Adventures in Mircowaves and why I'll avoid GE appliances when I can

[forgotten_aria]

Our microwave just stopped working yesterday. Greg opened the door, and then nothing. No light, no display, no error code. I got the vent cover off, to discover that the plastic holding it on was shattered, but this seemed to have nothing to do with my the microwave stopped working. we checked the fuses, we unplugged and replugged it, we checked that the outlet had power. I've crazy glued the plastic that shatter back together.

This is the shiny, expensive over the range microwave that came with the house. We think they paid about $500ish for it. It's about two months past it's 1 year warranty.

I thought I would phone GE's repair number, 1-800-GE-CARES, and ask if there was anything else easy I could check or a reset button or anything but they're phone tree had no way to talk to a person, that I could find, including trying just pressing 0, which sometimes work, and the trees were designed around whether or not you had a warranty. Sorry GE, you clearly don't care, or at least you don't care about me.

Luckily a friend is getting rid of his microwave and will be bring it over today. Sadly it is also a GE, but it's been running for 7 or so years and it sounds like it will fit and hopefully installation is as easy as it seems to be on youtube.

As a side note, this doesn't really upset me that much. It's such a first world problem. But I like to warn people about companies with bad customer service and items that are bad deals.

Comments

[mathhobbit.livejournal.com]

I think I got my Panasonic microwave oven in 1995. It still works.

[forgotten-aria.livejournal.com]

I really liked my panasonic too, but they don't seem to make over the range.

[jered]

Due to the wonder of the internet, if you Google the model number there's a very good chance you can get the maintenance manual. Give it a try....

[forgotten-aria.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure I want to all out fix it. I can think of too many horrible things that could go wrong with a badly repaired microwave, I was just hoping for the "have you tried pressing the "fix everything" button?"

[jered]

The service manual may include that button (or the breaker reset, or what have you).

[eub.livejournal.com]

I don't know if this works, but
http://www.dialahuman.com/#G
says 800‑626‑2005 and 0 0 0 will get a human for GE Appliances. Not that the human is likely to be a useful human anyway.