Gary - does Maytag have their own research and design team? How about management team? Do they have their own factories where they only produce Maytag appliances ? Nope they pretty much cease to exist. The few factories that are still open are an old Amana plant from that acquisition and that scion of cooking Magic Chef ! Maytag 's only value is in its name. Now , lets look at Gaggenau. While they are under they Bosch ownership umbrella , they have their own mgmt. team, in Gaggenau Germany. Their own factories where they produce Gaggenau appliances, and more importantly, a capable R&D dept. that comes up with things like full surface induction tops, side hinged ovens, pop up column vents, side hinged ovens. Some of that is shared across Bosch's other brands, like the induction, and some is not - like the ventilator. I'll let you slide on this one since your a techie instead of a big picture management guy. But, how bout gettin a clue before you start looking for interesting things next time. Lots of parts are shared in the industry, and not just within corp. entities. There are only a few fridge compressors on the market. Does that make Kitchen Aid a marketing arm of Sub Zero because the compressor will fit both ? How about the light bulb that fits your Electrolux and a thermador too? What about the door hinges that Bosch and Tdor and Gaggenau use on their fridges? Miele has the same thing too. That's a whole separate discussion because of the shared factory, but by your logic it'd make them just a " marketing arm" because the same part is shared. Why don't you offer some reasons why one should buy Maytag instead of trying to pick a scrap with me and crapping on some other brand to deflect away from what the OP asked. And speaking of interesting and tellin it like it is, why didn't you include your beloved Electrolux on your list of poor service companies and those that don't do their own service? Inquiring minds find a THAT interesting.

Jumpilomdm, GE isn't and won't be the answer to today's widespread residential kitchen mid-range appliance problems, unless they are hungry to capture the wide open market spot with RELIABLE, no plastic/wire components, reasonably affordable, great customer service and repair, and elimination of "no returns" market. Apparently, that is too complicated for many manufacturers in the mid-range market. IF GE were smart, given their new (partially public) R&D/investment money, maybe they would consider payback for shoddy past underperformance by great customer service. It starts at the top with management, and if the top takes the GE name with top salary and bonuses typical to such, it won't happen. I am not holding my breath either. I was responding to xedos' point that once the big appliance companies know they are top dog mid range market (starts with a W, ends with a P), consumers might be better served by companies trying to stage a comeback, which describes GE after many soured on it's overseas outsourcing & poor customer service and poor refrigerator QA. For your viewing pleasure, here is the new, big, electronic board heavy GE FD refrigerator, available April 2013. Regrettably for GE, I won't be the one of it's first consumer testers, especially with GE's "no returns" policy. Here is a link that might be useful: Link:

From Wikipedia 2006 Acquired the Maytag, including the Maytag, Jenn-Air, Amana, Jade, Magic Chef, Admiral, Hoover, and Dixie-Narco brands, after Justice Department approved the merger. Surpassed $18 billion in annual revenues. 2007 Sold Hoover to Techtronic Industries, TTI Floorcare.[4] and Jade Appliances to Middleby Corporation. Also closed plants in Newton, Iowa; Searcy, Arkansas; and Herrin, Illinois. This resulted in the sudden loss of 4500 jobs in the affected communities. Surpassed $19 billion in annual revenues. 2008 Location closings in La Vergne, Tenn; Reynosa, Mexico; and Oxford, Miss. Later the announcement of Dishwasher plant in Jackson, TN to close in August 2009 2009 Whirlpool acquired WC Woods from Bankruptcy [5] and to keep Ottawa, OH plant open; Whirlpool to close Evansville plant;[6] Whirlpool has received $19.3 million in U.S. Department of Energy funding as part of its Smart Grid Investment Grant program [7] 2012 Whirlpool closes Fort Smith, Arkansas plant in June 2012 after moving production out of the plant to Mexico for several years prior to the closing. In 2006 the plant employed 4,600. 15,000 lost jobs since the merger, but the billions in revenue keep going up, while the customer service goes steadily downward.

I have a Samsung top loader that was involved in their recent recall. Its about 4 years old and held up great until a few months after the recall and then it started shaking and adding tons of time during the spin cycle (which is related to the recall). They sent a DishTv person out to do the recall repair and immediately after he left, the first load I did, it was worse than it ever was. I called back and got to the warranty dept b/c after the recall fix, it was now a warranty issue. But there was a lot of phone calls back and forth to get the warranty work approved. Finally, its all fixed, but I couldn't use my washer for about 2 weeks and it would have been longer if I had not been so aggressive with my phone calls to them multiple times a day. Laundromats are not cheap either. This was all right around Christmas time and I was pissed. I actually ended up contacting a Samsung executive on FB and wrote him a loooong message about how terrible the whole experience was (I have left many of the details out, but nobody seems to know what they are doing or care, etc. I felt like I was inconveniencing them b/c Samsung cut gave me a washer that might explode.) Anyhow, the executive did take about a month to get back to me and by that time the washer was fixed. But he was actually super nice and is sending me a check for $150. That said, even after his act of kindness, it will be a long time before I buy another Samsung appliance. Their customer service is absolutely horrifying. The only time I have had worse is with Comcast.