Small Appliances, Big Headache

Getting them fixed is Catch-22 (AZ)

Every so often each year there occurs a self-bestowed Christmas in the American home. A package arrives. The eager family gathers round to rip it open. Instead of "Blessings from Gran," the enclosed billet-doux reads:

Dear Purchaser: You are now the Proud Owner of new, multipurpose Magico-Duzzit (Mode122-A). Please fill out enclosed warranty form (22-B) and return to manufacturer. To ensure that said appliance performs according to mfr.'s specifications (22-C), read carefully instructions attached (22-D). Nearest service centers are listed in enclosed form (22-E). Welcome to the Magico-Duzzit Family!

Welcome to Catch-22 (A-Z)!

Chances are, Magico-Duzzit will expire one week after enclosed warranty does (Catch 22-F). Nearest service center listed is 22 miles and a dreary drive away (22-G). Or Proud Owner can mail now obsolete (at 53 weeks) Magico to aforesaid manufacturer and expect it back in two or three months, or many more if mfr. hangs out in Hong Kong (22-H). Or P.O. can attempt to get it repaired at Friendly Neighborhood Hardware Store, only to find that F.N.H.S. no longer handles repairs (22-1). Thoroughly p.o.'d, P.O. finally locates a shop that actually under takes to fix small appliances. There, after waiting meekly in line for an hour or so, he/she sets Magico on a counter for the disdainful inspection of a stern young man who might be an oral surgeon or IRS agent manque (22-J). Inspector will variously diagnose the appliance (22-K to 22-Z) as klunky, a lemon, mismanufactured, nonfunctioning, off-brand, plastic, quirky, rachitic, substandard, tinny, unredeemable, valueless, wonky, Xrated, Why-Fix-It? and zapped already.

Then, in exchange for a $20 deposit, the diagnostician may consent to attempt to repair the $30 appliance.

It is not simple folklore that most small appliances are not as sturdily made as they used to be, or that getting defective ones repaired can be a multi-Excedrin headache. Says John Lavezzo, who has maintained a one-man, two-room, three-telephone Fix-It Shop in Boston for 39 years: "Today they don't want you to repair things. They want you to buy'em, use'em and throw'em away." He and other seasoned repairmen say that the substitution of brittle plastics for metal makes many machines more breakdown-prone, and they blame some of the problems of repair on the use of spot welding or riveting in place of labor-expensive screws.

In all fairness to the manufacturers, repairers point out that many consumers do not read instructions or take care of their appliances. Mrs. Ellen Rittle, who has run a repair center in Burbank, Calif., for 25 years, says that toasters often contain such detritus as pennies, spoons, sunflower seeds and cockroaches.

A more basic reason for unrepairables is the recent proliferation and sophistication of appliances, some of which have complicated solid-state circuitry. The consumer today relies on powered handy-andies to perform the gamut of erstwhile manual chores: to carve, squeeze, blend, mix, whip, grind, toast, grill, simmer, brew, stew, waffle, percolate, fry, dry, polish, drill, sharpen, sweep, vacuum, brush, iron, comb, curl, open cans, close pores and answer the phone.

The cheapness and abundance of electrical slaves pose almost insuperable problems for the professional Mr. Fix-It, who can afford neither the space nor the capital to stock an adequate inventory of spare parts. Even big department stores, such as Macy's in New York City and Hudson's in Detroit, treat conked-out appliances like leprosy cases. As a result, many frustrated owners simply stash away the mute, inoperable machines like dirty clothes until they have enough to fill a shopping bag and take to a good repair shop--if they can find one.

There are such places, bless them.

They range from Old Curiosity Shops to assembly line emporiums. On State Street in Bangor, Me., Clarence Ellis has spent almost half of his 50 years fiddling with unruly appliances. He can fix anything but has little cess with newfangled mechanisms. When he needs an appliance for his own use, he scours the town dump for an old, dependable, repairable machine. "You're better off," he says, "with a good rebuilt vacuum cleaner than a new cheap one." Since it is hard to get parts for an appliance that is more than ten years old, Boston's Lavezzo custom-makes them.

There are few such dispensaries, however. And the rule of thumb is that if the cost of repair is more than one-third of the original purchase price of the appliance, better junk it.

To be sure, a little electrical object that is expected to last for years may cost no more, pace President Carter, than a no-martini lunch for two. Yet the metal, unlike the meal, is an acquired object deserving of respect, even affection. It is a dismal comment on American society that our whifflers and wopplers and slicers and sizzlers seem so often to be designed for the junk heap. Most of the major manufacturers claim to stand by their products, as do, slightly reeling, the repairmen who can cope with them. Still, they don't make'em like they used to. Or fix'em.

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