GE to Stop Making Appliances; I Shed No Tears

Filed in archive General on May 16, 2008

So GE is going to sell off its appliance business. I wish they'd done it before I bought my refrigerator.

I've never thought General Electric made the greatest appliances, but they're a brand name that supposedly you can trust, so we bought a GE refrigerator from Best Buy. (I should mention that we had an abnormally small space in which to insert a refrigerator and our choices were limited, so GE sort of won by default.) Although I detest the extended warranties that Best Buy is always pushing, this is one case where we got a bum product that could've used it.

The refrigerator and freezer work fine; things stay cold. The problem is the ice dispenser; it's horrible. It has broken multiple times; the repairmen that have come to fix it have been alternately clueless or grumpy, to an extent that we've never been sure what the heck is going on, as they either don't know themselves or they Mutter under their breath in a way that leaves you ready to get on your hands and knees and beg them to treat you with the smallest ounce of respect. But of course you know they wouldn't.

After many attempts the icemaker was fixed, only to have a new problem emerge a little while later. These days the ice often gets stuck inside the refrigerator, not coming out the dispenser hole in the freezer door. So then we have to open the freezer door, get our glass situated under the dispenser hole, and push the ice through from the inside with our other hand. This is annoying.

What's worse is that sometimes if you forget about the problem and just go to get ice while you're talking or thinking about something else, the ice loads up on the inside, with none falling in your glass, but when you open the freezer door, it comes overflowing out, skittering across the kitchen floor, leaving a wet, dangerous situation. (Maybe not that dangerous, but, hey, I have slipped on a piece of that attacking ice before.)

GE, I won't miss you. (I'm content with your light bulbs, though.)