Microwave madness

So, in yesterday's post, I asked for anyone to contact me if they had issues with their builder-installed microwave oven. 

I should have just gone straight to the Source of All Local Wisdom - the big-box retailers.  After patiently explaining my dilemma last night, explaining that I've had two magnetron failures inside 24 months, Salesperson Who Shall Remain Nameless replied,

"All these brand new houses you see around here were built with GE appliances, and they're all crap - they fail [in high numbers].  These new homeowners constitute the majority of our customer base [for new microwave oven sales]."

One person's opinion.  I stress that it's a seller's opinion rather than representing the results of a formal appliance-cratering investigation. 

But it's a very telling opinion, isn't it??  And so was the answer to my next question:

"Is there any brand or model that I can buy that will come with a magnetron that will work for more than 12 months?  It's OK if I pay a little more for reliability.  I just want a microwave oven that will last so I don't have to go through this hassle for a third time."  Answer, again, one person's opinion:

"No.  They all look different on the outside, but it's basically all the same equipment on the inside of them.  One is as likely to fail as any other.  The price differences you see basically represent styling [rather than construction quality]."

So isn't THAT special.  For the moment, this leaves us stuck without a working OTR (over-the-range) microwave. 

As an aside, let me mention that we never buy any new item for our house without "trying it out" in the space to see how it works and looks.  Here, I took a replacement candidate, enlarged a photo of it, printed it out in sections, taped the sections together, and then stuck the resulting composite photo in the space where the microwave is to go.  While I liked the resulting aesthetic effect, I quickly abandoned plans to buy this model after reading on-line reviews of it.

We're not sure how to best resolve this issue, but are still researching it.  Do we locate a magnetron on the open market with greater than a 12-month warranty and have it installed in the existing machine, or do we invest in a new machine? 

I'd be willing to invest in a new machine regardless of magnetron quality IF such an investment would solve two related issues for us:

1. The under-mounted lights in OTR microwave models are pathetic, in my opinion.  They are tiny incandescent bulbs that do not light the cooktop at all.  Furthermore, they are specialty bulbs that cannot simply be swapped out for higher-wattage bulbs (I've tried).  If we could find a manufacturer that produces microwaves with a halogen or LED bulb option, it might be worth paying for.
2. The exhaust fans in most OTR microwave models are pathetic, in my opinion.  Hurray for us - we finally got a house with exterior venting, but the GE builder-grade microwave's fan is so weak that it can't pull air away from the cooktop.  I believe that the installed model is rated at 300 cubic feet per minute (CFM) but if that's true, it's woefully insufficient.  (I should note here that the same salesperson warned us that new microwaves come with a default configuration that exhausts air into the house.  So even if your builder hooked your microwave to an exterior vent line, if they did not manually switch the exhaust route, the vent line may be useless.  I'm not sure if this is affecting us... it seems to release some air back into the house, but not all of it, which the salesperson said is not really possible given how they are built... further investigation is needed here on our parts.)

In closing, let me underscore the extent to which our problems with the GE Spacemaker microwave are not unique, both with complaint threads and with a video and with a "feeler" site for a potential class action lawsuit:

http://www.sfmslaw.com/class-action-lawsuits/cases.php?id=670

In investigating whether magnetron replacement would be an option for us, I did some internet research and found a YouTube tutorial where they explain how the replacement is done.  TWENTY-THREE THOUSAND HITS on this tutorial as of the date of this post.  This stuff ain't light entertainment - this is the kind of video you only watch if you need to - such as, if you're replacing your magnetron.  And there's another one with sixteen thousand hits.  Can you imagine that many people needing instructions on how to repair a single brand / model of microwave?  That says a lot.  It doesn't even necessarily count those additional owners who decided simply to chunk their ovens and buy new ones.