You Pinspire Me
It was three days before Christmas, and my to-bake list was long. Cinnamon buns, squares, cheesecake, cookies, truffles, etc etc etc… I was kneading a loaf of bread in my KitchenAid Stand Mixer when it clunked and the dough hook stopped turning even though the motor had not stopped running. I raced to turn off the mixer and, of course, immediately tweeted my freak-out.
Oh no!! My @KitchenAid_CA mixer motor is still running, but the paddle just stopped turning! What do I do? Ack! #badtiming #ChristmasBaking
— Jenn Pinspired (@YouPinspireMe) December 22, 2014
KitchenAid, being the wonderful company that they are, emailed me straight away – I did a campaign with them this fall so they knew who I was. They hooked me up with customer service, who called ME instead of vice-versa, and I got a diagnosis for my problem (now my KitchenAid mixer paddle was moving but making loud a clanking / knocking noise as it went around) – the gear was broken. I also found out that time flies when you’re with the one you love – I still thought of my mixer as ‘new’, but it turns out that I’ve had my precious for 3 years this Christmas – meaning it wasn’t under warranty anymore. Sadness. They offered me a generous discount off of any model that I wanted, but I still wouldn’t have been able to fit that in my budget unless I gave up my discretionary spending money for the next four months which I wasn’t keen to do.
The kind lady at KitchenAid customer service gave me the name of a local repair shop that were known to fix these stand mixers but after a call in to them I knew that wasn’t the route I was going to go, either. 2+ weeks for a fix that would probably be a minimum of $125. I checked them out online and found reviews that were less than favourable when it came to their track record with KitchenAid mixers. I took to Twitter and found the same reaction there to this service provider.
@YouPinspireMe I finally bought a new one, because the numerous times I brought it in to be fixed, it wasn’t though they said it was. #ugh
— Catherine (@AlwaysARedhead) January 10, 2015
In the mean time, my loves-to-be-a-hero-husband did some research online and found out that it was most likely the ‘Worm Gear
My Knight in Shining Amour locate the service manual for my Artisan Series 5-Quart Tilt-Head Stand Mixer and, after studying it for a few days, started surgery.
He made it look straight-forward, though I know that he was intimidated about the project as soon as he saw the service manual instructions.
It took less than an hour for him to confirm that the diagnosis was correct – the Worm Gear
In no time (but with very careful attention to detail), he had the mixer back together – he didn’t even have any nuts or bolts left over! #score
It has been quite pleasant to have my second most used appliance back in working order. It does run a touch louder than it used to, but I’ll take it – we have lots of work to catch up on!
Sidebar… I saw this kettle at Target the other day – don’t you think it’d look awfully purdy with my mixer?
Jenn vanOosten
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Yeah for handy husbands!! I would just as lost as you if my KitchenAid mixer died. R is currently trying to fix our dishwasher. It’s 8 years old so we’re not really sure if it’s fixable.
YAY Husbands! You know, I don’t have a mixer. I just don’t like them. I wonder why….? Super odd right?
Yay! Glad you got the mixer working again! I love it when things can be fixed instead of replaced. Sadly, however, both our humidifier and tassimo had to be replaced as our fixing attempts just made them worse.
I hope he added a generous amount of grease– that could be the reason it’s so much louder now. Also, what caused the gear the strip in the first place? Was it just a very tough dough?
I purchased the KitchenAid Heavy duty Lift-Stand Mixer, 220Vac. I also bought the meat grinder attachment. First time I tried to grind beef, at a 75% speed setting, the mixer slowed down and failed. Grinding action stopped while the motor resumed at normal speed.
I am qualified to disassemble the unit and found that the worm drive gear had stripped under excessive load.
My first thought was; “Wow! KitchenAid actually engineered a mechanical fuse into the drive train. This, in my opinion, is a very bad design flaw. Over torque conditions resulting in possible damage to the motor and drivetrain can be sensed by monitoring motor current. A dangerous condition developing within milliseconds could be stopped with a smart resettable circuit breaker. Instead, KitchenAid designed this appliance with a part that has a high failure rate. The average consumer is not qualified to remedy this problem at home and has no choice but to pay the repair cost. What a nasty slap on the face for the consumer. Shame on you KitchenAid! Your concerns were not with the welfare of the consumer, but rather with the revenues of your replacement parts sales. I will personally boycott your entire product line forevermore!
This is hopeful. I think I’ve the same problem. May be I should try to get in touch with you. I live in Toronto.
Also the dough was too tough I think or may be it was a long build up. For easily a year now I’ve been back to making dough by hand which is no big deal. But would be nice to have it working especially for whipping and batters. I certainly would never overwork it again. Once geared, twice shy.
It was definitely a while coming for our mixer – it definitely made funny noises for several weeks before it went kablewy!