My grandma's old stand mixer outlasted my new one by 20 years

I was visiting my mom last weekend and she pulled out my grandma's KitchenAid from the 1970s. That thing still runs smooth as butter, no weird noises or wobbling. Meanwhile, the one I bought in 2020 started smoking last month after maybe 80 loaves of bread. It got me thinking about how we traded durability for convenience somewhere along the line. Anybody else find that older gear just holds up better for baking?

3 comments

3 Comments

patricia_schmidt1421d ago

Fix the plastic gears in newer mixers before they fail by upgrading to metal replacements online.

daniel_lane3021d ago

Fix the plastic gears before they fail" - that assumes they're gonna fail in the first place. I've had my cheap plastic-gear mixer for like 6 years now and it's still going strong. Those metal replacements are overkill for most home bakers who do maybe a batch of cookies a week. Plus swapping them out is a pain unless you're already handy with tools, and you void your warranty doing it. Honestly, the design is meant to be a weak point so it breaks before the motor burns out (which is a smarter fail-safe than people give it credit for).

grace5085d ago

Does your mixer actually get heavy use, or is it more of a once in a while thing? I think that makes a huge difference. A lot of people don't realize the plastic gear is basically a cheap fuse for the motor, it's designed to be the first thing to go so you don't fry a $200 motor. If you're just doing cookies and cake mixes once a week, you'll probably never even stress it enough to break. What kind of dough are you running through it usually?