Mom's 29 year-old Kenmore washer had been going out for a while. This past week, it delivered a one-two punch with a heavy knocking on the spin cycle, as well as a mystery leak. We wanted to wait to send it off until the big 3-0, but it just wasn't worth it, anymore.
On Friday, I waited too long to respond to a guy who was selling his 2-year-old Speed Queen set on CL for only $250, so I decided to see what was available new. We tried a big home improvement store, which had some nice options, but nothing in the dent + scratch area. The next store, a big-box electronics retailer, had an $800 washer that everyone seems to sell for $550, marked down to $411 as an open-box unit with a dent in the front corner. We were sold.
We did the paperwork, paid a total of $452 for taxes, delivery, and haul-away, all expected within 5 days.
Just for the sake of thoroughness, we took our new receipt to the appliance dealer a few doors down. The saleswoman greeted us and I was straight-forward. "We just bought this a few minutes ago, but they can't deliver until the end of the week. Can you do better?"
They did do better. For just over $470 total, they sold me the same unit, but brand new, plus stainless-steel hoses (the other one didn't come with hoses). It was installed last night.
TL;DR: Bought an open box washer. Price-matched it with a competitor for a brand-new unit.
November 13, 2017 at 02:42PM
