Whirlpool Consumer Reviews - Page 3

I cannot believe the runaround we have been getting from Whirlpool regarding getting a replacement part for our double wall oven. We bought it in 2003, have already replaced the circuit control panel once before (ORIGINAL PART #83001917 IS NOW PART #10244191) and now again the top oven controls went out first, then two weeks later the bottom oven has done the same thing. We had a hard time locating the part the first time, and now we can't find it anywhere in the USA. (Exact words from the Whirlpool phone Rep.) who I must say had attitude. I said I will look into having the part repaired if that was the case, he said they cannot be repaired.

Told me that they have stopped using certain vendors, when I asked what country these vendors were in that they were dealing, when he said he was not at liberty to tell me. I still have the original part that we replaced before, and the sticker on that one said it was manufactured in Mexico. I have been trying to locate the part since August, with the same results as one of the other people who posted a message on this website. Each time you call, you are told another month out. We are now being told end of January. Which we don't believe will happen. What a sorry tale this is, I have a wonderful looking wall oven that is a piece of crap and not worth a dime.

There must be something that the government consumer protection agency can do about a company as large as Whirlpool, not having the parts available to repair appliances that are less than 10 yrs old. I said this to the last girl I talked to from corporate office and she told me they are obligated to have the parts available for the term of the warranty on the appliance. I don't believe that. So after the warranty, you are on your own. I am ready to call to see what can be done by the government regarding these issues. Like the others have already said, to have to go out and spend another $2000 on an appliance that is only seven yrs old is absurd.

The ovens I replaced with this piece of crap were over 25 years old, working fine, and the only reason I changed them was color. Boy did I make a terrible mistake. Holidays were no fun in our house. We are a large Italian family. No cookies this year. I already sent a registered letter to corporate office regarding this issue, and when I heard from them two weeks later, was a call from some secretary telling me what I already knew. That the part was not available. I asked to talk to a higher company representative and she said she was told to call me and tell me there was nothing they could do. The part was on back order.

I know that already, it has been on back order for over five months. I am a real estate agent and I deal with people all the time looking to makeover their kitchens. The first thing out of my mouth is stay away from Whirlpool appliances. I told the phone representative to tell the corporate heads to go on the computer and read all the negative reviews from unhappy consumers like me. I TRULY FEEL THE GOVERNMENT SHOULD DO SOMETHING ABOUT THIS.

I purchased an upright freezer from Lowe's in Sept 2008 and I have had to have it repaired three times and am now waiting on the repair tech to come to my house again! I was told yesterday that they would come today, but today they informed me it will be tomorrow. In the meantime, I have lost another freezer full of food. It was repaired twice before the 12 month warranty went out and I have told them I am not paying for them to come and replace the same defective part every 6-9 months, and if they can't get someone to my house when they say they will, it is obviously because they have too many defective appliances for their repair techs to keep up with.

I paid $600 for this freezer and it is worth about $6 for scrap metal, which is about all it is good for. If they can't get it repaired this time, then I am going to tell them to bring a truck and haul it off because after I pay $129 for a service call, pay for the parts, and replace all the lost food, I will be better off to go out and buy a new freezer, but I can promise you it WILL NOT be a Whirlpool! I also intend to tell everybody I know that Whirlpool appliances are pieces of junk and not worth the stress.

I would rather have paid $1200 and gotten something that actually works than to have to deal with the spoiled food and having to deal with their Customer Service folks on the phone and being told someone would be here today, and then after I make arrangements to have someone there to let the repair tech in, they inform me they aren't coming today. Sure glad I didn't take a vacation day today and sit home waiting on them to show!

*** Update - I finally got a call from their repair tech who told me that even if the problem was a defective part, I would still have to pay him $129 just to knock on my door, and then pay for parts and labor because the last part was over 90 days old. I told him that wasn't happening. He told me to contact Whirlpool directly and see if they would give me concessions so I contacted Whirlpool. Even though they said there has to be something else wrong to cause this part to keep going bad, which means the original warrantied repair tech didn't find the real problem, they refused to give any concessions, or even admit their product was defective.

They also told me that this model freezer had not been reported as having problems so there was nothing they could do since the warranty was out. (I went to the Whirlpool recall site and put my model and serial number in, and it said that my product was on the list of recalled heater defrost elements, but when I told the CS rep, that he just told me I must have typed the wrong information in the computer). They told me I would have to pay the service call charge and parts and labor, even though they did offer a small discount on the replacement parts.

He also told me that even if Whirlpool sent me the free recall part replacement kit that I told him the computer said I needed for my freezer, that I would have to pay to have this installed because I was no longer under warranty and I told him that recall repairs are supposed to be done at no cost to the customer, and he reinformed me that my unit was not eligible for recall parts. I told them I was not paying that kind of money to have someone show up at my house and tell me the same part needed to be replaced again so I hung up and called a local repairman, who is coming tomorrow and is only charging $60 to come to the house and tell me what is wrong.

I'm going to wait and see if I get the recall replacement kit and have this man come back and install it for me. His hourly labor rates are also a lot less than the Whirlpool repair tech rates. So, best thing to do for a non-warranty repair is to call a local appliance repair service and let them fix it for you for a lot less, and they will probably do a better job and even show up when they say they will. Even if I have to pay full price for more part, I will still come out cheaper. Hopefully he will even be able to use generic replacement parts if Whirlpool doesn't send what I need. It's my way of NOT giving Whirlpool any more of my money AND supporting local businesses.

I ordered a complete house full of appliances directly from Whirlpool for our newly constructed home. All items arrived in good shape and several weeks later they were installed into the home. The under counter ice maker for the bar didn't work from day one. The machine would make ice but then melt as fast as it was made.

I made a service appointment via Whirlpool's website and before their service contractor, A&E, came out to look at the unit, a tech with another service company who was out to look at another appliance said that the fan blade had come loose and put it back on. Turns out that the fan blade had fallen off of the motor and the whole unit was heating up. Shortly after he left, it began to heat up again. The A&E tech came a day later and re-installed the blade and said it was fixed but said that he would order a new blade just in case. Within a couple of hours it was hot again and not holding ice. The new fan blade arrived and a different A&E tech came out to replace it.

Turns out (according to the tech) that the part that is specified in the parts catalog is not the part that fits this unit. The tech re-installed the original fan and said that it wouldn't come off this time. Within a couple of hours it was back to the original problem. At this point I'm calling Whirlpool to find out what can be done about the unit. I'm told that all that can be done is to schedule another service call. I tell them that the techs keep doing the same thing and the problem keeps coming back. "The policy states that all we can do is service the unit". I remind them that the unit hasn't worked since we received it.

They don't care, in fact one of the CS reps says, "it's not our fault". Wow. Is it my fault, I wonder. Another service call is placed. This time the A&E tech calls me on his way to the house and says, "I'm the guy who replaced the blade last time". He tells me that he won't be coming to the house because there is nothing more he can do and Whirlpool tech support insists that the replacement blade that was sent was the correct one. So, now it's been three weeks of this back and forth and we're days away from our housewarming party and no ice maker.

I call Customer Service and am told that all they can do now is send a different repair company to give a second opinion. I tell them that I've got three opinions and don't need another one. At this point I ask for a supervisor and am given to ** who appears to have gotten the job by being the least sensitive person they could find when it comes to customer issues. She tells me that, "we haven't had any service issues with these units". Once again it must be my fault that I ordered and received this unit. Maybe I should apologize to them. She does offer to extend my warranty period by a year to make up for my inconvenience.

That's nice but all I want is an icemaker that works today. She tells me again about "policy" and says that she cannot replace the unit but will send out another tech. I tell her to forget it. I want nothing more to do with this company. Here's where Whirlpool has gone incredibly wrong in this whole process: First, their CS personnel are the most unfriendly and insensitive of ANY company that I've ever dealt with. No exaggeration. They have absolutely no clue to how to take of customer issues. They've been trained to say a lot of the right words but deliver them as if they've got a gun to their heads.

It's clear that they really don't give a da*m about the customer. Second, the last thing I want to hear about is their "policy". Your policy should be to take care of the customer at any cost. How many times are you willing to send a tech out at a $100 a pop on my $1000 ice machine? Your policy just cost you a future customer and one who has a big mouth and isn't afraid to use it.

Lastly, I don't want to hear about fault and whether or not they've had problems with a particular model. I'm having problems with my unit and that should be all they care about. When considering the purchase of major appliances, think about how you'll be taken care of (or not) if something goes wrong. Skip Whirlpool and save yourself the frustration.

The long and short of it was, I purchased a Whirlpool Duet HT set - washer and dryer with pedestals - a little over $2200 in March of 2006. The washer without the pedestal base cost $1100 back then. Soon after I bought it, I noticed when I put bleach in the bleach dispenser, it leaked directly onto the clothes. I never got around to calling about that because I was so busy. Very shortly out of warranty, the machine started stopping mid-cycle in one of the wash settings ("Active Wear"). It happened intermittently. Then it started happening in another setting (Heavy Duty), again, intermittently.

I called for service, and when I discovered I had to pay a minimum of $60 for a service call, and likely another $100 for a timer (can't recall if that was what they called it), possibly more, I decided I'd live without those cycles. I was so irritated that I spent $1100 on washer that was going to cost me another couple hundred to fix about 15 months after I bought it. Then I started having intermittent problems with the wash cycles finishing, but I'd open the door to find clothes sitting in 3 inches of water and would have to rinse/Spin them again.

Then this same thing happened only I opened the door and thought the storm drain opened backwards flow - smelly water, soap. Called the store I bought it from, said the machine was only 2and a half years old (at that point) and they told me how to take it apart and check the drain - a full man's sock was stuck in the drain INSIDE the machine - how did that happen? We never overload it.

Then it started getting noisier and noisier when it spun - still with ALL the problems happening above - can't use bleach dispenser, finding clothes sitting in water at end of cycle, finding cycles stopping mid-way (clothes sopping wet/soapy), and once more finding a piece of clothing in the drain. Along the way, the door with the oddly contoured plastic front that jutted out was bumped by one of my kids and it cracked right down the middle. Cosmetic damage since it was the outside only, but looked pretty tacky. Should those things break THAT easy?

Now the entire gasket around the drum has ripped out after the machine made a God awful rattling noise (yes, it was leveled - checked that when it first made noise) and it is unusable. I can't live with the problems anymore and am looking for a new machine. The store salesman suggested I call Whirlpool to see if they'd at least give me a break towards a new machine when I told him why I didn't want a Whirlpool front loader again, and asked if any other manufactured washer would fit on that $200 pedestal. So I called Whirlpool - the answer from ** was, "you should have bought an extended warranty". The supervisor ** told me, essentially, not their problem. The washer is 4 yrs old and I didn't have "extensive service calls" registered.

When I explained I wasn't willing to pay hundreds more on service calls on an already outrageously priced machine and choose to live with it, AND the problems were pretty much all different issues, again... not their problem. They weren't even willing to give me a discount coupon or something towards the purchase of another outrageously priced washer.

I'm not complaining about how much I spent upfront for this machine, but I'd expect it would last longer than a few years without so many issues, and at very least, a customer service department that could understand I shouldn't have had to pay hundreds of dollars for several different fixes for a quality product when I'd already spent $1100. So, live and learn.

Either don't drop so much money on a washer, or go to a company which cares enough about the quality of a product enough to back it up with at least "something" when there are this many problems. I clearly got a lemon (or am cursed?) and see that the company doesn't care once they've sold it. Out of warranty, out of luck.

I titled this for "the mother" simply because few men or any teenager would worry about the following. But lately I am worn-out cleaning my fridge. If Erma Bombeck were alive this would be funnier. She would have had at least 2-3 skits about the following. She was a housewife turned comedian from the 70's-80's.

Lately my son left a package of chicken thawing on my counter. It was then placed in the fridge over night. Tonight I had a Dr. Pepper roll out and another get pinched and spew all over the fridge. In both instances (less than 2 weeks apart) Chicken juice/ or Dr. Pepper leaked all over the glass bottom and dripped into the drawers, and left its sticky residue all over everything. (What a man doesn't know is that a simple wipe won't do.) The gooey remains contaminated every bit of produce in the drawers below and of course anything in its path was rendered lethal.

We all know that salmonella exists in all raw chicken just waiting to kill a member of our families. (Of course, how our forefathers lived with no refrigeration is beyond my comprehension?) This was an opportune moment for me to take seriously the cleaning out of my refrigerator but evenings after teaching little darlings are reserved for recuperative sleep that I typically can't get anyway because I don't have one of those wonderful beds Lindsey advertises.

My suggestion is that the design team come up with a bumper system or something that diverts the spillage to arrive under drawers or some place wipeable. Each instance required removal of the housing that holds the glass and drawers in place. Managing the metal support and replacing all devices to render the fridge back to "square one" is at least 1 hour to 2 hour indulgence. It also requires a degree in structural engineering or a dramatic flare for juggling.

The plastic supports have intricate hollow areas to save our planet from the over use of plastic. (And other dramatic negative environmental factors.) Each little space required a rinse and dry or diluted splash of bleach. Grooves of every width which were unable to be reached had to be sprayed with hot water. This created a wet mess in a 30 ' swath around my kitchen sink. Since most of the apparatus would not even fit in the sink.

(Of course no one anywhere cares about this, but as a mom who wishes to alert design teams everywhere, I thought I would at least try to be funny in order that someone might take this seriously enough to change how fridges drain spillage. The Whirlpool fridge is about 10 years old and is still in great shape. I am hoping that designs have alleviated this flaw in newer models to prevent the lengthy cleaning process.

Another funny fridge story comes to mind when the "1940's" "fat" fridge died and all contents had to be moved to a second fridge in our earthen basement. I was late for work and when the 2 dozen night crawlers were dumped on the floor as I tried to rush to move the contents while getting ready to leave for work I thought I could take no more. The two year old at the time was excited because he thought we were going fishing.

Needless to say, night crawlers have not been in my fridge since. Hopefully design crews remember that there was no need to bleach everything, the dirt was cleaner than the chicken juice back in the 80's. :) By the way we haven't had a fridge that has lasted as long as the relic Hotpoint that lasted over 40 years. Hope you enjoyed.

SEMINOLE, FLORIDA -- Don't buy Whirlpool! Purchased a glass top stove 2 1/2 years ago. $638. It's now dead.
Thank you Whirlpool for Chinese garbage all for corporate profits. Never again

WEST BEND, WISCONSIN -- Steam cleaning does not work. I do not want to be on my hands and knees scraping and cleaning every small spill. This is a scam. The Whirlpool company has very poor customer relations and will not do anything about this. I was willing to get a partial credit to have the oven returned and purchase a heat cleaning oven. They would not even consider this. Advertising steam cleaning as a viable energy saving product is ridiculous.

CLEMMONS, NORTH CAROLINA -- Have a 1 year old Whirlpool stove - paid $800. Just as it went out of warranty the oven starts overheating. Verdict - the control panel $450 (installed). Anyone have any luck getting satisfaction with the company? That's insane!! I've heard of the terrible quality of appliances these days, but one year? Sounds like what Chrysler did with the mini van (our engine went out just after the warranty). Anyone who's had some success, please share your tips.

UTAH -- I purchased a smart oven that has not worked from the start. I had one repair done which required time off of work and now it still doesn't work and they insist on another repair when I just want to return the item. Huge waste of my time for something less than 60 days old.

CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS -- They keep you on hold forever and they never keep the record for the repair request and you have to keep giving them the same information, never have the answer to your questions or sending their repair services. Never again buying their extended warranty or their products.