Thursday, August 12, 2021

On Shortages, Dishwashers, Trucks, And Broken Supply Chains

Well, a couple days ago our dishwasher, that I had to repair back in March, decided to say goodbye to it all.  It will clean no more.  It spits out the soap pod, shoots a but of cursory water around and then fails, and then it finally failed completely and wouldn't even do that.

Given that it is all of three years old and it has decided to quit, that rather sucked.

So looking for new dishwashers and it turns out they are now hard to find.

Want a Bosch, which is a highly rated and recommended brand?  Most places are back-ordered one year.   Most other brands are limited in stock and back-orders are measured in numbers of months, not weeks.

So, we went to a local appliance store and ordered what they had in stock, which came down to a choice between all of three models out of the many they had on display.  Most models are currently unobtanium.  We ordered a GE dishwasher - as it had an excellent rating, nice features, most importantly that it was available and it works and gets dishes clean, made in the USA, parts are plentiful and better exceed the Whirlpools pathetic 3-year lifespan. We shall see.

On to trucks.

My friend has a new Ford diesel truck, bought with a high-level warranty and all the trimmings.  Great truck but  .  .  .

Unfortunately a sensor, a $20 part has gone bad, which puts the truck in limp mode to travel 25 miles to get to a dealer.

We were going to take it to Thunder over Michigan but it was not to be.  It has now been sitting at the dealer for over 3 weeks as the dealer cannot get the part, and the dealer is refusing to honor the warranty that provides a rental car for such a breakdown as they have no rental cars available and will not get one for him.  

Nice huh?  Apparently some of these sensors are sitting on the unfinished yet built newer trucks that are sitting on factory lots but cannot be sold as they lack chips etc, but they won't pull the sensor off one of those to get his truck up and running. 

He's also been told that the Ford factory workers are raiding those "mostly completed" vehicles for parts so they can roll out more "mostly completed" vehicles off the line and get credit for building them.  Apparently, once the parts come available they will be shipped to dealers, and dealer service people and not the factories will be responsible for installing the parts per what he was told. 

This will certainty make buying a 2021 year Ford vehicle a rather risky prospect as the build quality and the parts shuffling will make them rather suspect in terms of build quality.

These supply chain problems are causing quite a drag on the economy - used car prices here are way, way up, and there's a dearth of new cars available to be bought or leased, and appliances and many other goods reliant on chips and electronics are clearly in short supply.

6 comments:

Well Seasoned Fool said...

If your friend knows the part number, here is a possible source.
https://www.lkqonline.com/cart
The part will probably be used off a wreck. Part in hand, he and the dealer can then work out the details.
A fellow attorney in your state who deals with warranty issues.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCMljRGC0eBJrxbUorWEnasg

juvat said...

We had a similar situation with the dishwasher in our new house. Didn't always wash the dishes. Since it was less than a year old, we tried to call the warranty folks. Finally, after several multi-hour on hold calls we got through to a human. Promised a repairman within 3 days. Never showed. Back to the call warranty folks, again, several calls, finally, someone will contact you within a week. Nada.
Now, we had one of those fancy touch on, touch off faucets (Hate it BTW, what's the first thing you do after turning on the water? Move the faucet to where you need the water to go. Water shuts off. We were having problems with the faucet turning off randomly. We thought we were just too close and the sensor turned it off. Finally it stopped working altogether. Googled the problem and the answer was "check the batteries". Crawled under the sink and sure enough there was a battery box tucked between the sink and the back cabinet wall. And it was black. Easy to spot, right? Anyhow, got the box out, put in fresh batteries and voila, water from the faucet. Got to thinking, wonder where the dishwasher gets it's water from. Poked around and traced water lines. Sure enough, the water line to the Dishwasher was in between the shutoff valve for the sensor and the water faucet.
Did I call the warranty folks and let them know not to send someone? Not a chance on God's green earth.

B said...

I'd call ford and tell 'em they either get a loaner vehicle for me or I would rent a car myself and bill them for the cost. Seems an easy open and shut case....But I'm not an attorney, so.....

Aaron said...

Well Seasoned Fool: Thanks, apparently its a rather new part and they don't have it.

juvat: Yep, aren't dishwashers fun?

B: I expect something like that will happen shortly.

Old NFO said...

This is why you don't buy Fords... Just sayin...

Stephen said...

About two months ago while we were planning our kitchen remodel...while at a appliance store the sales person mentioned we would want to get our dishwasher as soon as possible due to shortages that were occuring.

They had the Bosch in stock that we wanted so we bought it and took delivery.

Glad I did, would hate to have a new kitchen and gaping hole where the dishwasher is supposed to go.