I LOATHE Whirltag's customer service. They aren't even helpful to the stores that carry their product. I'm free of them now, but at the last job, we also retailed appliances and they were the WORST manufacturer to deal with by aeons.

And, just to name names, they also make Maytag, JennAir, and Kitchenaid, and a lot of the Kenmore private label models for Sears.

Buyer beware if you purchase from any of these companies!

Thanks for the heads up.

I haven't been here in a couple of days and I was just coming to post that column. Well, it's nice to be able to narrow down the huge universe of appliances.

I wonder about the Maytag, etc warning though. The complaint in the column wasn't really about the general quality of their products and I assume any company can occasionally end up with a lemon. The complaint was about how the company responded when it became clear that the customer had a lemon. I assume Whirlpool doesn't do the actual customer service for Maytag, Jenn Air and KA. So I don't know if the warning is fair, based on the Haggler's column.

This is a known known, marcia, a very established fact in the industry. Their service is wretched and the senior executive in charge showed that the problem goes right to the top. Clueless and stupid.

Oh yes, they do the customer service for all of them. That's been that way for 4-5 years ever since the merger. All of the warranites are about repair only, never replacement. Even if it's DOA, they throw that back to the store and make the store absorb the entire expense of replacing the appliance with no help from the company with any compensation.

Oh, good to know. I didn't realize there had been a merger and they were all the same company.

So the same parent company owns Whirlpool, Maytag, Jenn Air and Kitchen Aid?

eta: I just checked Wikipedia and answered my own question. Yes, Whirlpool owns all the others. Feh!

This post was edited by marcia59 on Tue, Mar 12, 13 at 14:58

From Wikipedia

2006 Acquired the Maytag, including the Maytag, Jenn-Air, Amana, Jade, Magic Chef, Admiral, Hoover, and Dixie-Narco brands, after Justice Department approved the merger.

Surpassed $18 billion in annual revenues.

2007 Sold Hoover to Techtronic Industries, TTI Floorcare.[4] and Jade Appliances to Middleby Corporation. Also closed plants in Newton, Iowa; Searcy, Arkansas; and Herrin, Illinois. This resulted in the sudden loss of 4500 jobs in the affected communities.

Surpassed $19 billion in annual revenues.

2008 Location closings in La Vergne, Tenn; Reynosa, Mexico; and Oxford, Miss. Later the announcement of Dishwasher plant in Jackson, TN to close in August 2009

2009 Whirlpool acquired WC Woods from Bankruptcy [5] and to keep Ottawa, OH plant open; Whirlpool to close Evansville plant;[6] Whirlpool has received $19.3 million in U.S. Department of Energy funding as part of its Smart Grid Investment Grant program [7]

2012 Whirlpool closes Fort Smith, Arkansas plant in June 2012 after moving production out of the plant to Mexico for several years prior to the closing. In 2006 the plant employed 4,600.

15,000 lost jobs since the merger, but the billions in revenue keep going up, while the customer service goes steadily downward.

Whirlpool also makes Ikea's appliances.