Brand spokespeople need to be refreshed every so often: just ask fictional home economist/secret Time Lord Betty Crocker. You might remember the Maytag Repairman, star of ads with a memorable premise: Maytag appliances were so reliable that the company’s repairman needed to find other ways to spend his hours. [More]
maytag
Home Depot Sells Woman Imaginary Refrigerator
By 7.31.13 — Updated: 6.26.14
When you hand over $1,400 for a new refrigerator, you sort of expect to get a new refrigerator. Home Depot sold a California woman a fridge in early June, promising delivery in early July. Only the specific appliance that they had sold her wasn’t sitting in a warehouse somewhere, waiting for delivery. It hadn’t even been manufactured yet. Oh. [More]
My KitchenAid Oven’s Self-Cleaning Cycle Is A Self-Destruct Sequence
By 5.21.13
Harry bought a KitchenAid oven back in 2006, but he doesn’t use his oven very much. He was deployed in the military, and hasn’t even been home for much of the time that he’s owned the appliance. Cleaning his house in preparation for his upcoming wedding, he tried out the oven’s self-cleaning feature for the first time. This turned out to be a bad idea. [More]
Maytag Has A Weird Concept Of ‘Soon’
By 1.10.13
How do you define “soon” in terms of a one-year warranty? Howard doesn’t have an exact timeframe in mind, but he imagines that it’s not “more than nine months from now.” Yet when Maytag sent him a letter urging him to extend his appliance warranties, that’s how much time he had left. [More]
Maytag Repair Bumbling Leaves Us Without Fridge For Five Weeks
By 1.8.13
Kristine’s family has managed for a month without a refrigerator. Sure, if you’re a single person who subsists on takeout, that’s not so hard. Try being a family with small children and eating out of an ice chest for more than a month…starting just after Thanksgiving [More]
Figure Out Which Model This Maytag Oven Is
By 8.11.11
Timothy, as he describes it, is in a pickle. His Maytag oven started flashing “F5” and turning itself off whenever he turned it on. When the Maytag guy came over, he couldn’t figure out which model number it was and so he couldn’t repair it. “He asked for $130 for this useful piece of service, which I refused,” writes Timothy. Can you, dear Consumerist reader, identify which model this Maytag oven is? UPDATE: 13 minutes later, one reader thinks she has the answer. [More]
Man Gets Freezer Burned On Defective Maytag Fridge
By 6.9.11
Frank has had to use up five days of timeoff because of his leaky new Maytag fridge that they just can’t seem to ever repair correctly. Like when he told them to bring out the UV light since the last tech had installed a dye so you could find leaks. The rep said oh yeah, we’ll make a note of that. Then the guy shows up with only a mulitimeter and says, hm, we’re going to have to send another guy out here with more tools. No kidding! [More]
Maytag Dishwasher Possessed By Devil
By 11.18.10
Katie’s Maytag dishwasher barfs water all over the place and has had multiple parts fail. Recently the company issued a recall for her model offering a repair or $200 credit but unfortunately her serial number wasn’t included in the list. Where’s that old Maytag guy when you need him? Oh right, forced into early retirement and replaced with an outsourced vendor. [More]
1.7 Million Maytag Dishwashers Are Waiting To Burn Down Your House
By 6.3.10
Do you have a Maytag, Amana, Jenn-Air, Admiral, Magic Chef, Performa by Maytag or Crosley dishwasher? If you do, you’re going to want to make sure your kitchen isn’t on fire. If you have a dishwasher from one of these brands that was sold between February 2006 and April 2010 for between $250 and $900 at various appliance, department and home stores — check to make sure it has not been recalled. If it has, you’ll need to shut off the circuit breaker that powers it. [More]
Twitter Complaint Makes Maytag Step Up, Fix Problem Washer
By 4.14.10
Matt tells Consumerist that he was disappointed in his Maytag washing machine, which had required two service visits in as many years. Maytag’s social media team, monitoring the Internets for unhappy customers, saw his frustrated tweet about the washing machine, and reached out to him to set things right. [More]
Maytag Has Given Me 3 Weeks Of Dirty Clothing
By 12.21.09
Nick bought a Maytag washer, but it’s the ever-broken, un-repaired appliance that’s come to own him. He says he’s gone back and forth with the company and has been promised replacement parts and cash back to defray the cost of doing laundry, but has instead been put through the spin cycle. [More]
Maytag Recalls Potentially Fire-starting Fridges
By 8.27.09
The Maytag Repairman may not get much work, but his colleague over in recalls is keeping plenty busy these days, because the company is recalling 46,000 fridges due to an electrical failure that may start fires.
Maytag Refers You To Sears Repair, Then Claims Sears Repair Isn't Authorized
By 6.4.09
Consumer affairs columnist (and my former colleague) Dan Higgins stumbled upon a well-guarded secret—the real reason the Maytag repairman has nothing to do. It isn’t because the appliances are so reliable. No, apparently it’s because Maytag dispatches Sears repairmen to make warranty repairs, then refuses to reimburse customers because Sears isn’t an authorized repair provider. At least that’s what happened to this nice elderly lady.
Front Loading Washers Have A Love Affair With Mold
By 8.28.08
Consumer Reports says that despite the fact that front-loading washers are more efficient than traditional top-loading washers, they do have one major drawback. Mold. And the problem is severe enough that there have been several class action lawsuits filed against LG, Whirlpool, and Sears, whose Kenmore front-loaders are made by Whirlpool.
Best Buy De-Hoses Washers To Save Money?
By 8.20.08
An alleged Best Buy employee tells us that the company has stopped including inlet water hoses in some Inglis, Whirlpool and Maytag top-loading washers it sells. According to the blurry photos he sent us, employees are now supposed to push this $27 accessory hose product on customers who buy the washers. Update: we don’t know if the decision originated with the manufacturers or Best Buy.
EECB Results In $6000 Credit From Maytag For Defective Jade Refrigerator
By 5.8.08
If you plunk down six grand for a refrigerator like the Jade Model #RJRS4870D, you expect it work. And if it doesn’t, you expect the three-year warranty on it to cover things like the refrigerator leaking all over the floor, extra ice building up, and exuding the smell of burning rubber. Ron and his parents certainly thought so, but Maytag wanted them to pay for the installation of a new part to fix the problem, even though Maytag admitted it was a known issue with this refrigerator. Read his blog post about how he was able to use an executive email carpet bomb to persuade Maytag to doing the right thing. The end result was more than Ron asked or even hoped for: $6,000 credit towards any fridge they carry from either JennAir or Whirpool, installation included. My favorite line is when he tells them, “If the Whirlpool conglomerate cannot handle all of its customers in a timely matter maybe they should stop acquiring other brands and focus on the ones that they already have.”
How Can I Get Maytag To Listen To Me?
By 7.17.07
I never thought i’d be writing in to you, but here goes (this starts out like the letter i wrote to Penthouse…).
