef vanity going on and is embarrassed by it. I’d say that’s 75% of the reason we’re upgrading.
Unless you buy a refrigerator from them that is defective out of the box, make you bring it to a repair shop of their choosing, which turns out to be a guy working out of his house, that pretends to have a repair shop and lists hours of operation, that are wrong, because he travels all day and is never there, even though you called in advance and he tells you he will be.
So, after ripping your leather seat in your $35,000 vehicle, and lugging it home, Magic Chef tells you it’s not their problem.
**** Magic Chef in their ******* ***!
*Home Depot’s liberal ‘Return To Vendor’ policy prevented someone at MC from getting KTFO.
I love my mixer, but finding an “authorized” repair center for a badly-needed tune up that wouldn’t require an hour transit each way has proven impossible. I’ve found a great link that shows the steps for DIY greasing: http://artisanbreadbaking.com/ka_greasing. Even if I fail, it would still cost less to just replace it than the transportation and repair cost.
Fortunately my husband is handier than most and has undertaken a couple successful major repairs on his mixer, so I feel pretty confident that he can take care of anything that happens. Mine’s been problem free, fortunately.
Thanks for the Kitchen-Aid link: My wife’s mixer will be getting this tune-up!
I have a 50+ year old O’Keefe & Merritt stove – parts are still available and it cooks (and looks) beautiful.
With the chrome top it is a bitch to clean, however everyone oohs and aahs over it. The drop in salt and pepper shakers and the fold down top are real attention getters.
http://www.antiquegasstoves.com/pages/okeefe.html
http://www.antiquegasstoves.com/index.html
Find the part number and do a Google Shopping search, or call an independent repair shop
I had a similar situation on Thanksgiving. I used the warmer drawer at the same time the oven was hot and the drawer got stuck shut.
h m gd, wh spnds $. n stv? Blh blh blh, y dsrv t, yck yck yck.
No one in this story. It’s an oven.
I find no need to be accurate when blaming the OP for having money to spend on nice things.
Fair.
Your are truly a wordsmith.
Thanks! So are your!
+1 That’s most commentors who blame the OP
I personally detest the OP for being better off/poorer/classier/trampier/more money minded/ less money minded than me.
Also, it’s a double oven, so $3000 for a double wall oven is expensive, but not unusual. The Top Sellers on Home Depot’s website are around $2500 right now
Yeah, I don’t understand why drop-ins and slide-ins are usually 4-5 times more expensive than their freestanding counterparts, even for the same model type.
I guess because they don’t make as many of them, so they have to have a higher profit margin to offset fewer sales.
I asked one day at a specialty appliance store and that was the exact reason they gave. They are lower volume items so they need higher prices to offset
I’d also think selling fewer means the R&D and testing (UL, etc) become a higher percentage of the bottom line, so they probably cost more to buy wholesale, too.
Volume is the big factor in cost as mentioned.
Also design: the drop ins/slide ins have to have all the equipment supported by the inside not the exterior. These also probably have more insulation required versus an air gap as found on regular stoves/ovens.
Technically its two ovens, so its who spends $1500 on an oven?
Wow Laura… sarcasm detection fail?
Laura doesn’t disemvowel. As far as I know, only Roz can. She’s been doing it quite a bit lately, and I think she’s been trying to cut down on comments like this. Personally, I didn’t catch the sarcasm on first read, because unfortunately, there have been way too many real comments just like this. Just my $0.02.
Fair enough, maybe I should have added a /sarcasm tag on it, but I made it as obvious as possible that I wasn’t being serious and all of the comments to it knew I wasn’t being serious.
I’m just saying, take some time to look at what’s actually being said and how people are responding to it before you pull the trigger on the dreaded disemvowel machine.
You want them to be reasonable here?! lol good luck
Many people are unable to detect sarcasm of any kind.
There should be parts available somewhere… I’m not sure if a stove would be considered an “Electronic”, or if it even matters.. But for example, I know that California requires companies to have parts available for electronics for up to 7 years after manufacture..
Here is what I was thinking about:
Quoting California Civil Code, Sec. 1793.03.
——————————————————————————–
(a) Every manufacturer making an express warranty with respect to an electronic or appliance product described in subdivision (h), (i), (j), or (k) of Section 9801 of the Business and Professions Code, with a wholesale price to the retailer of not less than fifty dollars ($50) and not more than ninety-nine dollars and ninety-nine cents ($99.99), shall make available to service and repair facilities sufficient service literature and functional parts to effect the repair of a product for at least three years after the date a product model or type was manufactured, regardless of whether the three-year period exceeds the warranty period for the product.
(b) Every manufacturer making an express warranty with respect to an electronic or appliance product described in subdivision (h), (i), (j), or (k) of Section 9801 of the Business and Professions Code, with a wholesale price to the retailer of one hundred dollars ($100) or more, shall make available to service and repair facilities sufficient service literature and functional parts to effect the repair of a product for at least seven years after the date a product model or type was manufactured, regardless of whether the seven-year period exceeds the warranty period for the product.
I think this is the key! Nicely done with the statute quoted as well.
If this is on the books in California, it’s possible it’s on the books in the OPs state.
(I say ‘possible’ not ‘likely’ because Cali has a lot of shit on their books that other states don’t)
Doesn’t really matter – if they’re required to maintain parts for 7 years per one state, then it shouldn’t matter which state you’re in, they should have the parts (for 7 years). I.E., just because you live in Florida, if they have to maintain the parts inventory for 7 years, you should be able to get it from there somewhere, even if it’s from a CA warehouse.
Not necessarily.
If they discontinue a product, they may reasonably be able to predict how many of each spare part they are going to need, stockpile those, and then stop manufacturing them. The assumption would be that is they need more, they’ll either screw the customer, possibly pay a fine, or help the customer, replacing the part/appliance with a newer model. Often much cheaper than continuing to make a no-longer-used part. In that case it’s important to distinguish the customers to whom they owe 7 year support from the customers to whom they owe 5 year support.
On a side note: my grandmother used the same stove and oven from 1950 to 1996. It didn’t have fancy features, and it certainly wasn’t pretty, but it lasted.
I know there is a Federal law about part availability on cars, glad to see California has something broader.
As a libertarian I am all for smaller government, but there is the occasional consumer protection law that I agree with.
As a Libertarian you should know that the best way to ensure parts are available is through private contracts, and by purchasing goods from manufacturers who offer what you feel to be the best warranty. Then, if that contract is violated, then the state can get involved.
Requiring manufacturers to stock parts and/or replace appliances drives up costs for everyone, as there is no way to opt out of such an arrangement even if you feel it is not needed.
And failing that, there are always Second Amendment solutions.
Yes, and doing it your way is working out so well l for the OP.
Every state except California, the rule is 5 years. BTW, the manufacturers always have (and usually do) replace the entire unit if they can’t meet these requirements.
Holy moly, that picture could be from my kitchen.
This sucks, and I agree with the other suggestions to keep pushing and look for alternatives. 4 yrs is way short for an oven to live!
Aren’t there laws requring manufacturers to maintain service inventory for some number of years after a product is last manufactured?
Automobile manufacturers have laws to have parts for repair 10 years. I .know since I worked at a parts manufacturer /supplier and we had old tooling/dies laying around along with old stock. We were happy when some of the legacy parts aged out and we sent the tooling back to the car company.
The cost, though, is the problem as the cars age unless the aftermarket steps in. Therefore, stay with middle of the road ,high production volume models and you will have parts and aftermarket support for years past the 10 year minimum.
2001 to 2006 Hyundai Elantra- yes, Pontiac Aztek 2001 to 2005- no.
See my post above.
I have a Kitchen Aid Range/Oven, it’s only 6 years old, and the control panel went last year. It was a $1000 Stove, and the part cost $300. At the same time I bought the Stove, I bought a Kitchen Aid Dishwasher. Motor burned out after 2 years (under warranty, I just had to pay $150 labor), but last year, the whole thing burned smoke.
What these 2 appliances had in common, besides both being Kitchen Aid, is that they were purchased at BrandsMart. A TV I bought at BrandsMart stopped working after 3 years. I think they have good prices because they buy all the close-outs from the manufacturers, who stop making particular appliances because of potential future unreliability.
To the powers that be @ Consumerist –
It would really help in cases like this if you included in the posting: the make and model number of the oven and the part number for the board. That would really help the collective hive out here to possibly solve her problem.
She didn’t include that information. I’ve asked for it.
Love the new icon
Perhaps make that a standard request of the submitter before posting their problem?
Please do; I know where to find a militant band of ‘Repair, Not Replace’ fanatics.
iFixIt.com
I’m positive someone out there can fix the control board, for probably less than the cost of the part.
Maybe not. When my oven died, it was because the control board blew something. Mr Appliance (mrappliance.com) and I looked at it, and the explosion point, burn marks, etc were all there.
Too late for the OP unfortunately, but I asked him what brands were his favorite to fix since I’m in the market for some new ones, and he did say that certain companies were consumer- and repair-unfriendly, such as not having parts as in OP’s case, or in not making schematics available, making it harder to help him help me.
I don’t work for Mr Appliance, but I had a good experience with them in the SF Bay Area, and I did pay him on his first visit, after he diagnosed the problem, and he ordered me a new board pretty much on the spot. It cost about $360 for the control board and his labor.
That’s crazy, in my last house we had a stove/oven that was over 50 years old and I was able to find parts for it twice. They just don’t make em like they used to I guess.
The issue is electronics. The 1970′s brown gas stove I replaced two years ago had nothing wrong with it other than being hideous. A gas stove is basically a few valves to control the gas flow the ignitors to light the burners and some regulators. Most of the parts would have a hard time failing.
New stoves, fridges, washer dryers, and ovens by comparison have circuit boards with lowest-bidder parts soldered onto them. They have all kinds of neat options that most people will never use. With those options have come an enormous downside of circuit board failure. This generation of applicances is simply not going to last ten or twenty years. Let alone 40.
Agreed. I refuse to put in fancy expensive appliances with a bunch of electronics that just break and cost a fortune to repair. (I have the same policy with vehicles.) Especially washers and dryers–I don’t know who the suckers are who buy $2,000 washers with digital keyboards and all that crap. I’m no technician but even I know that electronics don’t generally mix well with the heat & moisture inherent in a laundry device.
I had a seasoned appliance repairman come to fix my dishwasher and he admired my 25 year old Jenn-Air cooktop and similar-vintage wall oven; he said never to replace them because they are so much better designed and constructed than modern made-in-China plastic junk. He commented that all the electronic doo-dads constantly conk out (“keeps me in business,” I believe was his phrase) and that the manufacturers these days are putting bells and whistles over quality.
Not to blame the OP or anything–her experience was unacceptable, certainly–but I did notice that it said it was the first time she’d used the double-oven function in 4 1/2 years of ownership. Sounds like a stupid purchase to me (kind of like the PITA security system my husband insisted on that we haven’t once actually armed). Want vs. need, people (including myself)!
Was $129 the labor total for the whole thing? I would contest on the grounds that you agreed to that price to fix the oven, not just for diagnostics. $89 would be reasonable.
And I would tell them 7-10 days is too long. If it’s to a credit card they need to do it now or you will dispute the charge.
I would just do a chargeback on that labor fee. She paid for them to fix it. They came out and did the work and charged her for it. She was perfectly happy to pay them their fee, but they didn’t fix it and they cannot fix it. Therefore they should not be entitled to keep it.
We had this same issue with our washer when we moved into our new house. The poor electrical connections kept shorting out the board. Certainly this may not be the same issue here but possibly worth looking into to ensure its connected up with proper juice to power both ovens at once (which may have caused the issue).
Otherwise, try calling around to local appliance parts shops which may have a similar model they can take apart and get the part. Or they may have one on the shelf still available. Best of luck.
A&E service is horrible, I would never let them even touch my appliance.
You might want to check with other service companies out there, many stores have their own service people (Best Buy, etc.) that might be able to get your part through other means or their own warehouses. There are also some great appliance part websites out there. RepairClinic.com has always been good to me.
A 4-5 year old Kitchenaid Wall Oven may be a 7 year old model, as they typically kept the same models going for a couple of years. With the newer controls and electronic boards coming in, I could definitely see how they wouldn’t stock some of the older stuff for more than a few years. Especially if the Kitchenaid model didn’t share many parts with the Whirlpool equivalent.
In the future, don’t buy expensive high end stuff. I opt for the cheaper mass produced stuff that the manufacturer will sell a lot of. The reason is that they will engineer it to be less expensive and when it breaks, you toss it out and buy a new one and move on. I’m not advocating a throwaway society, but all stuff is manufactured this way. So at least buy something that is cheap to replace. I’ve also noted that some of the cheaper stuff (with high volume manufacturing runs) seems to last longer than the more expensive lower volume runs of equipment.
Most Kitchenaid product these days share 90% of their parts with either a Whirlpool, Maytag, Amana, Kenmore or Jenn-air product. When this unit was built, it was either a model specifically for Kitchenaid, or shared with Whirlpool. But definitely buying something that is expected to sell with a greater volume makes sense. It’s far cheaper to fix a Ford than a Jaguar.
And that’s why when I worked in a repair shop, we bought Jag replacement parts from the Ford/Lincoln dealer. The X/S-types share a large number of parts with Tauruses (Taurii?) and Lincoln Continentals.
X-Types shared parts with the Ford Contour and Mercury Mystique. The S-Type shared parts with the Lincoln LS.
The X-Type was available with a 2.5L or 3.0L V6, the same engines available in the Contour and Taurus respectively. The 3.0L from the Taurus was also used as the base engine in the S-Type.
Had the same problem with a similar Double Oven. Go Here http://www.repairclinic.com/Kitchenaid-Range-Stove-Oven-Circuit-Board-Or-Timer-Parts
To get an exact replacement you need the S/N and Model Number.
On ours an error code appeared and we had to replace the board. The first board I ordered arrived broken so I reordered from the above site it worked! If you are skilled you can replace it yourselves! As the replacement boards are newer in design some connetions may move slightly it is best to take pictures so you can rewire properly. Mine had 10-12 wires attached to the board, luckley I found the wireing diagram with color codes and then it was easy!
@idx – I have older Kenmore/Kitchenaid appliances, too, and although they’re “going and going and going and going”, I hope I never have to get them fixed. Agreed, they just don’t make ‘em like they used to.
Planned Obsolescense?
I wouldn’t give up just yet. First just like when dealing with doctors always get a second opinion. Second and sometimes related that neither the service technician or the manufacturer rep know their stuff because they simply don’t have experience with the product, problem or part.
And when it comes to appliances the same core parts are used in numerous models by different manufacturers. This still seems kind of low even for planned obsolesence.
I would pull the part number off the owners manual and search it and see what happens.
GOOD LUCK!
Just a theory: Whirlpool likely doesn’t make this part. The manufacturer of said part discontinued it. If the model oven was not very popular, then stores would not have kept many of the parts around. If the parts are prone to failure after a few years, then those small stores would have been depleted quickly.
Again, this is pure speculation on my part, but it’s certainly plausible.
My thinking too. High end unit equals less produced/purchased. Unless the boards/ innards were used in other common units that can be cross referenced, the poster is probably out of luck.
But don’t most manufacturers use many of the same basic parts wether it’s an engine in a car or a circut/board of appliance controls? How unique can a control board: theoretically their just replacing knobs and buttons. And that’s another thing. Even on a gas appliance now a days you need electricity just to fire up the flame/pilot on them.
I still think there’d be value in getting the part number and checking with some parts distributors. The distributor my old company worked with had their own warehouses, so they actually stocked the parts, and we just ordered one when we needed it. Someone half way across the country might have her board, just the repair folks won’t bother looking for it.
Whirlpool bought out Maytag who produced the KitchenAid line. This was about 5 year ago, thus, if this model is in fact manufactured only four years ago, it is whirlpools. Even if it was designed/made before the buyout, this is still Whirlpool’s responsibility.
My heart goes out to her — that’s an expensive way to learn Whirlpool sucks.
Years ago, I bought a couple of apartment houses which had outdated appliances. Several times, when there was a model closeout, I’d buy up to a dozen units to replace the existing ones before they failed. It didn’t take me long to learn that Whirlpool appliances had a higher failure rate and more troubles get repairs than the odd brands which were 15-20 years old.
I guess everyone’s experiences are different. I wouldn’t put anything other than Whirlpool in my house. I love them and have never had a problem with any Whirlpool appliance I have bought.
I also have a high end (cost over $2500) kenmore gas/convection range, and i’m on my FOURTH controller…..the tech that comes to my house said it’s been recalled….it first gave up (was losing time) 6 months after I bought it (it’s 2 years old now) then the numbers started going away (14 months), then last month, I noticed that between 4 and 7, the lights for the convection were showing…he replaced it yet again and the one he replaced it with did the same thing (and then he drop kicked it across the street!). He had to order another one and left me that, in the meantime, I tried to clean the oven and it locked up and I had to wrestle with plugging/unplugging, etc to get it unlocked and then it would no longer bake (kept shutting off), he came back on the 22nd (therefore I couldn’t really bake for the holidays!) and put in version D (as in FOURTH) version of the computer/display….and already (less than 2 weeks later) it seems to be losing time again!!! so annoyed, under warranty for another year, but since I know it has been recalled, if I were you, I would complain about having to pay!
Meanwhile my clunky old cheap Roper is still going strong after 5 years. Granted, I use it only a few times a week at most, but it hasn’t given me any trouble. Weird.
Now I’m paranoid that it’s going to break soon.
I think it’s odd to even THINK that a large appliance would have trouble after only 5 years. IMO if they need anything but minor repair in less than 15 to 20 years, they were crap to start with.
I’m really nervous about electronics in large appliances. I think the manufacturers of them are going through what car makers did in the 80s: they don’t know how to make truly durable electronics. These days you just don’t see car computers dying like flies, as they did back in the 80s. They still die occasionally but it used to be common for them to die a LOT.
Roper is also made by Whirlpool, and honestly shares probably 90-95% of its internals with the KitchenAid models. The markup Whirlpool puts on the KitchenAid line is staggering – well over 100% for most things, when they are barely different from one of their myriad of cheaper brands (Roper, Amana, Maytag, Jenn-Air, Whirlpool, Kenmore, Admiral, etc, etc).
Sears will almost certainly still sell the part. I did a few months working in their parts and service call center and they had parts for 50-75 year old appliances. The shipping will be ridiculously overpriced, but they’ll get it to you.
Maybe. Thing is, 20+ years ago, manufacturers would design a part and use the same one, or perhaps improved but compatible ones, for 30 years. They did this largely because switching to new components was a huge pain in the butt, they kept large inventories of parts, they tended to use the same parts in multiple models as much as possible to reduce inventory overhead.
These days everyone uses Just-In-Time inventory, so there’s no overhead involved in using a different part in different models, and with computer aided manufacturing it’s much easier to change tooling to build to a new part, so every time a new model comes out, it may very well not use any parts common to previous models.
If a single company is using 437 different door switches, it’s less likely that a parts company will stock 1000 of each. On rare, expensive appliances they may not stock any. By contrast, if that company uses 4 different switches, they’ll probably have a ton of them in stock.
Searspartsdirect.com has it. Part number is 8302305
We had this happen with a 3 year old, over the range microwave. It brokedown and a replacement part was not available. It was $500.00+ to replace and I thought that was a big deal. A $3000 disposable appliance is absurd.
Appliances shouldn’t be disposable, and no one buys them thinking they are. When manufacturers can charge $1,000 for a stove, who buys it thinking it will be easy to just replace if it stops working? For the amount of money manufacturers charge, they should provide quality support when things do stop working, not expect people to pay for a brand new unit every time.
My parents have the same problem with their refridgerator, on of the door shelves broke, they came and fixed it about 5 times, it kept breaking, eventually they said they just stopped making the part (which I think is Customer Service for “F— Off Already”.). They stopped making the plastic shelf.
So right now my parents have a fridge with an almost entirely empty door.
I have a old kenmore fridge from the 80′s, still works today as good as new. the only repairs I ever had to do on it was replace the fan motor in the back and the door gaskets.
the freezer can do below 0F and the fridge can do around 28F (enough to freeze things also)
It is very quiet and cools faster than many of the new fridges. (the shelves were made of steel or some other strong metal and thick tempered glass
A few years ago, my parents purchased another kenmore fridge to put in the basement for extra storage.
after about 8 months, the shelves had little cracks in the plastic on the corners. the door shelves broke and last year (after about 4 years of ownership) the cooling fan broke and the compressor died
For the old kenmore fridge, when the cooling fan broke, we took 2 years to replace it (kept procrastinating because the sears repair shop which sold replacement parts was so far away) (the compressor went 2 years without a cooling fan, the fridge still worked fine, it just came on for longer stretches since it didn’t cool as well, it has been about 6 years since we replaced the cooling fan, and the fridge cools better than many new fridges. it is very solid and heavy.
not only have appliances gotten more failure prone parts, they also gotten much cheaper parts in them, all while having many unreasonable price hikes.
Ever since KitchenAid was bought by Whirlpool the products are not the same. My Grandmother had an old KitchenAid dishwasher when they were still made by Hobart at it ran for many, many years.
Couple of things:
First: in the USA, companies of a certain size are REQUIRED to keep parts inventory for ten years, so you’ve been misinformed.
Second: A&E Factory Service is incredibly inept. Read this for a painfully detailed description of my experience with them, which has become pretty high-ranking for searches on the topic of their customer service: http://answerguy.com/2010/10/13/customer-service-why-bother-lie/
Don’t give up. You can get that thing fixed . . .
Jeff Yablon
President & CEO
Answer Guy and Virtual VIP Computer Support, Business Change Coaching and SEO Consulting/Search Engine Optimization Services
The lesson here is, if you buy a $3000 double oven you might want to make sure the whole thing works before four years go by.
If the OP is a reader here, go ahead and post the model # of the stove and the part # of the control board – I’d bet we have some enterprising readers that would be able to help you in locating that part.
Ironically I’ve been shopping a new oven to replace our gas oven with DIAL controls. You can only find touch controls, not button but touch controls only. I was always told the touch type screen buttons have a higher failure rate than old mechanical dials and buttons-planned obsolesence at it’s finest.
I concurr.
I’ll trade you. My oven has a dial control. In fact, one of the only reasons I wish I were buying instead or renting is because I wish so hard I could replace this oven with something that isn’t a piece of crap.
“The day after Thanksgiving it quit working, for no reason other than I was using both ovens at once, something I may have never done before.”
What’s the basis for concluding that this was WHY the oven stopped working? There doesn’t seem to be any, as far as I can tell.
Basis for speculating, not concluding, that the problem was caused by heating both ovens at once was that nothing else was different than normal. There were no power surges that day that I was aware of, no power outage, no blown fuse, and no other appliances presented any problems. I usually only use one oven at a time so heating both at the same time was unusual. Basic troublehsooting: look for what was different or out of the ordinary.
“A&E Factory Service” = SEARS
There’s your actual problem. Call a competent repair service.
Check around for local parts suppliers. In many cases there will be a few left that have hoarded old parts as competitors have gone out of business.
Kind of makes you long for a restaurant range that has zero electronics. I cringe every time I see electronic displays on major appliances because you know damn well those are going to die down the road and there won’t be a part for it.
I’ve bought scratch and dent ovens for less than the OP’s service call… (Gosh I’m cheap!)
Yeah, my whole five year old GE stove cost less than Celia’s service call. It was a fairly high end model too, recommended by Consumer Reports. It was that cheap because it has a scratch on the side that we can’t see when it’s installed in the kitchen. It has always worked perfectly, as you’d expect with a five year old appliance.
But, oh noes, it’s white. If we ever wanted to sell the house, I’m sure somebody would have to gut the whole kitchen because our appliances aren’t stainless steel fingerprint magnets.
You can reface some of the appliances ( refrig, dish washer, non-window stoves) with stainless look plastic (contact) paper and paint the rest silver. They’ll never know…
I’d escalate with the manufacturer, but also check with independent repair shops and parts suppliers. In my old home town, we had a brick & mortar store dedicated to parts for every appliance under the sun, going back many decades. They were awesome.
I’ve had solid runs with GE products.
I worked at an appliance repair shop in college. When I left in 2005, I had never heard of a scenario like this. We found parts for pieces older than this. Now alot of the time, it wasn’t $3k new so we’d advise them the repair was expensive and they might just want to get another one,
They generally are crap nowadays though. A co-worker of mine just had a three year old Frigidaire fridge have a sealed system issue. They used to have 5-10 year part warranties on those components, but that has gone the way of the dodo. One big year now on the parts we used to advise people not to bother with if they were out of warranty.
This sounds like my Whirlpool washing machine. I paid quite a bit of money for it figuring it would last or be repairable at least. 3 computers boards later (in less than 5 years), I was told they didn’t make them anymore. I tried doing a websearch for the part and was unsuccessful.
The great think is that it would fill up with water and just quit working. So I’d have to manually pump the water out and then try to wring out my clothes enough to put them in the dryer.
A&E Factory Service…that is the problem.
Contact a local independent repair company.
I had a dishwasher (Whirlpool) that started to leak. After doing a little investigating on my own and replacing a few parts on my own, I determined that the bottom of the dishwasher tub was warped and was no longer making a good seal and causing a leak. Whirlpool sent out a technician to assess the situation, and long story short 5 A&E Technicians later and $900 in parts (under warranty) to repair a $1000 dishwasher I was left with a dishwasher that was still leaking and was damaged beyond repair being held together with duct tape. After contacting Whirpool executive customer service I was able to get a new dishwasher.
Do not, ever, ever, ever, under any circumstances buy any KitchenAid range. Expensive garbage, the features sound great until you try to use them and the thing breaks (self clean = self ownage) and that’s relatively good because then at least there’s a “reason” the thing broke as opposed to the delightful spontaneous failures. Personal experience = 2.5 years/5 incidents/7 visits from repair guys. Many, many exiting stories about these boat anchors on the internets, it ain’t just me.
As a manufacturer of populated circuit boards, repair is likely not an option for this board. When a large manufacturer like this tells you that the circuit board is no longer available, they mean it is no longer available. They bend over backwards to try to make these parts available if at all possible. We were recently working with a large, well-known manufacturer trying to help them make some new control boards for one of their higher end clothes dryers that just went out of production last year. There were a couple of parts on that board that were not being manufactured any longer and there were no replacements that would drop in. The entire board would have had to be redesigned which entails various CE and UL complications and loads of various costs and fees. They determined that it would be cheaper for them in the long run to just replace the entire dryer unit with a new model. We try to preach to these manufacturers to keep a stock of rare or unique parts just in case, but they never learn.
When I sold my last house, I replaced a 31 year old range with everything working (including clock and timer) just because people thought the kitchen was dated and would need replacement. New/painted appliances helped with the sale. It pained me to make the purchase knowing the old one could go on for decades but the electronics in the new would eventually fail.
Celia, check your manual! The one that came with my 2.5 year old KA range has a warranty on the brain/control board for either 5 or 10 years (don’t have it in front of me), replaced free of charge if it fails (don’t know about labor). If yours has same, they may be in quite a little bind if they can’t replace the part…worth a shot.
Zibby, thanks!! I did check the manual and there is a five year warranty on the “solid state touch control system parts.” I plan to call KitchenAid again tomorrow and inform them of this.
Depending on how the oven is reacting, it may be a fix somewhat easier than replacing the entire control board.
Pretty much all electronic consumer appliances these days use relays to turn things on and off, magnetrons, gas solenoids, etc. These are made of the absolute cheapest materials and are sourced from up to dozens of manufacturers by the OEM of circuit board. In a former life, relays and bad VFD displays were common faults.
If the control board is sane, that is, not flashing and beeping randomly and will accept commands, set it to do something (like bake) and listen for a relay to click when the device should be turning on – if it does, chances are the relay is bad (cheap ones tend to spark and burn the contacts away,) the circuit track connecting the relay is bad, the wiring harness is bad or the device performing the action (valve, etc) is shot. Sometimes solder joints are broken, especially if the manufacturer didn’t wave them properly. You can kludge a relay in if you know how to solder and are comfortable working around 120/240VAC. Just be sure to pick one that’s rated for a lot of current.
An insane control board (flashing, beeping randomly) was almost always severe contamination (food, grease, water, roaches, mice or lizards dead on the board,) or a batty CPU. No display or commands almost always power supply, CPU clock (dead or bad solder,) or CPU itself.
Brought to you by my past life as a big-name appliance factory board tech.
How dare you suggest somebody actually fix something rather than replace it? Great, now these companies will have to give their techs training on basic circut repair, even how to identify individual components on circut board like a resistor, relay, diode, switch etc. Now you’ve done it, they’ll actually have to pay for this knowledge as well. omg. Or they could hire or outsource to techs that do just that.
We also bought a high end range. But, it was italian, and has minimal electric parts. The only thing electricity is required to do is ignite the burners. If that part breaks, it’s easily replaced with an equivalent (not necessarily identical) spark unit. Even without that, you could just use a lighter or match! Oh, there are also two fans for the oven, but it would still work without them. The front knobs would get hotter when the oven was on though.
http://www.bertazzoni-italia.com/freestanding/professional-series/ranges/36-6-burner-gas-range
Oh, in my world this would not stand.
1. The President of Sears Holdings would have a letter or e-mail in his hands by now.
2. The BBB would have a written complaint as would Consumer Protection in my state.
3. The President of Whirlpool Corporation and A&E would also have letters.
4. A chargeback would already be started on the labor part of the credit card charge they refused.
I have used all or some of the four items above with a number of companies who tried to pull something. Each and every time one of them (or two) gets me exactly what I want when they realize I will keep escalating until they do right.
Moral of the story: Don’t blow money on appliances so expensive, you are “married” to them. It is a little-known fact that:
1) “Commercial Looking” appliances sold to consumers usually aren’t any better. They slap thicker steel on the thing, attach fancy and trouble-prone controls to it, and charge a fortune. A bazillion dollar stove cooks no better than one well under a grand, and a really expensive fridge cools no better than a basic $600 one.
2) Actual commercial appliances aren’t any more reliable in household use than a residential appliance. Commercial appliances are designed to withstand the rigors of gigantic pots getting violently slammed on them all day, used on High Heat for hours on end, and scrubbed down with a Scotch-Brite and Comet every single evening. These are things that no consumer does. The things a consumer is likely to break, like the igniter, controls, etc. really aren’t any better on a commercial unit, or the commercial stuff expects things like frequent cleaning that a residential unit isn’t going to receive.
I bought a house with a wall oven in it. Wall ovens are incredibly expensive, no matter which brand you get. I found that out when the one that was there tried to set the house on fire and melted a hole through the side.
I blame the housing bubble/flip/home remodel shows all which emphasize resale value for the house-but not the PRACTICAL or reliability of those new ” modern ” appliances.
Simple law of averages, the more can go wrong the more that will go wrong. So instead of figuring things out yourself you now have a button to do it: an electronic button that will fail alot faster than a dial or a mechanical button from the 50s & 60s.
I made commercial refrigerators. They are designed to be opened every minute while keeping the food chilled even though the convection fans force the chilled air out of the unit every time the door opens, they have less insulation than residential units, they use convection fanS (so an empty cooler can be loaded with room temp product and cool it quickly) and often they have horribly inefficient glass doors. A commercial unit may have a half hp compressor while a equal size residential unit will have 1/6 hp. As a consequence, THEY ARE ENERGY HOGS.
When I was talking about the fridges, I was referring to consumers who buy commerical refrigerators. For a consumer, the commercial models cool no better since they do not, in fact, open the door every minute for hours on end.