A toaster in 1951 was $21, which is about $250 today.
I would argue that a $250 toaster today is still not a "buy it for life" item, but it would certainly have a lot of bells and whistles and almost no user-serviceable parts.
I would argue that a $250 toaster today is still not a "buy it for life" item, but it would certainly have a lot of bells and whistles and almost no user-serviceable parts.
The heating elements should be replaceable!
That rave review was for an identical toaster with different guts, or with amazon reviews, something else entirely.
What were the issues you were having?
We've been using a cheapo £10 tesco or argos one for the past few years. It toasts..
I used Dualit in various places, it does as good or bad a job, can't tell the difference.
I love the Dualit idea, but in the end can't justify the price, not for this particular kitchen item.
Every few years I have to shake out the bread remains and that's about all maintenance it gets.
Works like a charm and the outcome is very predictable.
Granted, I only use it for sliced toast bread. But I'm happy with the results.
My second biggest issue is related to the same mechanism: the "pop" is impotent and does nothing to eject what's being toasted. The most I can hope for is that I can manually push the lever up.
The next biggest issue is with heating element distance. If there's anything that is wider than a slice of wonder bread it's going to get sizzled by the heating element. In the worst cases it causes smoke to be emitted for several runs afterwards.
(Ok, fair, that's only $2,500)
Quite annoying…
Even with Dualit, I would still only purchase from a professional catering retailer. Just in case, there’s any differences, and the fact that purchasing from a professional catering retailer, implies a greater level of longevity, if it ever did breakdown - for potential small claims court, reasons, in the future.
Regardless, Dualit also pretty much make every part of their toasters replaceable, for this exact reason. Hence why I think it’s one of the only decent toasters, out there!
Not if you buy one that is $250 because it has bells and whistles. You can buy a $250 dollar toaster that is just a toaster and it will be of good quality.
https://www.webstaurantstore.com/waring-wct708-4-slice-comme...
The problem isnt that long lasting, durable products no longer exist.
It's that they're no longer marketed for home use.
You can get stuff just as good as back in the '60s, for comparable after-inflation prices. But they don't sell them at Sears or HomeSense, they sell them at industrial or kitchen or office supply stores.
Maybe, for the environment's sake, people should be buying and using appliances for 70 years. But do people actually want a kitchen full of appliances that are 35 years old on average? Probably not, thrift shops are still full of contemporarily made appliances that were discarded before their useful life ended.
"was hoping it lasted longer & would be better quality but was disappointed" "All the coils do no not glow and It toasts unevenly" "one side stops working after 6 months or so. I’ve gone through three of these" "Bought two of these toasters both stopped working" "Have to replace this toaster about once a year, one side will always stop working" "Lasted me about a month or so and it no longer works". "Died so quickly!"
I think this is a perfect example of the problem. There is a market for $250 toasters, but even for that price you can't buy a reliable toaster.
Either way, the bathtub curve of product failure still applies no matter the price point.
Bear in mind that people on this site are using toasters at duty cycles hundreds to thousands of times higher than home users. 6 months of commercial use of one of these toasters could very easily be a lifetime of use for a single home.
these cost about US$4 locally: https://articulo.mercadolibre.com.ar/MLA-934643608-tostador-... (the price listed on that page is $3499 but currently the black-market dollar is at $950 bid, $1000 ask, so that's a bit under US$4)
but i got mine out of the neighbor's garbage during our eight-month-long covid lockdown, gambling that it wasn't covered with cyanide or something
the electric kind you're probably talking about goes for about US$20–US$40 around here but i wanted to point out that there does exist a more reliable alternative
It cost less than $250. It warms, bakes, roasts, dehydrates, as well as 10 other settings. It has 3 different racks, so I can toast 3-4x as much bread than I could in a regular toaster.
I’ve only had it for 6 years, but it has held up nicely, no issues whatsoever. I guess what I am trying to say, is that the product is the bells and whistles these days.
If you're not aware, they had a recall on a bunch of models recently, you should check to see if yours was one of them!
Fortunately my model is not on the list of recalled products. The one I use is an older version of the `Cosori - Original Air Fryer - Silver`.
I imagine anything that would break in a toaster is absolutely trivial to fix, but you are working with mains electricity so in most places you probably need a license to service it. Which just costs more than a brand new toaster.