I need to buy some appliances all of a sudden. Freezer went last week and Washer blew out a bearing this morning, and the Dryer is giving me the side eye like it's gonna turn on me any day now...
Would anybody buy anything labeled Kenmore at this time?
Hoo boy, the appliances department has been having serious issues too, in multiple aspects.
I saw employee rumors starting several months ago about the better-known manufacturers for Kenmore planning to reduce their Kenmore production (Whirlpool already has and now LG reportedly is too), and Sears planning to fill the gap with things made for Kenmore by Daewoo. Supposedly this is a more respected-in-their-home-country branch of the 'Daewoo' conglomerate than the defunct branch that made the lame cars decades ago, but that's gotta be a hard sell outside of Korea.
The latest gossip on this today: "In appliances, Daewoo is a major new supplier, as will be several major Chinese brands, including Hisense, Haier, Wanfoo (a/k/a TCL), and Gree. Galanz and Happy Times may also follow."
Sadly, Haier might be the best of the bunch - they were low-end junk 10-20 years ago, but it seems like they have been working hard to improve, and
they bought out GE's appliance business a couple years ago. Similar situation as Lenovo acquiring all of IBM's computer business a few years ago.
The stealthily-Sears-owned appliance delivery/installation business, Innovel,
has been trying to branch out beyond Sears, delivering for a bunch of other retailers now too, including Costco. In my experience, they come in unmarked trucks and wear shirts that just generically say "Authorized Installer" or something like that, but they might come branded as "Innovel" sometimes too; they won't say anything about Sears anywhere, because of all their other clients they have to switch off between. They get a goodly amount of customer complaints for delivery issues, but perhaps no more than HD/Lowes, it's hard to compare. Must not be *too* bad if all those other companies are using them too now. The biggest problem seems to be that you have to go through Sears to get issues with Innovel resolved on a Sears purchase, and Sears isn't doing very well at relaying communications.
You definitely don't want to buy a protection agreement if you do buy an appliance through Sears. I saw an employee say a couple days ago that the repair division has been having so much trouble retaining competent/trained appliance technicians, they've supposedly had to start sending out lawn equipment techs on some appliance service calls. And that's if they can manage to get parts at all. LG and Samsung (which *for now* are major Kenmore manufacturers) have been notorious for their parts being hard to get for any company (not just Sears), but Sears's increasing problems with paying suppliers on schedule has led to them having problems getting parts for just about any appliance or other thing they're supposed to be servicing. They will keep rescheduling appointments for *months* in some cases while they try to get parts. They are heavily resistant to swapping out an effectively-unrepairable or repeatedly-repaired appliance for a new one, but have occasionally been convinced to do so, in some cases only after the customer gets so pissed that they go to the media (and in one recently-publicized case involving a boiler, even that didn't work to get Sears on it, Home Depot swooped in to save the day).
I may put in another order to take advantage of the free shipping before the end date.
