Game is advertising a “34 litre mirror finish grill microwave oven (DMO343)” for “R1090” with features including:
- 1000W Cooking power
- 5 power levels
- 60 minute timer
- 24 month guarantee
Don’t buy it. It’s a fine microwave oven, but it is made by Defy, which means that the guarantee is worthless for many important cases. You can read more about Defy microwaves here on their flash wielding web site or you can read on, and find out why they are oven non garuantua.
We have one of these, which we bought from Dion a few years ago around the time when it became a sister company of Game who have this amazing offer:
Interesting notes about the item:
- It’s not plugged in (why, you may wonder)
- It’s off (well, that’s because it’s unplugged)
- When we do plug it in, it intermittently trips the power when it is steamed up, when the door is opened, and when the door is closed and at other odd times we can’t figure out. Between tripping power, it can also cook food, which is nice.
When did this start? Well within the guarantee period. We returned it for repair or replacement well within the guarantee period along with detailed instructions about how to trip it (boil 2 litres of water for 15 minutes, then open the door), and it was returned to us with no small amount of stupid time wasting as “no fault found”, and no repairs were made, and no explanation given. Yet, it was still broken. It is still broken. It will never be fixed.
A year ago we met some people in a shop buying a new microwave. We told them about ours. “Oh yes,” they said, “our Defy also did that, that’s why we’re buying this one.” So there we have it. It was not just us: it’s either incompetence in that they do not know about this widespread fault, or that Defy routinely dishonours their warranty.
We are not particularly upset that the stupid thing is faulty: it’s a highly complex piece of machinery which flings electromagnetic radiation at food. That is absolutely amazing stuff. If that were not enough, it has an oven built in — an actual oven! Failing to trip the power is a very small part of its operation. What does bother us is that Defy shipped broken goods, and simply does not care to fix them. (Update: I am told that the convection part of the oven trips the power quite reliably lately.)
We don’t buy Defy stuff anymore, but every now and then we think of replacing our Defy with one that doesn’t trip the power, and then we see these advertisements.
We can not ever rely on Defy. We are limited to using Defy, but always do so with a lack of confidence.
The actual microwave equipment inside is made by Daewoo anyhow.
ps. If you’re from Defy, and you’d like to get to the bottom of this design or production flaw in your stuff, please contact us and maybe we can arrange a swop. This is what product recalls are for.
Update: It’s August, and it has now died entirely. The lights came on, the fan ran, but all pretence of doing actual heating was stopped. We gave it away to a man who thinks he repairs stuff, one Wilson.
