With appliances one of the biggest issues is customer service. So I'd want to know who the service company is. A&E is most commonly used, and their service is erratic. I've had good people and bad people, and the bad people are....really bad.

So if you're using the same servicer as Sears, then if IKEA's pkg is less than Sears would be during one of their multiple double-discounted sales, I'd go with the less expensive pkg. But Whirlpool is Whirlpool, and frankly, I think they make mediocre appliances. I have a 2003 WP/Kenmore gas range, and a 2010 KA DW, and both of them are crappy quality build. They work, and they're fine for the starter neighborhood we live in, but from a quality standpoint I wouldn't buy them again.

In a small space i would get the ikea induction cooktop, a 24" wall oven, and a stainless Renlig dishwasher.

there are advantages to buying the cabinets and drawers from ikea.

Get your own installer.
Or, what, you think you need to hire the store's installer?

Get your own doors and drawer fronts from Scherr's.
Or, what, you think you need to find a style that you really like from ikea if you get their cabinets and drawers?

so many misconceptions!

Well, the Ikeafans website is pretty negative on the quality of the appliances. I'm not sure how up-to-date that is or how widespread, but given their general cheerleading for all things Ikea, it's pretty persuasive. I'm probably going to reconsider that route unless someone here has another opinion.

BTW, Davidro1, there are no misconceptions here. I'm aware that I could try to find another installer but to date none of the contractors that I've spoken with are Ikea-friendly (too many pieces/headaches). And yes, I could certainly try to come up with a better door/drawer style via Scherrs or elsewhere but that would obviate any cost savings and create a lot more work for me. If Ikea were the only option for cabinets, I suppose I'd hunt down a good contractor who was willing and better door styles. Luckily, it's not the only option. But thanks for the unsolicited commentary.

I have sent dozens of emails to ikea stores to ask questions about specific products (e.g. lighting, appliances) and received answers by email. You could do this too. Nutid, Datid and Framtid differences might be easy for them to explain. The answers I have received are often copied text from internal email exchanges between a store person and the head designers (in Sweden).

i feel it should be possible to use the ikea store, the ikeafans site, and your local free ad (kijiji or other) service to find one or more installers or GC's who will do that portion of the work that you do not want to do. Much of the design, ordering and doublechecking could be cyberfarmed out to someone who is an ikea cult member.

(thanks for providing all the information you didn't want commented. it helps figure out the real deal.)

(As far as appearances go, if you don't mind the "IKEA" on them, Ikea appliances tend to have very nice styling.)

There's nothing wrong with getting nonIkea cabinets and Ikea appliances (assuming you research them properly as you're trying to do). I'm sure you're smart enough to know when Ikea cabinets will and will not work for you. :)

Yeah they do! I just saw it in an ad today. It has nice handles. More I cannot say!

> if you don't mind the "IKEA" on them

They stopped doing that a while back. No logo these days. However, they are whirlpool and have about the same satisfaction level, plus sometimes an added difficulty in finding the info necessary for repairs.

i called whirlpool and i said Momsig and they knew what to do. Same thing for the other code words (names of their products) that ikea gives you.

Thanks everyone for more food for thought! Fori, I do like the look of the Ikea ovens especially and since all the induction cooktops basically look alike, I'd be thrilled if I could make this work. With the sale it would save me probably in the neighborhood of $1k vs. basic models elsewhere if the AJ Madison and Sears websites are accuate representations of pricing. But it's hard to get over the really negative stuff on Ikeafans without hearing any positive stories from current owners/users.

It's a tough decision for me since my original appliance budget was based on the expectation that I'd just replace my ancient gas range with something adequate but not flashy in the $1500 range - the induction option would probably make the layout better, but unless I find some satisfied customers of Ikea appliances, the cooktop and oven will run closer to $3k.

Hey smaloney:

I'm preparing for a kitchen remodel, too, and like you I have looked into Ikea appliances. (A 30" double wall oven, top and bottom convection, for $1,500? When other brands go for at least $2,800?? How could you NOT consider that kind of savings!)

But, also like you, the almost-universal thumb's down on Ikea appliances from Ikeafans -- a group that more or less drinks Ikea kool-aid -- troubles me greatly. Now, if Consumer Reports comes out with positive tests on Ikea appliances before it's time for me to buy, I'll change my mind. But as is, I'm going to have to pass (even if it means paying more money). All the savings in the world won't matter if I'm disatisfied with my purchases.

On the bright side, there ARE good appliances out there. But, what you'll discover is no one brand makes the best/cheapest of everything. So, I'm shopping a la carte. A Samsung appliance here, a GE Profile there...whatever is the best price, fits my needs, and has good reviews.

Good luck!

compare

site:ikeafans.com appliances problem complaint
56 results

site:ikeafans.com appliances
30000 results

When you type into Google " site:ikeafans.com " and a keyword , Google returns only those results that it finds inside that site.

It is true that ikeafans will tend to be supportive of Ikea. I think some ikeafans folks may have allowed themselves the luxury of acting like they were bashing Ikea appliances, which are perhaps a low-margin low profit piece of business for Ikea.

I find there is NOT a lot of hard information to go on to say that these appliances are bad.

i see lots of people making assumptions about ikea "appliances" as a broad category.

Here is a link that might be useful: he only assumes something about ikea appliances

davidro1,

As I just mentioned in the post of mine you linked to, the lack of hard information on Ikea appliances is why I have to make assumptions. All we have to go on are sources like Ikeafans. And, to me, I expect a site called "Ikeafans" to give glowing reviews of Ikea appliances even if they don't entirely warrant it if the appliances are at least average. I would just take it with a grain of salt, the same way I would a forum for a rock band whose fans say "the new album is the best album since that one from The Beatles!" It wouldn't mean the band's new album was bad, but it wouldn't mean it's good either.

So, when Ikeafans give less than glowing reviews on their kitchen appliances, it gives me pause. But, again, none of that is scientific or hard information. It's just my objective response based on subjective posts at Ikeafans. And I'm not the only one who has gotten that impression from Ikeafans.

Do you own any Ikea kitchen appliances? If yes, and you have a review, good or bad, please share.

A few in GW have recently written that ikeafans people diss ikea appliances.

I've indirectly inferred that it could be that none of the GWers have done their homework. Somebody please prove to me that you know how to collect a few data points. Point me to 10 or 20 mentions of "bad" inside the
site:http://www.ikeafans.com/forums/kitchen-appliances/

So, I did some homework, using this:

bad -short site:http://www.ikeafans.com/forums/kitchen-appliances

and found this:

http://www.ikeafans.com/forums/kitchen-appliances/33624-hows-quality-ikea-labeled-appliances-2.html

http://www.ikeafans.com/forums/kitchen-appliances/23059-considering-just-going-ikea-appliances-bad-idea.html

http://www.ikeafans.com/forums/kitchen-appliances/13477-ikea-appliances.html

http://www.ikeafans.com/forums/kitchen-appliances/11213-anyone-try-mumsig-oven-yet.html

http://www.ikeafans.com/forums/kitchen-appliances/40391-whos-not-happy-w-ikea-refridgerator.html

These are apparently the worst that I could find with the word "BAD" in them. They say nothing bad at all. In these posts, I did not see any ikeafans oldtimers dissing any Ikea appliances.

If I do more homework, with other key words like "poor", what will I find?

Somebody please go do some real work instead of reading people quoting people quoting people who apparently have read something vague about some reputation problem.

Davidro1: Perhaps I'm not understanding your admonition that those of us asking for feedback "do some real work." You are right that there is not a copious amount of feedback on Ikea appliances generally. And I haven't done a specific search for "ikea appliances" and "bad" or "problem" or "poor" as you keep insisting on as evidence of the quality of these appliances. Such a search is useful only to a point, since arguments pro or con might not utilize those words or get picked up by a search.

But since you are demanding "real work" here is what I did: I posted here, and got no positive responses from actual owners of Ikea appliances. And I posted similarly on Ikeafans, and also have yet to receive a single positive response. That strikes me as somewhat illuminating - I can't imagine posting a similar request about a large brand that is well-known to many consumers and getting not a single rave. And in sifting through about 20 pages of posts on the Ikeafans website under Kitchen Appliances, I found plenty of responses to make me doubt the wisdom of buying Ikea appliances, particularly the ovens. I've linked one below in which a poster explains only half-jokingly that the overall lack of reviews can be attributed to the fact that most owners are too busy calling repair men! Moreover, several of the links you provided are hardly positive recommendations, because they either offer general commentary such as positive CR reviews of Ikea overall or commentary from people who have had problems with Ikea appliances (but are satisfied with the warranty.)

None of the threads you've posted offers sufficient evidence for me to spend my money on Ikea appliances. I actually posted here (and continue to watch the thread) hoping for someone with a recent good story to tell since I'd love to save money. I have an ancient tiny kitchen now, but at least everything works just fine. So the last thing I want to do is shell out money (even if it's a paltry budget compared to most around here) for something that may or may not work.

You seem inordinately invested in asserting that anyone with doubts about Ikea appliances is somehow wrong. Why is that? If you have personal experience to offer based on Ikea appliances in your kitchen, wonderful - please do so. If not, why are you repeatedly posting on this thread and insisting that anyone who doubts the quality of Ikea appliances is somehow misinformed? And why are you criticizing those of us who ask for feedback on specific items rather than somehow intuiting the relative quality and value - isn't that precisely what the appliance forum is for?

Here is a link that might be useful: link to oven complaints on Ikeafans

that site (ikeafans) has created so many subforums, that your query from 48 hours ago has had 48 views (not all views by 48 different people) instead of thousands of views. That is one reason why you (and others) cannot find out about their appliances.

I think in general ikeafans gets less returning eyeballs than this site: people might zoom in at ikeafans for a little while when they have a specific need but there is no reason to go surfing through 20 or 30 subforums for "pleasure" after their kitchen reno is over. In this GW site, people can derive pleasure by clicking on one or two forums; from an end user perspective it's a better form of feedback when you think about it cybernetically. Seeing all the threads about everything related to kitchens is better than being forced into choosing from a list of subforums. Then, when you DO get to your chosen subforum it's bit disappointing to see that there has been very little new input in recent days or weeks.

so i wouldn't hold my breath waiting for ikeafans forum participants to help me on much, in terms of mass spectrum polling. Some of the oldtimers will be helpful.

I can spot patterns like anyone else; I find it fishy when a request for testimonials about a specific manufacturer of vent hoods can get testimonials from participants who have only posted a few times before. Especially when nobody ever returns to comment about their ikea appliances. Usually people don't post to say their thingie works, so why should one specific vent hood manufacturer get praise several times in short order?

The fact that induction is new for ikea means we might have heard from a few people saying hey wow golly gee lookee i got it and it's fantastic. But, not a peep. To me, this means that ikeafans really doesn't get much returning traffic. It confirms my thinking, but I don't have hard proof of it, so I could be wrong.

At any rate, if the induction cooktop had any problems somebody would have complained about it. My prediction.

The thread you linked to did not have any oldtimers writing anything at all. It had a few people who never posted anything else before or after, or not much. Not a lot of credibility there, one way or the other. If there really really were a problem, with one model of one appliance, we would have read about it fully and completely somewhere. If there were really a problem with a whole line of appliances, it would have become a running theme in a thousand threads.

http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/inordinate . The time i spend here is far far less than the time i spend on other things.

The sparse feedback seen in ikeafans is a symptom of their problem. The installer crowd posts a lot on that site. And a few others who are not installers but seem invested. But the first-time end user crowd doesn't return to that site to post PSA's, reports and real life experiences. (as near as i can make out).

the threads I posted were intended to show that the bad news is sparse and not all that bad.

Your ikeafans thread asked about three unrelated appliances. If it had thousands of eyeballs reading it, and if the readers were real life end users, you would have had an answer or two or three. Ikeafans is not going to provide that to you... or maybe it will, if you wait, if you are lucky, or if the oldtimers now decide they better go to bat for ikea appliances. Until now they have not posted on appliance related threads. (from what I've seen).

The good news story to tell is that ikea does sell some of their appliances, (it's not just a front to sell trivets), and no great numbers are complaining in public.

Below, I've linked to a thread in this GW Appliances forum that I'm sure you've seen since it has been at the top of the list along with this thread and the other one I linked to a few days ago. In a week or a month, these three threads will no longer be geographically situated next to each other so the links will help.

In the two linked threads, there are both communities: end users and appliance-knowledgeable people. It's what this forum has, so kudos to GW.

At ikeafans, some threads get a lot of traffic. As I mentioned yesterday, there is something fishy about the fact that in 7 days, it's either about 1200+ hits or about 1/20th of that range. Since the VB Bulletin software behind ikeafans displays how many hits, we cannot avoid knowing it. If the software displayed also a few other facts, it could be very very very instructive to your sense of who is manipulating whom. If you've ever worked behind the scenes in web businesses, you can extrapolate easily from here, but if you need to read it all spelled out by a good samaritan, you may have to put your paranoid hat on for the exercise. Here goes: there do exist agencies that try to position perceptions. They do get hired. They exist, there are many, and they get paid behind the scenes to go make hay, make fun, make it happen. The more they remain unnoticed, the more they can operate as if they were mere end-users or helpful citizens who just happened to be surfing and can suddenly provide a positive comment. This kind of paid positivism and running interference has been going on since way before the internet came into being. The internet has made it more effective in some ways. You can extrapolate from this starting point.

The concurrent GW thread shows folks who are truly UNhappy with major US brand appliances. This kind of normal citizen reaction does not seem to flare up with respect to Ikea appliances, not in any number that surpasses the number representing US manufacturers. Extrapolating from this starting point, you can see that IKEA is just as good (or better) than any other source for appliances. The scant few comments about Ikea appliances are not a sufficient source to conclude that these appliances are less than good.

My bet is that Ikea has never hired any agency.

About hits and helpful posts: at the same ikeafans kitchen appliance forum where I said the threads are either in the the 1200 hits range or 1/20th of that, there is one thread that has almost 3300 hits in 7 days. Yet almost nothing has been said on it. One guess as to why the hits are up in the thousands is that a hired robot or agency (or several robots and agencies) re-open the thread often to monitor it, and actually go so far as to click on it and scroll down... this pushes the "hits" record up all that time. The thread is progressing nicely all on its own without any special intervention, but some force is pushing its "hit" record beyond all comparative numbers.

Hth

Here is a link that might be useful: concurrent thread with folks UNhappy with major US brand appliances