[Shiny]

Originally Posted by Chris65LeMans

Christmas lights, those were.

Farther down the food chain than Christmas lights. New GE in 2010 made it about 7 yrs before puking. I expect my LED Christmas lights to last at least 10 yrs.

We moved last year and just replaced the 19-yr old Kitchenaid cause it was ugly and falling apart but it worked great. We bought an LG despite reputation for compressor fails. Happy with it SO FAR! Salesperson said they fixed the compressor design and LG has caused them less trouble than others (early failures) in the last few years. They also warrant the compressor for 10 yrs on some models. We were told to stay away from Samsung by 3 retailers.

We started paying for 5-yr extended warranties on major appliances about 15 yrs ago after a very bad washer/dryer experience.

I just retired from reliability engineering and experienced a wide variety of corporate warranty/durability philosophies. My guess is fridge sales are hurt most by "early fails" (defect-driven fails) and there is little motivation to build anything to last more than about 5 yrs. For consumer electronics with low margins, early fail rates of 3% can be "good enough" for a new product. I can imagine higher numbers being OK for large appliances since I expect the profit margins to be higher. Net: listen to the salespeople!