My theory is that the appliance market has developed a low cost tier of products that are poorly developed and produced. This tier of products have minimal quality standards and the thinking is the the consumer will replace it or move.
I had to purchase appliances for apartments and the first wave of products were breaking within a couple of years. I ended up purchasing appliances from high-end European companies in the second wave of appliances and haven't had issues for 3 years. The original ovens had 3 out of 5 failures before people moved in. 2 of them broke because the flimsiest plastic door latch protruding about 1" from the door broke. The doors of the oven could be removed with no tools. The company said they could send me new doors for a cost and that I could schedule a video call with the factory to learn how to re-install an oven door.
Appliances have several different class and price is not a good indication of what class things are in. Cheap apartments want the cheapest appliances that will last and those people have the accountants to figure out what those are. However right next to the cheap appliances that last are cheap appliances that won't and often there is nobody that will tell you which is which. The you get into the mid range, where again there is junk and good stuff right next to each other. At the highest prices quality goes down just because there are not enough sales to figure out what is going to break and update the design in the early part of the sales cycle to fix issues.
I agree there are tiers. I don’t believe the tier indicates quality. GE makes great appliances but I think the parts are engineered to last for x number of years rather than the life of the product.
I also doubt my accountant could answer appliance quality questions. The could probably give a depreciation table.
I had to purchase appliances for apartments and the first wave of products were breaking within a couple of years. I ended up purchasing appliances from high-end European companies in the second wave of appliances and haven't had issues for 3 years. The original ovens had 3 out of 5 failures before people moved in. 2 of them broke because the flimsiest plastic door latch protruding about 1" from the door broke. The doors of the oven could be removed with no tools. The company said they could send me new doors for a cost and that I could schedule a video call with the factory to learn how to re-install an oven door.