Sears will never be the same....

[mtn1584]

I went ot my local Sears tonight, and I had to take a look in the "laundry dept." I could count on one hand how many conventional top load washers there were. I know I have said this before, but I don't care. I remember my mom working at Sears when I was a kid and seeing row after row of Kenmore Washers, then Brand Central came along, aand even more brands were added. The appliance dept in Sears will NEVER be the same to me anymore, and I think it's kind of sad. I don't care how many colorful, stacked front loaders they have on display, or how many HE TL washers they have. Noting beats a traditional top load washer. We got along for probably sixty years or so with them. Now they are seen as anitquated etc. I believe if something works, you shouldn't fix it. Take a look at the landfills five years from now when they are all filled with $1,000 Plus FL machines. The landfills will be pretty colorful though. I am glad I bought my SQ TL when I did.
Mike

 

[imperialmarkxii]

Nor will any other store W/ a laundry dept.. ...

I HEAR you Mike. ...

But at least(thanks to Robert and all the contibuters), we have this amazing website along with our favorite childhood memories. Cherished, I might add.

My dream is that one day all of our FAVORITE machines could be reproduced, just as brilliant as we remembered them.

Yeah, right!?...Oh well, LoL.

-Russell

 

[tolivac]

I agree here too-just wait within 5 yrs and in some cases even now-the landfills,recycling centers and swap shops are getting unwanted FL washers-and on how many of them is it problems like worn spiders and drum bearings,and blown circuit boards-last I remember water and electronics don't mix!And the prices of these things-for the price of the BASE on some FL washers you could have b ought a nice TL washer that would do a fine job!Energy and water be dammed!Remember the OTHER thread on this?Yes the Sears washer dept is disapointing-kinda like Best Buy,Lowes and HD.

 

[peteski50]

Sears!

This is a really bad to see what sears has come to. I visited their last week and looking at all those FL washers is so sad especially considerind the high prices they want for them. It seems like all the indrustry or whatever is left of it is going down the drain. I cant believe they are phasing out Whirlpool as their main appliance maker. Summing it all up it's almost as bad as to what wci did to Frigidaire!
Peter

 

[jeffg]

I'm still trying to figure out who in their right mind would spend $1500 or more for a W/D with a 1-year warranty.

 

[jaytag]

Expensive Repairs The Future of Many Appliances

Seems there is no option on the new machines all going to control boards. Replacement cost just for a DIY is $150 or more for the board. And no guarantee it will last longer than a year. So the life on any new machine will be 5 to 10 yrs max. I know people replace things alot faster these days but, sooner or later people will have to get real and expect units to last a good 10 to 15 yrs.

HVAC is the same way with 410A guidelines, you have a leak and you have to evacuate the whole system, charging the customer a fee to recyle the refrigerant, plus charging them for new refrigerant.

 

[danmantn]

Memories, indeed....

Today was laundry day at my house...house filled with fresh laundry scent and the hum of my belt drive Speed Queen...it WAS like revisiting my childhood in the 80s....complete with a warm spring day...couldn't have been nicer. Well, if it was possible, hanging the laundry outside (no no in condo-land) would have made it even better.

 

[tomturbomatic]

Can you imagne what it would be like for a former Bendix or Westinghouse salesman or engineer to come back from the dead and see all of the front loaders in the stores? Talk about validation after all of the decades of top loader hegemony, not that the earliest front loaders were great performers, but even then, they used less water and detergent than top loaders and just like in 1940 they are making a huge splash on the laundry market. Well, maybe not a huge splash exactly, more like a large damp place.

 

[randycmaynard]

Anyone that has been around Knoxville, Tennessee

will remember the big Sears store on North Central Street in the north part of town. I remember spending much time on visits there as a child and wondering up and down the rows of Kenmore washers and dryers and being mezmorized by all the different models, different agitators, some lighted interiors others not. I remember when the Penta-Swirl agitator came out with that shiny gold cap - thought that was just grand!

I also remeber many trips there with my mother for school clothing each year, the big toy display during the Christmas season and of course any dad worth his salt had Craftsman tools of all kinds. We had all that - Kenmore washer, dryer, clothing bought at Sears, lots of Craftsman tools and tool box, lots of Christmas toys and such from Sears and then there was the candy counter there...... oh those fresh hot oil cooked spanish peanuts with the red skin and lots of salt and the chocolate covered version. One last thing - the cheeseburgers in the resturant were wonderful and the resturant was located in the same area as the appliances - right after the burger and coke (soda for our MN/WI/MI folks) I would head right out the door into the washers only to have the "well meaning" salesman want to run off the pesky kid opening all the washer lids to see what was inside. They always had a demo model or two hooked up to power and water so on occasion you could actually see one in operation!

Such grand memories - I knew the North Central store like the back of my hand from top to bottom. We seemed to always park in the lot on Pearl Place and enter the store via the Pearl Place entrance and we always came in through the 4th and Gill neighborhood of north Knoxville to get to the store.

Well enough on that - you're right.... Sears will never be the same and I rarely even visit the mall store anymore.

 

[tomturbomatic]

This is not a racist comment, but last year when I went to the Sears in Montgomery Mall in Bethesda, MD, the only person working in the self-service shoe department did not speak English or just did not speak to men. I would ask a question about a shoe and she would either point or walk me around to where the shoes I asked about were located. It just seemed strange. After I found the shoes, I had to walk a good distance through several other departments to reach the cash register. I ain't been back.

The BIG Sears store on Ponce de Leon in Atlanta was remarkable. The smell of the hot oil and fried peanuts at the candy counter seemed to permeate the building; you definitely knew where you were when you opened the door. I remember the soft incandescent lighting from Art Deco inspired fixtures that bounced a large portion of the light off the ceilings.

It was interesting in the older organization of Sears stores the way dishwashers were sold in a separate department with kitchen cabinets and builtin ranges.

 

[randycmaynard]

On the dishwashers.....

They were located downstairs on the bottom level apart from the rest of the appliances which were on the main or middle floor of the building. They had a plexiglass fronted dishwasher with the round rotating upper rack that was always on and running at full water level and I remember going by that display many times as a child as it was near the toy dept. I would stand there marveling at seeing how it worked.

Our big Sears on north Central was the "biggie" for the region - many smaller towns just had a small store with limited items on display and most had to be ordered from the Sears catalogue - remember the big Wishbook at Christmas?

 

[estesguy]

Down to six

I was on the GE website the other day, and they only had six conventional T/L washers shown. Two of them were the ones with the sawed off agitator, that use only a trickle of water in the bottom of the tub. So now you are down to only 4 TOTAL. We all knew in the back of our minds this day was coming, but it seems to be arriving sooner than expected.

 

[tomturbomatic]

When we went to Sears to look at at a portable dishwasher they were still impeller machines but on the floor below the washers with the kitchen remodeling stuff.

I remember the catalog. A friend and I used to plan on ordering our aquariums from the catalog. You could even order tropical fish through it.

Our big Atlanta store had the catalog operations for the Southeast. You could order out of a catalog and save shipping by stopping in to pick up your order. They also had a liquidation store. I used to see mid 60s combos for sale in it, then they disapeared after the early 70s. These were machines that Sears service had repaired or rebuilt after taking them back from unhappy customers. One or two were old enough to have the red Off Balance light between the door and the lower panel. When that lit up, you had to open the lower panel and pull a plastic ring attached to a heavy string to reset the switch.

At the shopping center in Laurel, MD we used to have a Sears paint and hardware store, but it was closed a long time ago.

 

[whirlcool]

You haven't truly lived until you visited the Sears store on Homan Ave in Chicago. It was the biggest Sears store I had ever been to. Each floor was half a city block in size and there were at least 6 stories. The entire Sears site was located on 16 acres!
Adjacent to this store was the Sears offices, accounting, warehousing etc. It even had a multi level parking garage for it's customers.
Their basement was truly a bargain basement where they would sell the damaged goods for a cheap price. It truly was a store in which "Sears has everything".
When the Sears tower was built a lot of jobs from Homan were moved to the Sears tower. Some years ago the location was closed and all but the central tower was demolished. They are trying to convert the tower into a condo/loft development. But the part of town it is in is kind of "iffy" for real estate development.