Vintage appliances, which ones stunk?
 

Inspired by the "Stop Appliance Genocide" thread, let's discuss for a moment, the ones that really weren't made well back in the day, or didn't last, bad designs, etc.

This is the side of the equation that we don't often see when discussing these. Share your thoughts and memories :)

My parents had a 1968 Zenith 22" black and white console. In 1971, the picture tube was replaced. By 1974, the filter caps started acting up, and it developed a wave through the picture.

Here's what inspired this thread.....

I just rescued this 1946-47 Kelvinator electric range from the metal scrappers. I thought it seemed like a pretty well made piece:

http://i44.photobucket.com/albums/f9...rld/stove1.jpg

My wife saw it, and said, yes, it's very well made, but look at the design of it. There are only 3 burners, and they are VERY close together. There's a ton of wasted space too.....it's got no broiler, and the oven is on the right hand side instead of under the burners, the rest is just storage. And, with the oven on the RIGHT, whatever you sit on the big space to the right of the burners is going to be subjected to the heat of the oven. Why wouldn't they have put the oven UNDER the burners, and made that whole space one large cabinet if they wanted to, or put two burners on each side as to make more cooking space? That would leave room for a broiler, too.

She's pretty smart, that one ;) . But I'm still keeping the stove :D

That range reminds me of the Roper gas range my parents bought, when they first married. That surface above the oven, didn't get that hot, as those old ranges were very well insulated.
I see it has that removeable pot, for cooking soups, etc. That was a big selling point, at the time. Feature not available on a gas range.
Whoever owned the range, took really good care of it. :thmbsp:

Those things were super-reliable.
Probably 95% of those sets were flawless performers.
Too bad, yours was one of the 5%. :sigh:

Years ago, my parents had a range that looked like that. On the model that they had there was a fourth burner in the bottom of the "crockpot" well. The position of the burner was adjustable so that it could be positioned on the top of the range if more "surface cooking" area was desired. Most of the time it was left in the lowest position, as Mom usually made a big pot of soup once a week...YUM!

jr

Those are super reliable and rarely fail. Some parts are still available. The clocks usually have quit long ago though. Don't try putting an extra large pizza from Costco in it, you will have to shave the sides off.

If the clocks have Telechron movements in them, they are easily repaired and replacement parts are plentiful.

Actually, that's a timer. The stove is currently sitting half apart, waiting some help to get it into my basement. I took off all the trim and doors to get it in and down safely.

As one would expect, it's going to need a REALLY good cleaning inside, as 60 years of kitchen grease are on the areas that aren't cleanable unless the whole thing is apart. No matter :)

Incidentally, I discovered this AWESOME cleaner for working on old stoves, or anything that's coated in grease.

http://www.nucalgon.com/products/coi...s_calbrite.htm

I got a gallon of it from a friend, and I have a 20% solution in a spray bottle. It just melts the grease, rinse, and done......

I had a Hotpoint portable dishwasher from 1960. It belonged to my grandparents at the summer cabin on the Chesapeake bay. I inherited it in 1981 and moved it to my
3rd floor apartment. For three dudes that did no dishes, it worked great.

One day we started it and left for class. Came back and the 2nd floor tenant had called the super beacuse he thought a plumbing leak was resposible for the waterfall in thier kitchen.:sigh:

Found a gasket at the motor shaft, (bottom of the unit) had let go. No problem for a couple of motorheads to rig a new shaft seal but it fried the motor and it was totally unobtanium.

We tossed it out the window into the yard, leaving a huge trianglar dent and walked it to the dumpster:tears:

Are you going to hook it up in the basement?
A lot of people used to have a range in the basement, besides one in the kitchen.
Before air conditioning became popular, folks would do their cooking and baking in the basement, as not to heat up the house, during the extreme hot weather.

Good point! My former neighbor has an old Caloric Gas Range in their city-house basement, I want it when they move but I have propane and that requires some advanced tinkering...

We had an old second-hand 50's Admiral all tube colour TV from the early 60's thru about 1972, when it gave its last gasp. My parents replaced it with a new RCA XL-100 or some such. Man, did that thing suck! Picture was only so-so, audio was horrendous and it sensitivity was in the weeds compared to the old Admiral. It died within five years and I was happy to see it go.

To figure out the bad appliances, find old copies of Consumer Reports magazine. I have read those since I was a kid (in the late 1960s), and products in general were much more varied in quality then compared to now, and even more so in earlier decades from REALLY old issues I have seen. Basic things such as power cords that could easily pull out and short to the metal cabinet.

Dunno yet, to be honest. I'm just going to get it down there and make the decision at some point after I go through the whole thing, cleaned spotlessly, and working.

Like I said, it's gonna be a winter project, and we have looooong winters here :)

Something that comes to mind that was junk, was any 8-track to Cassette adapter I ever tried. They all eat tapes. A swell idea, poorly executed.

Yes, there was lots of crap even before manufacturing started going overseas. I suspect the fact that there were lots of repairmen and things were easier to fix back then and that makes the problem seem less worse today than I really believe it actually was back then. There is good stuff out there that will last more than a year or two, and guess what? It's still more expensive than most people want to pay.

I see this sort of "everything today sucks" attitude alot from the gaming circles. People forget, whatever the era, that for every Asteroids, Pac Man, Mario, Sonic, ect, there were dozens of terrible games. Same things applies everywhere esle. Stereos. Tvs. Appliances.

This winter seems extremely long. Even you folks out East, seen more than your share of nasty weather.
We should be used to it, in the mid-west. :thumbsdn:

I ended up getting the Kelvinator partially apart, and the amount of grease, rust, and deterioration from wherever it had been sitting that was hidden by nice, shiny porcelain was the death knell for the unit. I ended up parting it out for other projects, but after the 8th or so 1/4" screw head snapped off from rust, that was it, and the project was scrapped.

I had to make more room for televisions anyway, and I've repaired more sets over this winter than I have in many years....

Of all the appliance manufacturers that the USA had then, I cant think of any that were known as junk... and I used to live across the street from a used appliance dealer growing up. Some of the later (early 1960's) GE front loaders might qualify. I remember seeing many of them rusted out internally while we were scrapping them out.

My mom had a 1962 Philco-Bendix front loader washer-dryer that ate spin solenoids about every 4-6 months until the repairman found a larger more robust solenoid that would fit to replace the OEM unit that failed. Then, it lasted for years.

Most vintage appliances were built pretty well. For instance, I manage an apartment property that was built in 1972, and we have several apartments with their original GE electric ranges. My mother is still using the 40" range that she bought in 1968, and she has a refrigerator in the garage that my grandparents bought in the early 50's.

In the 80's, appliance manufacturers started really cutting costs. Refrigerator interiors and washing machine tubs went from coated steel to plastic. Whirlpool (once second only to Maytag in washing machine quality) was one of the first major companies to switch to direct drive, thus spelling an end to long-life washing machines.

These days most home appliances are pretty much disposable. The market and the manufacturers have changed so much since I left that business in 1998. Mergers and consolodation have left GE and Whirlpool as the last two American full-line appliance makers. Take washing machines for instance, Whirlpool machines can be bought under the names of Whirlpool, Estate, Roper, KitchenAid, Crosley, Magic Chef, Norge, Admiral, Maytag, Amana, and even some Kenmore models.

Last year I had to finally give in and replace my washing machine. Since Maytag is now just a Whirlpool with the Maytag name plate attached (along with a $ increase), I decided to call a friend of mine in the repair business and ask his opinion. He said to buy the cheapest model I could find that had the features I had to have.....and when it fails to simply throw it out and replace it. He said there was not a washing machine on the market today that would be likely to last past the 8 to 10 year mark. He advised me not to spend more $$ thinking it would equate to better quality any more.

The cheapest quality home appliances from 30 years ago are built better than just about anything you can buy these days (with the exception of a few high-end luxury brands).

I've got a washer and dryer by Whirlpool. Nice avocado. Built in 1970. I have a feeling that they are here to stay. Both are working just fine 6-8 times a week.

New belt, inlet water valve, and a pump on the washer, and a new belt and drum rollers on the dryer. Both of the machines are clean as a pin... no lint anywhere.

My local appliance parts house no longer has any parts for these incredible machines.

My kitchen is old stuff, too. Big SUB ZERO refrigerator-freezer with a pair of new thermostats (it has 2 compressors) a big Magic Chef gas wall oven built in 1970... There was one just like it in the kitchen set of THE PARTRIDGE FAMILY on TV back in the day.

I like older appliances. As long as parts are available, I will fix them. :thmbsp:

Kamakiri, sorry the stove was a bit of a bust. Cleaning up vintage kitchen grease is the worst. Too bad it didn't rust-proof the stove better. On your comment about the inefficient use of space on the range top, my mother loves to talk about growing up in the 40's, and the intense lack of kitchen space in most homes (well, at least in the area where she grew up). Her mother had a similar stove, and that large slab of porcelain on the right side was the food prep area, given that they didn't really have any counterspace. Just a long sink that had been adapted from a hand pump, and the accompanying tilt board for the dishes to dry on.

As for horrible vintage appliances, there were plenty of them, especially the crummy off-brand stuff that came from drug stores in the 30s and 40s that were copies of name-brand appliances. I'm thinking of smaller stuff like sandwich grills, toasters, etc. Where the plating was thinner, flimsy sheetmetal, fewer heating elements, less insulation, etc. We don't see much of that stuff today since it worked so poorly right out of the box, it was tossed in the following decades.

There's a website called "Drug store appliances", that shows a lot examples of the low end appliances. Some were never used.
If you look at the pre-war Allied catalogues, they have some examples of inexpensive appliances, that they sold.

I've ran across several cheap "drugstore" fans from the '40's and '50's that were past saving. Most of the ones that I couldn't fix had either bad bearings or broken oscillator mechanisms. Of course, the bearings might have held up longer had people lubricated them properly. OTOH, the better fans (Emerson, GE, Westinghouse, Hunter, etc) usually are fixable without any serious issues. Still, the cheap drugstore fans are better than most of what comes out of China today. In fact, I have several cheap fans that run fine; but, I keep them oiled.

Got a few ZERO fans around here that run fine after oiling, and some that just sit there and look good... I've removed the cords on these, unfortunately.

I have a small desk fan. What's strange about it, is that it has a universal motor. It's a Signal brand. They were still in business, into the 60's.
I would guess mine is an early to mid 30's model.
IIRC, Signal is a New York firm. New York still had a lot of DC districts.

Washing machines! (rant alert)
Yes, I was one of the fools that thought buying a Maytag in 2004 was a slam-dunk.:thmbsp:
A year (a few days beyond warranty) later, the leaking started followed by bearing failure that sounded like a frieght train during spin cycle.
My "small-town" type dealer showed mercy by covering the repair but advised me to buy a service contract. Since I don't play losing games, I pushed my luck and it failed again last month. My store sold me the tub-seal repair kit and main bearing for $120. The kit was cheaper there than at appliance parts dealers and, as evidenced by the dusty parts boxes, nobody was having these lemons fixed anymore after 9 years.
My washer had the plastic tub and seal assembly made in Maytag's "other" plant in Searcy, Arkansas. Not a new design and not a good one either.:thumbsdn:

After getting the washtub out and seeing how crappy it really was, I decided to return the unopened parts and look for a used older Maytag or new washer. Laundry was piling up fast, and the impossible transmission shaft seal was not coming loose from the corroded aluminum hub.:worried: I also was not about to invest in the spanner wrench and puller and add to the losses...

The decision was made once the salesman at the store said Speed Queen still makes thier stuff in Wisconsin.:D and they sell mostly to people who value function over looks and extra silly features.
I once delivered SQ for a Zenith-Sony-Admiral dealer in Allentown, noting the lack of washer repair calls they had!
Before I bought, I called Alliance Laundry Systems (maker of Speed Queen) to ask why Consumer Reports threw them under the bus and then rating top-loader models by LG and Samsung way at the top.... Their reply "we dont play the energy star game, we build a washer that washes...and lasts" The cycle time is much shorter than all the others but the loads are smaller. Water levels and temperatures are also compromised in the energy star quest. Since I have a well, its not really an issue.

Maytag was on its way downhill by 2002 after chasing the "Boutique" market with the trouble-plagued front-loading Neptune model in the late 90s. It was sold to Whirlpool in 2006 and the Newton Iowa plant closed. I bought a new Whirlpool washer in 1988, selling it with my old house after 10 years of trouble-free service. But even Whirlpool is probably not the same anymore.

Up until the 70's, my family bought Roper-built Kenmore washers and electric stoves... when you couldn't afford anything better. The belt-driven washers never failed to leak or break belts every few years. It got to the point where we had the washer sitting crooked in our little laundry nook/alcove with a steel beer serving tray underneath the leaky pump that I would empty for my mom after every load.

In 1993 or so we got a simple two-cycle Whirlpool built Kenmore direct-drive top load washer. Except for an imbalance problem when a rubber thingy got misaligned a couple of years ago (fixed by yours truly after watching a YouTube video), it keeps clunking along and gets a full load done in just 35 minutes.

Yes, DaveGoodlin, Maytag quality was pretty much a memory by 2004. The Maytag plant in Newton, Iowa turned out the original Maytag washers (porcelon tub and cabinet, two-belt drive models). These were real machines; the internal components changed very little from the introduction of automatic washers in the 50's until the plant closed.

Maytag also owned the old Norge plant, which turned out a much cheaper machine that in no way resembled the real Maytag washers fron the Newton, Iowa plant. Often, these plastic tub machines were sold under the "Performa by Maytag" moniker. I think there at the end (when Maytag was grasping straws to try and stay in business) that just started selling both lines under the Maytag nameplate. When Whirlpool bought out Maytag, the first thing they done was to close down the Newton plant as they were only interested in the Maytag name so they could sell their low-end product at a premium price. The general public will pay more for a Maytag thinking it's still the same quality product it used to be back when Maytag was really Maytag.

Speed Queen is the last really well-built washing machine on the market today. They are a little hard-to-find these days as they mainly sell to mom-and-pop appliance stores. The big-box guys would have a hard time selling a plain looking model with a big price tag, even though it's worth the extra $$ to buy real quality. For instance, I live in Knoxville, TN (a decent sized town) and there are no Speed Queen dealers here or I would have considered one back when mine went south. The Speed Queen home laundry line is basically the same as their commercial laundrymat washers (minus the change machine).

So now I am using a $279 direct drive Admiral (made by Whirlpool). It's a cheap direct-drive noise maker, but it washes well and as long as it doesn't get overloaded, the direct drive plastic parts will usually hold up OK. For what I paid for it, I'll be happy if it passes the 5 year mark.

I used to own one of the last Iowa built machines from Maytag. The only thing I ever did to it was replace the drive belt and the pump belt, ONCE. I ran it from 1983 to 2006. Even then, I gave the pair to my mother, where they are running just fine today.

I am not buying into this new junk. My current pair are running just fine.

Some Whirlpool, Maytag,Kenmore washers are using a new drive system. It uses a small belt to dive some smaller transmission. Its all computerized and He and you have to learn how to work on top loaders all over again :(. They are totally different than the "Cabrio" style washers. I'm sure in 5-10 years you wont see any new "old style" direct drive washers anymore. We(used aplliance store) have a contract to buy used washers/dryers/fridges/beds and TV's from a local appliance store that they pick up from customers homes when they buy new sets . We wont work on the newer Maytag(except whirlpool built stuff or front loaders) performa crap and we get a fair amount of it. Funny we NEVER see any older Maytag stuff because it rarely fails.

I'm not sure it they count as home appliances, but photographic equipment of the era was really hit or miss, especially with movie projectors. Looking over old catalogs, it looks like you had to hit a pretty high price point before you could get one that would not shred film continuously. The really notorious ones were the cheapo specials that appeared in the backs of comic books or magazines like Famous Monsters of Filmland (Captain Company, anyone?) Those projectors might just be powered by a few D cell batteries with no film loop to speak of.

So much film died in these things, and worse still, people are still trying to get these junkers running today, and destroying irreplaceable films in the process.

Let me tell you stories about the "good" Romanian home made apliances.
Somwhere in the late '50's, when the (Communist) economy of Romania begun to grow and the wages (sallaryes) increased a little bit we started to manufactured washing machines. It was even an "automatic" model (for switching from washing to spining mode you had to remove the agitator). They wheren't manufactured in large number and they wheren't use for more then 10-15 years.
We also made non-automatic washing machines at I.M.S. (Întreprinderea Metalurgică de Stat/State Metalurgical Enteprise) from Sibiu (Hermannstadt). They where named <<Perla>> (<<The Pearl>>). They where better made. I think some where used for 20 years. I know somone who's parent's still use an <<Perla>> 2 from 1964! and I found one for sale.
But then we started making washing machines at U.M.C. Cugir (Uzina Mecanică Cugir/Cugir Mechanical Plant) - that also is manufacturing weapons (arms). I.M.S. Sibiu and U.M. Cugir made in paralel for some time washing machines. The ones made at Cugir where called <<Albalux>>. But they wheren't luxury washing machines at all... they where simple models, non-automatic. The post mid 1970's models where pain in the ass - usually they dind't last more then 15 years (in some case 10). They had leaks and the water was droping on the engine (many people died electrocuted on these bloody things). Later on, they stared to put plastic in stad of paint!, normal steel in stad of inox (stainless stell)... I can't tell how some one nicknamed them.
I don't know how where the ones made in the '90's.
In the '80's we started to manufacture automatic washing machines. At U.M. Cugir. They had mechanical (clockwork) timers and where made under Yougoslav licence (the timer was Made in Yugoslavia). They where pice of crap too, but they where easy to repair. I don't know how the newer models where.

Since the new washing machines are pice of crap, I'm dreaming on gettin me an pre 1999 German "Miele".

What model oven is that? We had what appeared to be the same model oven in our house which was built in 1968 (I think the oven came with the house), but I've never been able to track down the model. The closest I've come is a similar but not identical "Concept Series" model: https://secure.flickr.com/photos/111...02/1418380569/ .

Edit: Here is a page with pictures of the Partridge Family oven (the green one from Seasons 1-3): http://www.retrospace.org/2013/12/vi...ge-family.html

I can't supply you a model number. The model plate is corroded.

Mine is also a Concept Series unit.

A few months ago, I took the glass off the front of the unit, washed it, and cleaned the faces of the controls and clock / timer. It looks like new now.

I used to have the matching gas cooktop, but it developed issues with the burner gas valves, so I replaced it with a slightly-newer model that just happened to fit in the hole in the countertop perfectly.

The nice thing: Now, we don't ever smell gas in the kitchen area anymore, after the rangetop replacement.

i am using a whirlpool direct drive washer and its getting old has been a great washer. lucked upon a roper direct drive washer for $30.00 like new the cold water inlet was clogged. so i now have a spare washer when the main one kicks the wash bucket.

Thanks. Speed Queen for my next washer. My present washer is a 1999 era Frigidaire Gallery model. My late Grandmother bought it used, technician serviced, no issues thus far. It's been decent. Her old GE range was on it's last legs, I now own a simple Whirlpool which was lightly used which I bought for $60. How are Speed Queen dryers? My 1969 or 1970ish GE dryer is getting in need of major service or outright replacement.

When I finished rebuilding my house in 2007 I ordered a Speed Queen washer and dryer set. No problems whatsoever in 8 years so far. I left all the appliances when I sold the house except the Speed Queens. My dryer is electric and has worked perfectly. Stainless Steel tubs in both.

Probably anything from start of time up to the 1980's was good.
Everybody I know around here have washers and dryers that are 25 plus years old.

Today's high end stuff is probably OK but got to watch out for those cheap ones.

I notice there is big run on dehumidifiers that are having issues with them and recalling them.I have an old Westinghouse dehumidifier here which is almost 50 years old and still working great.