Let me first say that something is terribly WRONG in this country, when you plunk down a big wad of hard earned cash for an electrical appliance and said electrical appliance has some kind of 'incident' happen with it, that renders it unusable in a short amount of time.
Here's my story....that I intend to relay to the parent company of FRIGIDAIRE very shortly. You, my lucky readers, get to hear about it first!lol
Husband & I purchased a brand spanking new FRIGIDAIRE 30" ELECTRIC RANGE-Model #FEFL79DCD from LOWE'S. The year was 2005. I'd have to go dig out the receipt(yes, I keep everything!lol)for the exact amount spent for it but I can say it was in the ballpark of $800+ dollars(Not including the new Power Cord cost, that Lowe's insists you buy, if you have their staff connect the appliance for you in your home).
It was the most we have ever spent on a range. It had some cool features(self-cleaning, expandable burner size, center warming zone, timers, etc.) and it was stainless and black which looked so sleek. I was in love.
But that love affair didn't last.
It might help to mention that this baby came with a 1 year warranty. Lowe's tried to get us to purchase an EXTENDED WARRANTY on this range, which would have bought us another 2 years of coverage. My thinking is that if Mr. & Mrs. John Q Public spend $800+ on something, they should EXPECT IT TOO WORK PROPERLY for more than 1 YEAR!
It is a SAD SAD STATE OF AFFAIRS when businesses in this country sell you shoddy goods for large sums of money. Why can't they just make them BETTER to begin with and just charge what that costs? When I buy a kitchen appliance I expect it to live AT LEAST 10 years!
Back to my sad love affair.
I noticed a couple of bad things during that 1st year we owned this Frigidaire Range.
The first one was aesthetic in nature.
The supposed stainless steel, STAINED. I kept the front stainless steel panel of the range pretty clean, wiping it down regulary to keep the fingerprints from kids and nose prints from dogs from showing. I started noticing what appeared to be RUST SPOTS on the metal front, below the glass oven window. Over time, these areas grew and now are quite noticeable.
I looked at this as a regular part of the aging process for a range. George Clooney got some distinguishing grey hairs as he matured, so my Stainless Steel Range acquired some rusty spots. But it was still hot, just like George.
Speaking of hot.....I noticed one day, about 2 years into owning this FRIGIDAIRE RANGE, that when I turned the heat DOWN on the burner I was cooking on, the stove didn't lower the heat level on the burner. I believe I was heating up some spaghetti sauce at the time. I set the burner on HIGH. After the sauce began to break a boil on the surface, I turned down the burner to MEDIUM(6 on the dial). After about 3 minutes, the burner coil was still glowing red(under the glass cooktop) and the sauce was now boiling furiously. I had to remove the pot of sauce, turn off the burner completely and continue cooking on a different burner.
After I noticed this flaw in the range, I saw that it would happen intermittenly on a regular basis at times with all the burners. This was an inconvenience but didn't render the range unusable.
Then Monday night of this week, I had a small saute pan of pork barbeque on the front right burner, reheating the meat for dinner. The burner was set on a medium heat level. As I stirred the pork, I heard a loud POP! I thought, "What the ???" and looked down at the range. I lifted the pan and saw that the GLASS COOKTOP had just CRACKED!!! The crack ran from near the center of the burner I was using & extended 6 inches or so over toward the center of the cooktop.
I hadn't dropped anything on the glass, EVER in the 4 years we have owned it. It had no weak spot from a chip or from dropping something on the cooktop in the past that would cause it to just spontaneously crack like that. The burner under where it cracked was only turned to Medium Heat and wasn't malfunctioning at the time and hotter than it should have been.
By the next morning, the crack had worked it's way over the entire glass top, like a spider's web.
FOUR YEARS YOUNG and this FRIGIDAIRE RANGE was unusable! $800+ for 4 yrs. of service is INEXCUSEABLE! That's like paying $200 a Year for the joy of being able to cook. And even if I had bought an Extended Warranty, a repair at 4 yrs. from purchase would NOT have been covered. I'm glad at least that I hadn't thrown away another $100 on a useless warranty.
Being a Compact-er, my first thought, despite it's other flaws, was to repair this range. Why send a range with what could see many more years of service to a landfill. Despite the enormous inconvenience being without a range/oven for a month or more would cause my family, we could work around this for the good of old Mother Earth.
After calling around, I find out that yes, I can get another glass cooktop BUT.....
it will have to be specially ordered.
Meaning it will be a minimum of FOUR WEEKS before it will arrive. (I've found that when dealing with a construction or a repair situation, it's best to DOUBLE the amount of you are told it will take to complete.)
After the glass arrives, you then get to wait for the repair professional to find the time to install said glass on your appliance.
So what's the bottom line on this repair?
With installation, approx. $350. (The glass alone would cost $250 + tax.)
I'm expected to shell out almost HALF what this appliance cost me to begin with to get it working again!! I've only had it 4 YEARS!
So with this repair, I'll have almost $1200 INVESTED into this Range.
Then in my search online for information about this appliance/company/repair/etc. I happened upon a review from another owner. It seems one morning, for no apparent reason their FRIGIDAIRE RANGE's glass window in the door exploded! It was NOT being used at the time and hadn't been since at least the night before when it just spontaneously burst, sending shards of glass shooting across their kitchen. After contacting the parent company of FRIGIDAIRE, ELECTROLUX, they never received any answers or satisfactory response to this incident.
As #2 son might say, Bigtime FAIL Electrolux.....
So on third and fourth thought, I am NOT going to repair this obviously defective product from an Obviously Defective Company with EVEN MORE Obviously Defective Business Practices. I don't even feel right giving this thing away to someone who wants to take the time & expense to repair it either! Who knows what may befall them in the course of using/having this FRIGIDAIRE RANGE. I would hate to be sued in years to come in civil court by someone who takes glass shrapnel to the groin when the oven glass in the door explodes while they are cooking pancakes some morning.
One thing I have decided is that I will be going back to a good old exposed coiled burners model. No more fancy pants glass cooktops for me! Those things are cash cows for the appliance parts department. Hundreds of $$s for a slab of glass. A fragile material that begs to be broken in a room with alot of hoisting around of equipment and dishware in it, not to mention the odd canned good being dropped on it at just the right angle to make it shatter. The old fashioned burners may not be something out of Better Homes & Gardens but it's one LESS THING that can break!
Does anyone have any experiences with other brands' models of range to share with me, while I research my options? Non-exploding models only please.....
Sluggy
