Kitcheaide stand mixers

[JC-jetro]

I have one that is 350 watt variety for over 23 years. I have grounded 32 deer with it, lots of beef grinding and literally many thousand of bread loaves with. Four boys and many birthdays and every single one of them was used with my kitchen aide. I just about love it , the best money you'll spend. last time I checked the motor brushes it still had plenty of graphite. It is my # house warming and wedding present to close family and friends. I probably bought about 8 of them in last 15 years and not one of them malfunctioned ever.
I think it is in the same league as my Ford 1700

JC,

 

[CurlyDave]

They last like a mother-in-law's curse...

 

[ronjhall]

Wife has a K45 that was purchased in 1974. Still runs great. The company that I retired from owned KitchenAid at one time. It was sold off to Whirlpool in 1986. Forum with history. forum.kitchenaid.com
Seems there are a lot of complaints about the current model mixers. Consumers Affairs.
There a lot of these mixers sold. They are about the only mixer available in a heavy duty model. We would buy another one. But the one we have will still be around for the kids to inherit.

 

[Bedlam]

Mine worked fine till it broke from running to 'slow' . Problem was all that metal etc. but they have a plastic gear inside that strips out quite easily.Yep bead dough was being prepared. (darn ill have to make unhealthy cookies)lol It reminds me of the Kirby vacuum built like a tank and then there the plastic impeller that goes to heck, Thats where they make their money.Parts. and particularly the ""shear""" pin part.
Perhaps a slip clutch would have helped lol

 

[irvingj]

When I worked in HVAC, we "branched out" into restaurant supply, and sold Kitchenaid stand mixers. They used to have 2 models, the K45SS and the K5SS. Seems like the motors were 350 and 400 watts, respectively.

We had restaurants that would purchase them and use 'em up in a year or so, but that's not bad considering the abuse they had to endure.... about the only consistent problem we had was customers overloading the things and taking out the speed control (just inside the round rear cover), especially the solid state ones that were developed in the mid 80s. I suspect that problem may have been addressed by now. PhilNH5 is right-- making bread dough is about the toughest job these machines are asked to do.

Don't know who makes them now, but they used to be VERY tough little mixers; we sold a bunch of 'em, especially around this time of year....

 

[jdbower]

I'm not sure if they meet the quality of the older KitchenAids (I, too, have relatives with mixers that are multiple decades old and work like new) but I've been doing research on them and the KitchenAid still seems to be the top-end brand. More importantly, the KA "PTO" has the most number of useful attachments if you want to do anything more than grinding meat.

Interestingly, KA has also supplanted Cuisinart in the high end food processor market, the Cuisinart does dough a bit better (who does dough in a food processor?) but most of the research I've found favors the KA for everything else. Perhaps even more amusing is that a Japanese company that also makes one of the best rice cookers on the market (Zojirushi) seems to have one of the best breadmakers, many Asians have issues digesting bread because their systems are used to rice as a primary starch source and they're not used to processed wheat.

 

[Bird]

Seems there are a lot of complaints about the current model mixers. Consumers Affairs.

Ron, that doesn't sound good at all. And apparently they do have a number of mixers returned, because they seemed to have an ample supply and variety of models refurbished. The only difference I could tell from a new one is a sticker in the manual showing a 6 month warranty instead of a one year warranty, and a big red "REFURBISHED" stamped in the manual. But I paid $189 for it instead of $299, so I guess if it blows up someday I won't have lost as much as some of those folks.

 

[jdbower]

Go figure, Costco had $50 off their special model KitchenAid plus a $20 mail in rebate so I bought one. The internal view shows all metal gearing as near as I can tell, but it's not on the KitchenAid website so I don't know how it stacks up against the Pro 600 series I had been looking at (beyond the wattage, but I'd imagine even the base model has more than enough power for me). Amazon has a lottery-based special for a KitchenAid Pro Series 600 at $69 (list is $499), if I'm selected for that deal and actually get it I'll probably bring back the Costco model.

 

[mjarrels]

Another nice thing is that you can get one in your favorite tractor color!

mark

 

[reb]

I bought my wife one about 25 or 30 years ago. It quit for some reason about 6 or 8 years ago, so I bought her another--I was too busy to fix the old one. The new one broke about 3 or four years ago. It was the plastic gear someone else mentioned. I still had the old one (it has all metal gears), so I fixed it. I am not impressed with the new ones. If I had to buy another, I would look at another brand. I saw a good looking one on the web for 2 to 3 times the price before I decided to fix the old one.