Do I need a new clothes dryer?

[Telly]

I'm going to hang on to our 20+ year old set of Kenmore's (made by Whirlpool) as long as I can. All the new ones are microprocessor circuit board driven. Our old ones are basic electrical, the dryer has a simple gas valve and hot-surface igniter. All are easy to fix, for me, anyway.

IIRC, CR has not rated GE GAS dryers well for reliability. GE Electric, yes. Like a gas dryer is outside of their core competency. I wonder if GE really makes gas dryers, or if they are made for them by someone else. Many "GE" refrigerators are made by others, I think Samsung was one of them. A couple years ago, could see the same refr. in GE or Samsung with minor differences to try to differentiate them for marketing purposes.

[W2R]

I don't know who makes GE gas dryers, but I have had one for the past nine years. The model I have was reasonably highly rated by Consumer Reports the year that I bought it. It has been great and completely reliable, never having needed any attention or repairs. It would get "five stars" from me except that the buzzer is much too loud.

[Telly]

Quote:

Originally Posted by W2R I don't know who makes GE gas dryers, but I have had one for the past nine years. The model I have was reasonably highly rated by Consumer Reports the year that I bought it. It has been great and completely reliable, never having needed any attention or repairs. It would get "five stars" from me except that the buzzer is much too loud.

I stand corrected! I just checked the 2010 and 2011 CR's, they both show GE gas dryers as being just as reliable as Whirlpool, which is very good.

I have been (slowly) going through old CR's, so thinking maybe that's where I saw the not-so-good GE gas reliability rating... found a 1999 CR that had GE both electric and gas as not too good reliability. Article says data is from bought-new in years 1993 - 1998 that required repairs or had a serious problem that was not repaired.
The GE GAS is the worst of the lot they had data on, and is significantly worse than the others listed. And the GE ELECTRIC was towards the worse end of the chart, but at least it wasn't way out there by itself.

Things change... sounds like GE solved their dryer and washer problems. Good! (or maybe they are ALL being built by someone else now, I really don't know)

[Nords]

Quote:

Originally Posted by TromboneAl IIRC new dryers are NOT significantly more energy efficient, and don't even have energy star ratings. I'd check this out but I'm posting from my iPod touch.

I have the same impression-- that gas burns pretty much the same today as it did a century ago.
Clothes Dryers : ENERGY STAR

Quote:

ENERGY STAR does not label clothes dryers because most dryers use similar amounts of energy, which means there is little difference in the energy use between models.

Quote:

Originally Posted by samclem C'mon! You want to throw away this dryer without opening it up and getting it checked out at all?

I'm with Sam. At the very least you should advertise it on Craigslist as a handyman's special. They'd be happy to buy it for $50, repair it for $25, and sell it for $100.