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Thread Number: 35301
/ Tag: 80s/90s Vacuum Cleaners
Does Hoover even care? |
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| Post# 379865 , Reply# 2 10/17/2017 at 08:09 (2,376 days old) by pr-21 (Middletown, OH) | ||
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| Post# 379871 , Reply# 3 10/17/2017 at 13:46 (2,376 days old) by dysonman1 (the county) | ||
Hoover doesn't care
And if you were in their shoes, you wouldn't either. What matters to any business, large or small, is the now as well as the future. Not the past. The past is over. Hoover wants all those old machines to go away - as in the landfill. It makes no business sense for Hoover to keep supporting outdated machines. They care about selling a NEW machine, TODAY. Ironically, bojack parts are now being sold as Genuine Hoover parts (bags for example).
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| Post# 379875 , Reply# 4 10/17/2017 at 14:39 (2,376 days old) by human (Pines of Carolina) | ||
It's all pretty insidious, really...
I think a lot of old line manufacturers that used to build highly durable machines are finding they're competing with their own legacy products these days; that is, they're finding it's hard to sell their new plasticrap machines when there are so many of their old, high quality machines out there. Stocking replacement parts for the legacy machines keeps them from being replaced with plasticrap and since the new machines are designed to be disposable from the git-go, there's no need to stock replacement parts for them, either.
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| Post# 379889 , Reply# 6 10/17/2017 at 17:52 (2,376 days old) by Phaeton (Los Angeles ) | ||
Hello All,
I bought a book that I was told about a number of years back. I had a customer that was a Steadicam Operator and he would kid me about all my old cars and thought I should read the book “Who Moved My Cheese?”. I have yet to read the book while I drive some of those old cars but I do insist there is nothing like a new safe plastic car. Oh, that also goes for vacuum cleaners too. I did good, I bought a new Whirlpool washing machine with what is called a washing plate, wow. Thank you for looking, Pete
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| Post# 379905 , Reply# 7 10/17/2017 at 21:43 (2,376 days old) by JesseD (Saint Marys, Pennsylvania) | ||
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The belts for the convertibles are still available. In fact, Hoover still has the convertible available for the commercial market. The belt you are looking for is now called a Hoover lightweight commercial belt. They are now sold as singles | ||
Post# 379950 , Reply# 10 10/18/2017 at 17:37 (2,375 days old) by vacuumlad1650  (Wauponsee, IL) |
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| Post# 379973 , Reply# 13 10/18/2017 at 22:46 (2,375 days old) by kenkart () | ||
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I stand corrected... Although I don't like the newer machines Kirby builds, I think they are too big and heavy, I agree with you, I just didn't think of Kirby, they WILL repair anything they ever made!And they still MAKE a quality product. | ||
| Post# 379980 , Reply# 14 10/19/2017 at 08:15 (2,374 days old) by paulg (my sweet home Chicago) | ||
Not always a sinister motive
I used to work for a company that made appliances. Their attitude was that they would always carry a replacement part..... as long as there was reasonable interest in the part. It didn't have to be big orders either.
So for many of their products, we were still carrying key replacement parts twenty-five or more years later, and had no interest in stopping. This is especially true for appliances expected to last several decades (example, electric ranges). However, when you sit behind the desk, as I did, and have to make a decision to kill a part - you have to consider that only twelve people a year request this part. In such a case we would consider the age of the appliance (let's say 25 years), how long every remaining unit would take to disappear (another ten years) and then do a final buy (we'd buy maybe 150 pieces). And sometimes, when one of our customer would call in calling for an obsolete part - we would call our older service vendors around the country and buy the part back - and get it to you. You would be surprised as how quickly interest in replacement parts drop off. On one product, virtually nobody requested any parts after the one year warranty expired on the last serial. Needless to say, with no reasonable requests for parts (virtually zero requests), we were not too interested in keeping too many parts in stock. Unknown to the customer, we've had the vendors of very specific parts go bankrupt, and some burn to the ground. It isn't always practical to retool for a part that is already old. In those cases we found new-old-stock of the entire appliance - put them aside in the warehouse and saved them for emergency parts usage. Finally, bear in mind that our service mindset was not the norm, but we did enjoy a superior service reputation. | ||
| Post# 380123 , Reply# 15 10/22/2017 at 09:31 (2,371 days old) by bikerray (Middle Earth) | ||
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| Post# 380125 , Reply# 16 10/22/2017 at 10:25 (2,371 days old) by human (Pines of Carolina) | ||
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Sad but true...
Yeah, once upon a time, manufacturers made things to last. The purchase price wasn't exactly cheap, based on the buying power of the dollar at the time, but you got your money's worth. The appliance was designed to last for several decades--and more importantly was designed to be serviced. For better or worse, there has been a fundamental shift in the marketplace. What were once considered 'durable goods' are now looked upon as disposable. It's the only way that manufacturers can charge the same price for the same types of appliances that they did 40 years ago without adjusting for inflation. You still get your money's worth, but your money is just worth a whole lot less. Our dollar today is worth maybe 15 or 20 cents, compared with what it would buy in the mid '70s, but people today still want to pay the same for a vacuum cleaner as they did in 1977. Back then for around $79, you could go to Sears or Kmart and get a well built Eureka or Hoover that was mostly metal and with a little TLC, it could easily still be running today. While you can still get machines with those same nameplates for the same number of dollars, they're cheap plasticrap--because they have to be.
The flip side of that coin would be Kirby. A new one with a basic toolkit would run you maybe $350 or $400 back in the '70s, depending on how adept at haggling you were. Today, a new Kirby Avalir with toolkit will run in the neighborhood of $1,500-$2,000 from a salesman. But when you adjust that price for inflation, you're really spending an equivalent amount today as you would have 40 years ago. And yes, you can get one barely used on the gray market (aka eBay or Cragislist) for the unadjusted 1977 price. An even closer 'apples to apples' analogy would be an Electrolux metal canister, which might have run you $150-$200 in the mid '70s, while a Perfect metal canister today will run you about $900-1,000. | ||
| Post# 380167 , Reply# 17 10/23/2017 at 02:40 (2,371 days old) by beekeyknee (Columbia, MO) | ||
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