LG=Life's Good? I think not!

Automatic Washer - The world's coolest Washing Machines, Dryers and Dishwashers

Help Support :

Oxydolfan1

I am not an "expert" by any means on new electronics, so the advice I give to anyone is that no brand is that good anymore. I tell people to get a set that has the features they need, the best picture, and the best price. Finally it is wise to get an extended warranty. In the electronics industry none of the brands we grew up with are what they were. They have all gone "under" and the names were purchased and being "whored out" by the firms that own them now. Even Sony is "farmed out" on their CRT sets as far as I know (not sure of LCD/Plasma). Sony can't even afford to have their products made in Japan anymore. I will say at my job, corporate purchased LG LCD monitors and they have been fine. Maybe they ARE trying to up the quality from the horrid Gold Star junk they hoisted on us.
 
We had one of the first Zenith 27" Color sets produced after the Zenith buy out. The thing went thru three power supplies in 6 years. Then about three years ago it caught fire in the middle of the night, while it was off. We have cathedral ceilings in this house so the smoke detectors didn't go off. One of our dogs woke us up to find the bedroom was so smoky you could barely see. I unplugged the damn set and called the fire department, who took it out to the back yard for us. Fortunately, all we suffered was a scorched wall and smoke damage to the walls.
Funny thing about it though, we had the melted remains of it sitting on our patio for a few days and whenever Brandy, the dog who alerted us to the fire would see it, she's woof at it and keep her distance! She had a look on her face like she didn't trust it. We replaced this set with a Sony Wega that seems to be trouble free.
 
LG Electronics

I recently purchased an LG LCD monitor, and no problems yet.

How well I remember those horrid Goldstar electronics and microwaves! They were the kind of cheesey stuff that Wal-Mart carried to appeal to budget-minded (if not absentminded) consumers. Funny how a name change can make a product once deemed inferior seem appealing. I hope my monitor lasts!
 
Dehumidifier

My friend Penny purchased a LG Dehumidifier last summer and you should hear the noise generated by the worn out bearings in the fan motor. I guess they are only designed to last 1 season. I'm still running my old Westinghouse Dehumidifier that is close to 40 years old and it still works like new.

Friedrich still makes AC units in the US (Texas I believe) but they are expensive compared to the cheap imports but hopefully worth it.
 
Beware the Maytag dehumidifiers sold at Home Depot. They are not worth the cartons they are packed in.

Yes, there was a disastrous Zenith TV period....remember the disasterous GE/RCA period, the disasterous Philips Magnavox period, now being followed up by the disasterous Toshiba period.

Yikes....can Panasonic be far behind? lol....
 
The Friedrich still freezes!!

Our reverse cycle Friedrich window unit, located in the sunroom, is still going strong after 14 years of Texas heat! It ain't the prettiest thing I've ever seen, but what a workhorse!!
 
Oxydolfan1 & David

Oxydolfan1, YES! You must be familiar with electronics as well. RCA/GE's HORRIBLE CTC-175-177 chassis. So many many BAD solder joints. The sets "lost" channels, had low volume, and would turn on and off at will. Philips/Magnavox with the flybacks that would burn up. Am not aware of the Toshiba issues altho I found out the "high-end" Toshiba 24" Flat screen set (Sony Wega clone) that I bought in 2003 was actually made by Orion which rivals LG/Goldstar in pure crap. So yes... beware of Toshiba. And yes David... LG IS Goldstar. We had a "Pamida" store in the next town over where I grew up. When my Uncle still had his shop we hated seeing that crap come in the door for repair.
 
3 years ago, I bought two 8k BTU Friedrich window units. They are very quiet & efficient, but have no where near the quality of the 18k BTU unit that was installed in my previous home in 1980 and is still going strong today. At the time I bought mine, I heard that the small Friedrichs were going to be made across the Pacific. I do not know if that happened, but my two were made here. I had to make gaskets to keep wind from blowing in around the slide out chassis. I had to glue the air exchanger closed to seal the leaks around that and every summer, the one downstairs develops a clogged drain tube and has to be reamed out.
 
LG = Lucky Goldstar

Ross:

Lucky Goldstar, eh? Does this mean that you're "lucky" if it lasts? ;-)
 
RCA POS tv's

I remember in the late 80s I had a TV that had a mind of its own. The panel buttons long quit working and then it would go on and off at it's own will. The sound was crap but it had a nice picture. On the other hand, my mom had a 1988 19" Zenith Space Command (the real thing) that survived all the way until the flood.
 
Samsung is another brand that somehow managed to elevate itself from being dime store knockoffs along with LG Goldstar. How did they do it?
Now when you walk down the electronics aisle of any discount store or drug store all the names on the cheapest of the cheap Chinese electronic junk are names like RCA, Westinghouse, Bell & Howell.
 
RCA televisions were the best until GE bought them out, then re-sold both of their electronics operations to Tomson of France. The RCA nameplate is used so loosely right now, I bet I could get GE to license it for me to put it on a kid's soapbox derby car! Chromacolor, you have probably also experienced the dreaded RCA CTC169 chassis, that would blow up high-voltage power supplies regularly!

It's pretty sad what happened to Zenith, they used to be one of the best electronics makers out there. I guess all the great american names have dissapeared because of corporate greed. The CEO's of these companies were not interested in making good products people liked, but making a quick buck off of the stock market, and their name.

The worst part about this is that even the Japanese companies have been left behind in the flat-panel TV industry now leaving only cheap Korean and Chinese junk brands out there. The only one I know of that's worth anything is Samsung. Still, if you can get your hands on an NEC plasma, they are the Mercedes-benz of the flat-panel market. My company has installed thousands of those things around, and I have only seen one fail, and that was due to a power problem, not a fault of the set though! Some are even in 24/4 duty at airports!

Does Carrier still make their own window units? I remember them and Friedrich were the two top dogs in the industry back in the day. The school system around here installed Friedrich air conditioners all over the campus-style schools back when I was a kid. Most are still working perfectly!
 
It seems in the south, Freidrich is the leading air conditioning unit you see them all over the place! As many have said in this thread, there must be a reason!

Speaking of Zenith, our entire family were all big Zenith buyers.
Quite a few have sets today still going strong even from the early 80's. It is sad that the big American names have all been trashed out now. BTW, Samsung is a Korean company.
 
I bought a 6.5K BTU Friedrich back in 1984 for a bedroom at my grandmother's when I stayed there on weekends. It was stored unused for several years, but we used it temporarily when her main kitchen unit went bad a few years ago. It worked perfectly (except the bi-metal thermostat has never been very accurate or consistent) although the accordian panels and foam strips had deteriorated. The kitchen unit was a Fedders (with strip heat), had a locked compressor. I replaced it with a 16K BTU Friedrich, also with strip heat, it does a great job.

A 24K BTU Whirlpool unit was installed in projection at the theater some years ago, and a 12K heat-pump in the office. The office unit's compressor failed during warranty, then it failed again out of warranty. Replacement was another Whirlpool with strip heat. The fan motor (an LG motor) went bad last year, and it also now has either a bad compressor or a refrigerant leak, as it doesn't cool to anywhere near capacity any more. The projection unit suffered a locked compressor a couple years ago, and was replaced with a Friedrich.
 
My family's 1984 Sylvania

In 1984 my folks bought a Sylvania TV set for the living room. I think i was about 25 inches and it had a remote control. That set had a mind of its own. The volume would go up and down at will, same with channels. It is the only TV I have ever seen that could channel surf on its own. The worst part was that it would turn on and off at will too, and when it turned on it did so at full volume.
In 1994 my folks got sick of this and replaced the TV and put the old one in their bedroom! The last straw for that TV was when it turned on at about 3:00 in the morning at full volume to an evangelical preacher. All we heard was "YOUR TIME HAS COME!!!!!!" Followed by CRASH (my dad levitating up out of bed and then falling onto the floor). Once landed, my dad yelled "NO LORD DON'T TAKE ME, IT'S NOT MY TIME YET!" After we all realized what was going on, there was one of the most well-executed shows of profanity I have ever heard. The TV was sent to meet it's maker the next day.

Mitsubishi makes a pretty good TV these days (they also merged with NEC), and I am also quite pleased with my 27 inch Sony Wega flat CRT.

Ahh memories,
Dave
 
Back
Top