Excuse me while I vomit.

[laundromat]

GE washers

I think what GE has done is taken the frequincy of repair listing on FRONT LOADERS where CR has them rated most dependable (and all of us know they have sourced out to Electrolux to build these for them)with fewer repairs followed closely by Kenmore and Frigidaire but didn't mention anything about their(GE) most recent models in the line up.That didn't make any sense at all.If their repair record in front loaders is so great,why weren't they listed in the line up???I can't begin to tell you how many of their TL's we get returned due to either DOA or customer stupidity(they rarely take out the shipping bar when they do the "Do it yourself"instalation.)because the don't follow the simple instructions that come with the machines.

 

[christd1]

Misleading....

laundromat- You have hit the nail on the head. How misleading is it to say...'our product is the most dependable...here is our new product that will be dependable too...(oh by the way, we don't make either one of these products and we are changing from Electrolux/Frigidaire produced product to Asian produced product)

 

[peterh770]

GE is trying very hard to reclaim market share in the coin-op world. They have allegedly fixed many of the problems that the new design has had up until now. From talking to several coin-op owners that have the most recent GE TL models, I'm inclined to believe that washer quality is on the way up and GE might deserve a second chance...

 

[agiflow]

For ge's sake

It would be nice to see GE make a comeback in laundry products.
I really hope they have addressed the reliability issues.

I have seen their TOL electronic washers and i must admit i thought they were very nice machines,if only the SS washtub didn't look like the inside of a soda can.

Not only that,but that seam in the tub...no thanks.

 

[kenmore1978]

Soda Can

Actually, today's soda cans are BETTER! They're extruded from one piece of aluminum and there is no seam anymore. When's the last time you've seen a seam on a soda can? Think about it

 

[agiflow]

Seeing how we have only a few american manufacturers left,we should give GE a second chance and hope they can rise to the top again.

 

[david]

GE's

Come Now! It's entirely possible for GE to make dependable washers and dryers, top loading washers that is. I know there were some real issues after the end of the filter-flo era up until recently, but it looks like the rate of serious repair in CR's time frame reporting is down to about 10% from over 15% not too many years back. I know a man who bought a set from an independent dealer and seems happy with them. They are probably fine for a single or couple who does regular loads and takes care of the machines, but I don't know how well GE's can stand up to larger family use or multiple occupants. Only two or three models in Feb's CR were rated as good in washing ability. CR skipped several GE models because they did not wash clothes well as most of you CR readers have noted by now. The lowly Admiral (a Norgetag product) was rated very good for washing ability and also was a noisy waterhog, but for 300 bucks, that ain't so bad. If its just a basic machine that does good-there it is! It's a Performa with Admiral nameplate tacked-on, less features obviously, but the matching dryer busted out of the dryer ratings on the opposite page with only good drying ability. Not so bad again! If cheap and basic but good is what a persons looking for, these are the ones.

 

[tolivac]

Why doesn't GE revive the Filter-Flo?It worked and I bet people would want it-and be willing to pay for it.And make it the old quality way.No more stamped SS tanks or plastic tanks--I think the deep "ribs" on the new SS tank was to reinforce the thin sheet metal used to make it for stiffness.Like to see the thickness of the metal in it.I think the sheet metal parts these days is too thin.-whether it be tubs or cabinet panels.

 

[Designgeek]

Cost of shipping. When things are made overseas, every pound counts. Also price of steel. And both of those are affected by the price of oil.

 

[agiflow]

Soda Can

Hi KM78,true there are no seams in a soda can,but you get what i was saying,the ss baskets seem more like cheap aluminum,very thin to say the least.

 

[pulsator-power]

Vomit

Getting back to the original premise, can you imagine going to Home Depot & puking right in front of the GE's

 

[Ken_moore]

I believe!

Greetings! GE: We bring good things to death...I should start by saying I dislike how GE profits through defense contract spending. Then there's that whole blood-sucking leach on the world economy known as "financial services" in which GE is a big player. Don't even get me started on Welch and that modern business cult of six sigma. Despite all this, they do still make appliances, and thats what we need to focus on. In fact, given that they're the "deepest pockets" of any of the big 4, I bet they have whole rooms full of lawyers approving a press release like the one linked in the OP. If they say they're the most reliable washers, they wouldn't risk the false advertising claims that would result if that were not demonstrable through a phalanx of research. I believe them.

Look at the CR reliability ratings. Remember where GE was 3 years ago? The worst. By far the worst. Ridiculously bad. In the most current rankings, they're middle of the pack. Statistically, you'd have to be making some pretty reliable machines right now to make such a jump in the ratings. The changes would have to be made 3+ years ago to make a difference now, so maybe that six sigma crap actually worked. Maybe they looked at the worst-ranking performance for laundry products and actually did something about it. Now, they're reaping the rewards.

I don't think there was transference of the FL ranking to the TL rankings. Although I don't think CR subscribers are the brightest lot in the world, hopefully they can tell which kind of machine they have.

Yes, they're an American manufcaturer. Sort of. They're a multinational corporation. Most of their laundry products are made in Canada, not the USA. Close enough? I'm saddened to see all these Asian imports flooding the market, and I think its important to buy American. Do any GE's qualify?

Regards,
Ken

 

[steved]

My understanding is that the appliance division hasn't been fairing too well, and has been for sale for sometime now.... it is not unlike them to just dispose of anything that isnt profitable; I know this from growing up in GE's home town of Schenectady, NY. Jack Welsh said if the EPA forced GE to clean up the PCB's in the Hudson River, he would pull totally out of NY. They have torn down several buildings at the main plant over the past few years, with the workforce down to about 2500, from over 40,000 in the early 50's.... things that make you say "hmmm".

 

[peterh770]

The tools for our national defense have to come from somewhere. If not GE, who is also a leader in medical technology, then from someone else. All washer manufactures were put on hold for national defense in the 1940's, and we won that one for Europe, so hat's off to GE for helping our troups and keeping us safe.

Maybe GE's jump in ratings so quickly isn't from that rapid an increase in reliability, but rather from other manuacturers' products becoming poor more quickly.

The old Filter-Flo style was discontinued for a variety of reasons. Having 6 of them in my laundromat, I think the main reason was that they saw Energy Star restricitons coming their way and knew that there was no possible way the design could compete. Remember, in that design there is about 2-3 inches between the inner tub and the wash basket, all the way around, and even more at the bottom. The amount of water it takes to fill that thing - twice! - is just out of this world. Yes, they wash good, yes they spin good, yes they take abuse wonderfully, but those washers could irrigate the state of Iowa with every wash cycle! There is also very, very little plastic or aluminum in the machine; it's all heavy metal and porcelain. The only consistant problem I have had with mine is the oil seal in the transmissions failing, and even then replacing the transmission in a GE is very, very easy to do. But they had to change, just like WP and MYG had to change. And now it seems that companies are only interested in shareholder return instead of consumer image and product quality.

 

[tolivac]

I know this is a little off the topic-but sort of interesting-the SW transmitters I use at my workplace came from the GE factory in electronics Park-Syracuse NY. Wonder if this plant is still in use?Many of their commercial broadcast transmitters were built there as well.AM,FM and Television.The transformers used in the transmitters I use came from the GE transformer factory in Pittsfeild Mass.This I know has been closed down.Major PCB cleanups there.The SW transmitters I use werte built in the early 60's.Still going strong today.They were part of a Govt contract.
GE's defense division-Someone has to build the weapons and military equipment needed to defend our country-and preseve our freedom.Weapons are another interest to me besides appliances-despite their use for death and destruction-the weapons are interesting devices.Just about ANY major US company is involved in some sort of govt contracts in building weapons and other defense products.-Its not just GE.
I would think the GE Filter Flo design could be modified to meet water requiments.And yes I am willing to pay for sturdier sheet metal and other parts.Its still too bad about the PCB pollution GE caused-as well as other el;ectronic and electrical manufacturers.At those times PCB's weren't considered dangerous.It wasn't until the early 70's when the danger was apperent.And yes some PCB equipment may still be in use-Look up on the nearest utility pole--that old "pole pig" transformer may contain PCB's.GE and Westinghouse made thousands of them.Many still in use.Some substation transformers contain it as well.Grandfathered under the laws.Its just when the PCB containing device fails-it has to be disposed of by a licensed PCB disposal company.And oh-yes many PCB caps in use as well.Don't want to frighten anyone-the devices are pretty reliable.The owner just has to monitor them for leakages or other problems.Same with broadcast transmitters still in use that may have PCB containing transformers and caps.Have had to deal with those.

 

[bwoods]

GE

I work at Wright State University in Dayton, OH and we have several students who have done co-op at GE Appliance Park in Louisville, KY. And we have one who got employed there full time. Since I am very interesed in appliances I always talk to the students in great length at GE. For the most part, the Appliance Park employees and administration are very very dedicated and loyal to GE and are committed to producing high quality appliances. However, they are quite frustrated at getting little support and research money from the top dogs in the corporation. It all started in 1980 with Welch who was a chemical engineer (and a bad one). His goal was to take GE from a manufacturing organization to a service organization. He first sold the AC division to Trane in 1982 (Welch admitted he hated AC) and then the housewares division in 1984 to Black and Decker (He thought GE making things like peeling wands and mixers was silly for a giant corporation). In 1986/87 he sold and partially traded the TV and electronics division to Tompson in France. He used the monies from these sales to purchase NBC and further boost the financial services division. If you remember he even changed the GE logo from the script GE in the circle to a printed GE (like on top of the GE building in New York. This was the only time he backed down when there was such an outcry to his deleting of the historical GE trademark. His goal was to build his ego by changing the company the way he wanted. In choosing his succesor, Jeff Immet, he search hard to find a clone who would continue to alter the company and reform it the way he wanted. He found the ideal person in Immelt who continues to do Welch's will. Immelt is not even an engineering. He has an MBA and cares nothing about appliances, electronics, etc. Welch continues to be on the payroll of GE and serve as a "consultant". He is a svengali who continues to make Immelts diecisions. As someone mentioned in the thread, he is trying to sell the appliance division AND has been working with A.O. Smith on the sale of the motors division.

It's extremely sad to see GE going the way Westinghouse did, selling off their limbs. Westinghouse went out of business. GE will too one day. The financial services division is too dependent on the economy. Look how much money GE lost on it's insurance division when the World Trade Center collapsed. They will be sorry if they sell off their appliance division.

No matter how bad the economy, people have to wash their clothes. They have to cook food, etc. Their housewares division and electronics division were making small, but consisstent profits, but Welch didn't like them. Even in bad economic times people can afford toasters, blenders for themselves and there are always wedding and Christmas gifts, etc. And of course will watch TV.

Sorry if I sound bitter, but I love GE, am a stockholder and all my appliances have always been GE. Their appliances, both large and small, were always creatively designed and engineered to last. But the company is slowly being ruined by people (Welch and Immelt) trying to shape it in their own image. No one thought Westinghouse would go belly up, but GE is on the same path. There finances look strong now, but after all their major manufaturing limbs have been removed (I soon expect Immelt to sell of the lighting division also) they will have nothing to keep them afloat during bad economic time.

If their appliances currently are not what they used to be, blame the little, stuttering, loud mouthed runt, Welch and his syncohant, Immelt. Welch did not want GE to be known as the General Electric Company anymore, that's why he changed the name to the GE corporation so they would not be associated with Electricity, appliances, manufacturing, etc. GE was created to produce household and commercial appliances and equipment. That's what the coorporation was for, not for boosting stockholders shares. Let's hope one day an engineer whol loves appliances and electronics becomes CEO and maybe GE can return to its fomer glory. The above is my personal opinion, of course, but I am sure many of you are saddened also, by GE's decline in the appliance industry.

Barry Woods

 

[coldspot66]

I knew things started to go south when Welch took the helm. The rotary compressor fiasco of the mid '80's was the first of GE's appliance woes. Too bad they want to get away from their "core" business. Have you read "A Walk Through The Park"? A history of Appliance Park from it's beginings in 1951. Fascinating chronilogical history of GE!

 

[Designgeek]

Sad to hear about GE under Welch. Ad-hominems about his height or possible speech disabilities don't do the case justice though.

What you're describing is the classic go-go 80s & 90s business model, switching from dealing with physical "stuff" to dealing with financial "stuff" as far divorced from physical matter as can be; combined with the risk-management mentality (which I personally call "corporate cowardice"); combined with the switchover from managers with line background (operations) to managers with staff backgrounds (finance).

Strictly speaking, the legally-required nature of any publicly-traded corporation is to maximize shareholder value. The place where the real identity of a corporation comes into being, is how they go about doing that. For example under the old-school model, by making the highest-quality or lowest-cost or best-cost-for-price appliances possible. By demonstrating concern for something beyond the bottom line, something to do with quality or value or innovation or corporate citizenship.

Brand equity was based on something real and tangible, in a society where "word of mouth" (brand recommendations from family and friends) was a much more prevalent component of the bottom line than it is in these media-overdosed times. Today brand equity is another element that's been studied to death, to the point where it can be manipulated as an independent variable. Which is to say, there are ways to create entirely fictitious brand equity that is based on exactly nothing of substance. Nike is the prime example of this one: all about image, all about slick TV advertising, and in reality what you have is merely a halfway decent pair of sneakers made by child labor in sweatshops.

There are a few good examples of the oldschool way still around. Microsoft, interestingly enough, is one: Gates after all was a geek from the beginning, and despite Microsoft's other problems, it's still basically a geek shop. Apple is another, and has stood by the old model of producing its own hardware to high standards. I'm willing to venture that Ford is another; still in family management, by the family that brought the motorcar to the world; no other family or management group in the world is probably as thoroughly saturated with expertise about every detail of the engineering and financial aspects and history and legacy of that industry. (Imagine how it would feel to know that your name is on probably tens of millions of cars and trucks around the world, hmm!)

I may as well weigh in on defense contracting while I'm at it. IMHO it's perfectly OK, and if it's done right, it's an honorable industry. If it's done wrong or corruptly, it's a near-treasonous scandal. So we have to count on having arms manufacturers who play by the rules and produce ordnance that performs properly. Not only for the sake of our own troops who use the stuff, but also in this era of increasingly precise weaponry, for the sake of civilians who happen to get caught in war zones.

Last but not least about GE: GE Wind produces the largest multi-megawatt wind turbines in North America, topping out (last time I checked) at 4.8 megawatts. When one of those is installed in a class 5 wind area, it can power nearly 5,000 houses. But of course when you're building a wind farm, you don't install just one, you install tens or hundreds of them. GE used to produce nuclear power reactors in the USA also (may still be doing so for overseas installations), hopefully they will start doing so again; we need all the non-fossil energy we can get right now.

Bwoods, do you know anything about GE's chances of getting back into nuclear? Franky a couple of new gigawatt-size reactors would go a long way toward undoing some of Welsh's other sins, and could open the doors to a few hundred more gigawatts that we're going to need -for starters- as world oil production peaks some time in the next ten years.

 

[tolivac]

GE

GE is still servicing the Nuclear plants they built and installed for overseas customers.Would like to see more of the nuclear power plants licensed in the US. We have an abundance of fuel to run them.In the power trade you would normally use the fuel that is least expensive and abundant in the area-(thats why coal is still popular-we have LOTS of it)The windmills are a good idea-but would have to be put in non-populated areas-they don't pose a hazard for people-some just complain about their noise and that they are not "attractive"-but if they lower the power bill-that may be another matter-folks then accept it.Some scientists were concerned that the windmill turbines could pose a hazard to migrating birds.You wouldn't be able to put them in the major migration "flyways"And another note on the nuclear plants-Years ago when I lived in the DC area-VEPCO wanted to install a nuke plant-protesters were against it-when they opened the plant and put it on line-the protests vanished when customers power bills went down!
On the weapons manufaturing-some of the companies are foreign owned-I think this could present a security issue!Olin Industries and Remington Arms are examples.The tank gun on the M1 Abrams tank is built by a German company-same with its ammo.I do have some concerns about our sopisticated weapons-they tend to hit what they are aimed at-the gunner sure has to be SURE of his target-The weapons still doesn't know the diffence between freind or foe-esp if the target isn't identified.The gunner just has to be sure its an ENEMY target he is aiming at.

 

[Designgeek]

I did some design work on a utility-scale wind installation, and we were in pretty close contact with the bird data. Turns out the hazard is near zero with modern turbines.

The old ones got a bad rap because they used lattice towers (inviting place to perch) and high-speed rotors (invisible while spinning). The crude joke about those old machines is, you could open up a Seagull McNugget stand nearby and serve 'em fresh every day.

But the new ones are on smooth cylindrical towers (no place to perch) and turn at 15 - 20 RPM, so the blades are visible to birds. Birds avoid the blades just as they avoid tree branches waving in the breeze, and similar objects.

As far as "appearance" is concerned, I never understood that one. Industrial stuff is cool. Wind towers are cooler because they're huge 300' high is typical of the larger ones. And noise isn't a factor, you can barely hear 'em when standing underneath. People should have more appreciation for the infrastructure that makes their lives comfortable. I think of that when I drive by the oil refineries in Richmond, and the tank farms on the hillsides. Especially at night, they look like something out of science fiction, with lights twinkling amidst the towers and tanks and networks of pipes and so on. I would have no problem living near one of those, or a nuclear or wind installation.

The only real problem with wind is intermittency, even if you're in a class-5 wind area. For that reason, wind can be about 20% of the grid in most places, because other generating resources have to be able to respond to increase or decrease production as the inverse of what the wind generators are putting out. If you have hydro nearby, all the better, because the reservoir acts like a battery, and can respond quickly to changes in wind output and power demand.

It's going to take a lot of wind and a lot of uranium to make the future hum, particularly as oil starts to peak out in a few years. Fortunately the US has good uranium resources, as does Australia, and we don't have to worry about terrorist nutcases taking over in Australia.

When you hear abou the "hydrogen economy," what's implicit is that it will require major nuclear and wind development. Hydrogen is not an energy source, it's simply a transport medium, i.e. a carrier of embodied energy. The energy to produce the hydrogen has to come from somewhere, i.e. wind & uranium. You can take the entire output of a windfarm or a reactor, and put it into producing hydrogen: this lets you site the turbines & reactors in places where the grid is either insuffiicient or is already well-supplied with electricity. So it adds up to a greater degree of freedom of location when choosing places to build the generating facilities.