5.04.2012

do not buy a cuisinart electric percolator. i will not make that mistake again.

I am fuming. Friggin' fuming.

Remember my coffee maker, the Cuisinart electric percolator? I was impressed that Cuisinart, a division of Conair, honoured their three-year warranty.

Short version: the replacement percolator that they sent me has broken after only eight months of use. The company has told me that this unit is not covered under a separate warranty. It is covered under a warranty from the original unit, and that has run out.

Longer version. August 18, 2011:
Two weeks ago, my coffee maker broke. It was a electric percolator (I wrote about my preference for it here), made by Cuisinart. It's the third such percolator I've had in a six-year span. One day they just stop working.

I purchased this particular coffee maker 13 months ago. After digging through my receipts and warranties and instruction booklets, I learned Cuisinart has an unusual three-year warranty. To access the warranty, we had pack up the coffee maker, ship it to a service centre, enclose a $10 cheque for return postage, and wait an estimated two weeks. Meanwhile, we had to buy another coffee maker, which, if it will last long enough, could be our back-up for the next time the electric percolator breaks - but is more likely to break well before it is needed again.

The broken percolator was inconvenient, and annoying, and wasteful. But at least I can - presumably - get a replacement from Cuisinart.
August 26, 2011:
Although the damn thing broke after only 13 months of use - and although I was very annoyed at having to ship it at my own expense to the service centre - and although I was even more annoyed that the warranty also required me to pay the return postage - a new Cuisinart electric percolator has just arrived on my doorstep, 14 days after we mailed off the broken one. The new one still includes Cuisinart's three-year warranty. Perhaps if they have to replace enough of them, they'll start making them more durable.

Also, I did not have the receipt for the broken percolator. It seemed like I had every receipt for every item I've ever purchased, except that one. The coffee maker itself has a serial number, and from that the company can tell when it shipped to the store. You just have to hope it wasn't sitting in the store for two years before you purchased it.
Now the replacement percolator I received last August has stopped working. Because (as noted above) the warranty was dated from the shipment to the store, not from the date of my purchase, it's possible that I missed a few months on the warranty. Nevertheless, the new unit says it has a three-year warranty. But apparently that is not really true.

I had some trouble with my BlackBerry while it was still under warranty. Wind replaced it, but told me the replacement was not covered under a new warranty; the warranty still started from the date of purchase only. I thought this was ridiculous and perhaps unusual. Now I see it is probably the norm.

Someone has posted instructions on how to fix an electric percolator, but that's not something I would attempt. In comments the blogger mentions the fix was temporary anyway.

I have a strong preference for an electric percolator over drip or French press. But the only electric percolator I can find in the GTA is Cuisinart, and I'm not buying this piece of crap again.

My most recent rant about disposability and planned obsolescence is here, and there's some good stuff in comments as well.

Grrr.

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