Today, I am making my world famous GOYA refried beans.

As I noted, a stick (immersion) blender is essential for the recipe.

My Hamilton Beach stick blender bit the dust, deader'n Julius Caesar.

OK, time to improvise. I can't find the base of my blender blender, can't remember the last time I saw it, so I pulled out the hand mixer. Shit, even with a deep mixing bowl, beans everywhere, and it did an incomplete job. That's no surprise.

I got to thinking- how many times have I used this stick blender? Not much. I estimate perhaps 36 times. How long did I run it each of those times? Not long. Let's say, 2.5 minutes, and that's being generous in the estimate.

Ninety minutes or less runtime to destruction, and it's not as if I ran it an hour and a half all in one session; a couple of minutes at a time.

I see I can buy a similar stick blender off of Amazon for fifteen or sixteen bucks, that might last me another hour and a half total work time, but...

I guess I can buy a really good stick blender from a restaurant supply house. I've seen some that look like mall outboard motors.

Is it really that hard to create a motor for one of these gadgets that doesn't go tits-up so quickly?

I've got a twenty-five year old refrigerator that still runs fine, but I dread the thought of having to replace it with the disposable BIC lighter-equivalent being made these days.

My beans is supposed to be smooooooth, baby, get me? The wife don't like lumpy beans with chunks of onion in 'em. World-class frijoles, dammit!! That's what I make!

My wife makes refried beans routinely, and if your not opposed to a different method, hers in the nutri-bullet blender are very smooth and it gets good reviews for being well made.

Ours we bought used and it sits on the counter getting used every day.

As to the post, guess they figured out making something to last isn't a good business model. Probably some select failure point too. Either the motor or a bearing on most small appliances.

My one-year-old (almost) Hamilton Beach K-cup brewer has been making deep gurgling sounds the past week. Never did it before...

My GE Cafe dishwasher is just about 18 months old and already seems to be giving us issues. There's a tube inside that I guess a heatshield came off and the heater element burned right through it. Now I'm seeing what looks like peeling silicone caulk inside at seams along the stainless steel tub all over the inside.

This is like a $1,000+ dishwasher and it seems like they built the damn thing to last 3 years.

April 2020 we bought new Whirlpool appliances. Double oven. cooktop, range hood and 28 cu ft refrig. I'm loyal to Whirlpool and to my seller going back 40 years. Took a call back on the oven almost immediately and it was repaired under warranty.

Refrig has icemaker built into the door, saves space in the freezer and that seemed to be a good thing. Bad news is the ice maker inline water heater crapped out or else a wire shorted out. Only way to tell is to take the door off and rewire, if that doesn't work we must buy a new freezer door approx $1000. I knew that wasn't going to happen so did not get a firm price. YouTube is full of complainers with same problem yet WP continues to sell them and will not give any dealer assistance w/out extended warranty. Dishonest and borderline theft in my opinion.

Our dishwasher wasn’t new when we bought our house in 2005. After several years, say about 2012, the missus voiced a desire for a new, fancier model. I told her that smarter folks than I at a forum I belonged to suggested not giving up an older appliance that worked fine just to have something newer. Here it is, 2024, and that dishwasher is still chugging along doing a fine job washing dishes.

Guess which forum?

When I took machine design classes in engineering school it’s a topic that was raised. From a cost standpoint there are some components that are not designed to fail but rather designed to wear out faster than others by the selection of specific materials.

Is it possible to design something that won’t wear out? Theoretically yes, but they would be very expensive to manufacture and once you buy it, the company has lost a potential revenue stream.

You can over-engineer just about everything but the practical decisions of cost and market kick in.

I had my Samsung TV delivered Feb 2, 2023.

Yesterday, when the tv is turned on, it can't connect to the wifi. The temporary fix is to unplug it, let it sit for a minute, then turn it back on. But I have to do it each time after I turn it off.

Called Samsung help. Rep talked me through resetting the tv. Talked me through updating the firmware via a USB stick. Nothing.

Called again. They have to send out a technician. This TV comes with a 1 year warranty. Good thing the TV came with a three year service plan from Costco.

My 42 year old GE dishwasher just died. Same age GE fridge still going strong. I'll have to do some research for a DW replacement

quote:

Originally posted by Hamden106:
My 42 year old GE dishwasher just died. Same age GE fridge still going strong. I'll have to do some research for a DW replacement

I can't recommend another GE

Everyone here has read my dislike for Chinese products with anecdotal evidence and 27 8x10 color glossy photographs with circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one explaining what each one is to be used as evidence against them. So I’ll be brief. Every time I buy chinesium I regret it because they are only interested in the point of sale. Once you give them your money, they don’t care if it lasts 5minutes or pieces fall off and choke your toddler.

Parabellum’s stick mixer was likely chinesium. Mrs DF and have sworn chinesium off where there’s another option. Parenthetically if any of you wish to make authentic Mexican refried beans, you’ve got to toss at least one tiny pebble into the mix. When someone crunches it you’ll know you’re eating real Mexican refried beans

Getcha a Robot-Coupe! Saw this brand food processor on a cooking show and thought "hmmm, that looks robust". A quick peak showed that it is indeed robust in both build and price. Interestingly, a few weeks later drove by a building here where they actually are based right here in Ridgeland, MS. Who the heck knew? Now if only they had an outlet store...

Robot-Coupe all sorts of stuff!

Admittedly they have smaller models, but the MP 450 looks about right.... for a smooth $1,400.

Nothing better than Mexican dental work in Nogales

completely understand this, happened to me as well. but I found my blender and finished. next day I got a waring pro stick blender from the restaurant supply house the next day. Complete overkill, but going strong 15yrs later and counting

And to pile on with dramatically reduce product lifespans is the inadequacy of warranty periods.

$100 product (ie - computer keyboard) and $2000 product (ie - computer or TV) and even $40,000 products (ie - car) all have similar warranty periods - 1-3 years. How can that be?

BTW, as far as I know, products for sale in Japan generally don't come w/ a warranty. The products (at least before they started to do chicom manuf) just worked. If there was really a problem, customer service would handle it. It was weird buying stuff in Japan without any explicit warranty. But that's quality. For the longest time, I couldn't imagine buying stuff here w/o a warranty.

Part of that can be traced to the desire to make things cheap. That means plastic. Lots of plastics.

And along with cheap components everyone looks for a deal.

I don’t think it is built-in obsolescence as much as it is component failure due to cheap components.

But the thing to keep in mind is that most engineers when designing a part are very much aware of the limitations of knowledge so engineers build in a factor of safety - sometimes appropriately called a factor of ignorance.

Think I’d try to chuck one of the wife’s doughhooks in my Dewalt drill before spending $1400!

This will never wear out. But seriously, I inherited my father's 30+ year old Honda snowblower this year. It still runs great. My much newer Troybuilt, that has hardly been used, wouldn't even start so I used my Dad's this season.

Making products that last and/or products that can be repaired would have a huge impact on what goes into landfills. Growing up, every small town in the US had a TV repair man and someone that fixed small appliances. Everything today is disposable.

quote:

Originally posted by Georgeair:
Getcha a Robot-Coupe! Saw this brand food processor on a cooking show and thought "hmmm, that looks robust". A quick peak showed that it is indeed robust in both build and price. Interestingly, a few weeks later drove by a building here where they actually are based right here in Ridgeland, MS. Who the heck knew? Now if only they had an outlet store...

Robot-Coupe all sorts of stuff!

Admittedly they have smaller models, but the MP 450 looks about right.... for a smooth $1,400.

That thing take gas or diesel?