Microwave Misery

Completing the trying trilogy of Miffed at a Microwave and Microwave Madness, here we have the concluding component of this alliterative adventure. 

To recap the first two installations, the magnetron (microwave-generating part) in our Meritage-installed General Electric (GE) Spacemaker over-the-range microwave failed TWICE in 24 months.  The first failure was covered by warranty but not the second, even though that second magnetron was, itself, only 12 months old when it failed. 

We were then left wondering how to deal with this: install a third magnetron in the miserable thing, or buy a new microwave? 

The trouble that we found via research was that nothing jumped out at us as being a quality brand to purchase.  We were willing to pay substantially more money to get a better unit, but we just could not find any that we had confidence in.

Remember I had posted a paper pic of this contender...

...but then I read the reviews and ruled it out.  The average rating on the Lowes website was only two out of five stars.

Here is the originating link but I reckon it will expire in the future. 

The problem reported to be widespread with this one is that the control panel has a high rate of failure, and it reportedly costs $200 to repair that part, on a microwave that was listed as costing $266 at the time of this post.

Ibid.

But again, every other model we looked at got rotten reviews as well.   So we ended up buying this one, albeit with an action plan.

There she, newly-installed is in all her reportedly-unreliable two-star glory.

Here's part of the reason why we chose this one despite the miserable reviews:

The magnetron is about a $130 part on a $266 microwave, so this is valuable, even if the labor is not included.

Here's another part of the reason why:  Because when I was in Lowes at FM 646 picking it up last night, the salesperson himself reported that the control panel on his Samsung microwave did, in fact, fail very soon after purchase!!  And when he contacted Samsung to raise hell about it, Samsung actually replaced it for him and in so doing, gave him this advice:  don't slam the door.  The panel failures are allegedly being caused by too much vibration caused by repeatedly slamming the microwave door.  If an owner takes extra care to gently close the door each time it is used, the panel should not fail.

And here's another part of the reason why, but be careful to understand the fine print on these things:  Because I bought a two-year extended warranty for about sixty extra bucks.  BUT - bear in mind that "two year warranty" does not necessarily guarantee you two years' extra functionality, or anything remotely resembling that.  Let me explain below.

I'm not an attorney or anything close to it, so my ability to read fine print is subject to error, but I got burned recently at another store because of this type of "in-store extended warranty" phenomenon: I bought a computer printer and opted to pay for what I thought was a two-year extended warranty.  But as it turned out, all that warranty meant was that if the printer failed at any time during the two year period post-dating the manufacturer's warranty expiration, the store would replace that printer ONE TIME ONLY.  So what happened?  The printer failed when it was 13 months old.  The manufacturer's warranty was for the first 12 months, so the extended store warranty covered the failure.  The printer was replaced at 13 months, but that then became the end of the store's obligation.  In effect, I paid all that extra money for just 30 extra days (not months) of warranty coverage.

As near as I can discern, and I might be wrong on this, the 2-year Lowes extended warranty I bought for this microwave might be structured the same way.  I think it says in there that they have the option to repair or replace, but how likely are they to opt to incur labor costs on a $266 item?  Not very likely, especially if the part that typically goes bad is about $200 - that suggests that any failure makes the thing an immediate write-off.  My suspicion is that they would simply hand me a new microwave and say "Good luck to you."  And the warranty would terminate at that point, even if it were just one month into the apparent coverage period.  That's just my suspicion, but buyer beware.  So the extra sixty bucks I paid probably gives me eventual access to a second microwave - that's all I'm assuming.  But hopefully if we take care of the thing, that will help us achieve a respectable lifespan for it.

Meanwhile, we're not chunking the twice-broken GE Spacemaker.  I'm stuffing it into our attic for future reference, just in case a class-action lawsuit does get off the ground.