Sometimes I can make an expensive hardware purchase quickly
I won’t say that I always research potential purchases to an obsessive degree, because first I’d have to fact-check that statement by researching my Web history to an obsessive degree. But I can say with reasonable certainty that I usually don’t buy anything with a four-figure price without first reading more than one review of the device in question.
Except when I don’t, which this week started with my plucking a jar of leftover bacon fat (what, you don’t have one?) out of the fridge and realizing it was not quite its usual cold self.
I grabbed our ThermoWorks remote infrared thermometer (what, you don’t have one?) and realized that our barely 10-year-old Samsung had developed a series of microclimates–warmer at the top, normally-cold temps at the bottom–that should not exist in a functioning refrigerator.
The French-door model we’d bought at the end of 2014 after extensive reading of Wirecutter and Consumer Reports review had already been aging badly, like those of other Samsung purchasers. The front-door icemaker had stopped working a couple of years ago even as the fridge had started growing icebergs at the bottom and back of its refrigerator compartment.
Instead of paying for yet another repair that would push off this decision, one longer-term risk and one short-term factor pushed me to pick a replacement.
First, Trump’s tariff schemes already look to be making a lot of household appliances more expensive. I suppose they might miraculously inspire trade deals that leave imports cheaper–but after all the opening economic chaos of this administration, why would I want to take avoidable financial chances on the tumbling Trump dice?
Second, Bosch held a sale. I’d already been thinking of that company as a possibility after months of satisfactory experience with the Bosch dishwasher and induction range we got as part of last year’s overdue kitchen renovation, and a hands-on inspection of that German firm’s latest hardware at CES 2025 gave me a little more confidence.
And that steered my choice of which fridge to get, even with inexact advice from reviewers.
Consumer Reports’ guidance was a little behind, while Wirecutter’s advice focused on fridges without in-door icemakers. And neither had reviewed the Bosch model I had in mind. But CR’s owner-satisfaction metrics revealed long-term confidence in Bosch’s work that was not matched in reader assessments of LG and Whirlpool, two other brands I’d considered.
So I went ahead with the purchase–after first chiseling away at our costs by buying some AARP-discounted Best Buy gift cards–and now I can look forward to the results being delivered and set up next weekend. I hope that they live up to my expectations, at least enough to make me not regret this post in a year or five or 10.
I also hope that our car can hold out until 2026, because after also having our house’s roof replaced, we’ve spent quite enough on household capital expenditures this year.
#applianceReviews #appliances #Bosch #capex #capitalExpenditures #ces #fridge #LG #refrigerator #Samsung #TrumpTariffs #TrumpUncertainty #Whirlpool
