SOS gets hot and cold with oven and fridge fixes

Andrea Orlowski’s family invested in a frozen pizza cooker and has been making liberal use of its microwave during the past four months, but more traditionally prepared meals could be coming back into style now that she’s finally in line for a refund for her defective stove.

Orlowski, 43, of Waunakee, and her father contacted SOS in mid-October with a complaint about the runaround Orlowski had been getting from South Korea-based LG Electronics after the oven portion of Orlowski’s electric LG stove stopped working in late June, only about 15 months after she purchased it new.

Sharon Rowland wanted to return the oven range hood she purchased in July at Madison’s West Towne Mall.

Shirley Mathison wanted the double oven she purchased in July from Madison’s Brothers Main — but not the $250 bill to install it.

Niem Allen figured if SOS can help one southern Wisconsin woman with a faulty refrigerator, it can help another.

She was right.

In the end, Mike and Jackie Shivers’ 15- to 20-year-old washing machine could not be saved, so it was only fair that Sears Home Services refunded the $482.56 it charged them for trying to save it.

Less fair was the $270 bill the Shiverses got five months later from a collections agency.

Whirlpool told SOS last week that it will buy back three more of its AquaLift self-cleaning ovens that some unhappy customers say don’t, in reality, clean themselves.

SOS’ June 4 column about Barb Behnke’s seven-month quest to return her AquaLift model was seen by at least one person having the same trouble getting the low-temperature technology to work, and one who didn’t want to risk it.

The only ingredients Barb Behnke was supposed to need to cook up a clean oven were a little water, a sponge, 200 degrees and 40 minutes.

Instead, she ended up needing more than six months, an assist from SOS and a different oven.

“Life’s good” has been the same-initialed marketing slogan for South Korean consumer products giant LG Electronics for years.

But for Dawn Langmade, 56, and her family, the company might as well be UC, for “unsatisfied customer,” or LW, for “long wait,” or even CFLP, for “chronically faulty linear compressor.”

Consensus is lacking on whether the Hills’ refrigerator couldn’t keep a freeze and, if so, when exactly their roasts, ice cream bars, chicken strips and other perishables began to thaw, as well as what the unit’s retailer did or didn’t do about it.

But after a few weeks of some icy relations on all sides, the Whirlpool Corp. acted swiftly in response to inquiries by SOS and is promising a refund.

In what is traditionally the hottest month of the year, the Lundergans had a refrigerator that was too cold. Before that it was too warm. What it hadn’t been since July 2019 is just right.

Gene Lundergan, 82, of Madison, emailed on July 22 to say he and his wife, Sandra, had purchased a Whirlpool refrigerator from the Brothers Main on South Stoughton Road in Madison on Oct. 26, 2015, and — with an eye toward mitigating what might, and eventually did, happen — they also purchased what they understood to be a five-year warranty on the appliance from NSI Protection Plus.

It’s hard to keep eggs, milk and other perishable foods from spoiling when there’s a hole in your refrigerator.

And as Michele Bethke discovered, the longer the hole goes unseen by human eyes, the harder it is to get a new refrigerator.

With the clock ticking on her one-year warranty, a failed repair and a cadre of customer-service staff she struggled to understand, Joan Preston, of Stoughton, figured she better call SOS.

Three weeks later, she has the promise of a $1,347.84 check and hopes of not having to spend so much money eating out.

Find someone who specializes in General Electric appliances — that was the advice Val Roman said she got from a couple of repair techs who couldn’t explain why her five-year-old GE refrigerator was leaking water onto her new wood floor in the fall of 2016.

So Roman hired Jay Allen of Appliance Service Pros, which collected $601.35 from her in its failed attempt to fix the fridge and then allegedly put off her efforts to get a refund.