Buying Appliances

Buying New Appliances

The way we buy new appliances is changing. We used to go to an appliance dealer to gather information for our buying decision. Now we can gather the technical and reliability information from buying guides and the Internet. After deciding what you want, right down to the model number, you can call the local dealers for the best price and have it delivered without ever leaving your home. Very soon you can gather all of your buying information and purchase the appliance over the Internet. Read the restoration and repair information in this site and you will detect the author's bias as to which brands have the best long term reliability.

Appliance brands

There are a myriad of appliance bands on the market. Often several brands are made by the same manufacturer to be sold though different store chains. Appliance411 has categorized this rebranding and made a chart of the OEM manufacturers of numerous appliance bands. If you're sold on a particular manufacturer, this information may help you to find an alternate that may be less expensive.

Appliance411 : The Purchase : Who makes what?

Buying Used Appliances

Taking Advantage of Depreciation

The primary incentive to buy used appliances is the reduced purchase price over buying a new one. New appliances depreciate just like automobiles. Appliances can depreciate to half of their purchase price in two or three years. If the service life before repairs are required is 10 to 12 years, a slightly used appliance purchase can be a sound investment.

Example

If the new appliance purchase price was $500 and the expected repair-free life was 10 years, then the functional value is roughly $500 divided by 10 years or $50 per year. If this machine is purchased used for $250 when it was 3 years old, the buyer would be picking up the remaining 7 years of repair-free use, valued at $350, for $250.

Downside

If buying used appliances is so great, why doesn't everyone buy them this way? Here are some of the downsides:

The owner is selling his appliance because he thinks it's a lemon - and it really is!!
The seller is misrepresenting the machine's age and mechanical condition. (Find the actual age using this service: Appliance411 : Applaince Age Finder)
There is no warranty; it's being sold "as is".