KitchenAid standmixers, sold as "refurbished" by KitchenAid - anyone have experience?

Cooking Discussions Cookware
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I’ve a daughter who’d like a stand mixer like mine (KA pro 600/6 quart series) but they’re fairly expensive ($380 on sale at the moment) but KA is offering a refurbished one for $280.

But unlike when shopping for a refurb’d Samsung phone, the KA website has no info about what “refurbished” means. Is it in “like new” condition, does it retain original warranty, etc.?

So I’m wondering if anyone has experience regarding KA and refurbished mixers.

Thanks!


Edit - I did find a general page on KA refurb which said they were “lightly used and in like-new condition” and that they had a 1-year parts warranty, vs. what I understand is a somewhat better “overall” warranty on the new appliances, where they claim they’ll simply ship you a new one and pay shipping for both the new and the old one going back.

Still, if anyone has experience with the quality of KA refurbs, I’d be happy to hear of it.

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I have one. If I didn’t know it was refurbished, I’d never suspect. It looked brand new when I received it and has never underperformed in any way. I’ve had it more than ten years, I think.

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Thanks much! Nice to have a reference point.

I chatted it over with my wife and late last night went ahead and ordrered it. She had me try about 5 coupon/promo codes and the last one we tried (FALL10, if anyone else sees this and wants to order) was a $28 discount (10%).

The KA order process algo is kind hearted, too - after I’d plugged in 2 failed promo codes it sua sponte offered me a code for a 5% discount (but we found tgat better one).

Shipping is free but a bit slow cp Amazon, but it’s supposed to be here 30 Nov.

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You’re welcome! Hope your daughter gets a lot of good use out of it. I use mine mostly for dough.

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She makes a cake here and there and she likes making garlic rosemary bread, but her main use is bagel dough.

I started making them when she was in HS and when she went to college she’d come home (1.5 hr drive) about twice a month to make them.

Now she’s graduated and her job is also about a 1.5 hr drive, so it continues. She bounced in here Sunday and made a batch and mentioned “it’d be a lot easier if I had my own”. She’s hand-kneaded before but didn’t like the result.

I told her I could get her an inexpensive brand, because we weren’t spending $500 on her 3 sibs’ gifts this year, and she said sure, no prob.

So i think she’ll be nicely surprised.

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(I see that you’ve decided, so this is for future readers)
I don’t know about KA, but in general for reburbished equipment, items are better tested than a random new item, as quality control doesn’t normally test every individual item. [source: husband who worked in printer manufacturing.] Would be smart to ensure the specific company’s policy is “like-new condition” if that’s important to you. My guess is many (most?) refurb items were DOA and returned, so they really haven’t been used.

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Thanks - good point. Besides being largely unused, I think a lot of things get returned (esp. now in the Age of Amazon’s Easy Returns) just because someone found the color not quite as expected.

I got a refurbed Galaxy S20+5G for about $200 on Amazon, much less (1/3?) than what Samsung was asking for a similar refurb. I’ve been happy enough with it so far. And we just ordered the same refurb for a daughter.

The refurbisher/seller is called “thegadgetdeals” and has a 97% satisfaction rating.

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I got a Dyson refurbished stick vac from Amazon years ago. Perfectly fine.

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Hmm. At least, I think I did. We picked “thegadgetdeals” (hereafter, TGD) both because of its high ratings and because the item says “shipped by Amazon”.

When I look at the order just made, the item link goes to the same phone by a different refurb outfit, let’s call them “notsogreatreviews” (hereafter, NSGR) and which is not “shipped by Amazon”.

But my order also indicates that “By seller: TGD”, rather than “NSGR”.

So do I trust the product link point to NSGR, or the “seller” statement being TGD?

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I wouldn’t… too many dubious sellers on Amazoink.

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That’s why I go with the ratings. If they’ve got 5,000 buyers rating them in the last year and they’re standing with a 97% satisfaction rating, then I figure I’m not taking a large risk.

Edit - I realize you may not have seen the 97% thing, it was in a post higher up than this one you replied to.

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I always check both the ratings and the number of items sold of a reseller on Amazon. Same as you would for eBay.

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Interesting mention - I ordered something off eBay about 6 years ago, then not again until just yesterday. My #3 daughter mentioned on a visit sometime over the summer that she likes our old, discontinued latte mug pattern called “Winter Fields”, which was sold branded as “Sonoma” (not Williams Sonoma, just Sonoma, so no idea if there’s overlap or not. And no idea where we got ours, way back when).

I found a few on eBay and ordered a set of 4 (at $30 for the set of 4, whereas some sellers were asking up to $16 per each). And a same pattern for a platter (smallish, 12-inch square) that I thought she might like, too.

Both of the sellers I picked had 100% positive ratings and over 500 sales each. I didn’t know about the latter part until I checked just now, though, and didn’t think about it - just saw the “100%” and figured good enough.

But to your point, someone with “100%” and 3 sales isn’t saying much!

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I’ve been getting stuff from eBay for over 20 years, and I have never had a single problem. Because I check carefully, and temper my wants accordingly. Funny, unlike Amazon, I have never received anything from an eBay seller that was damaged in transit due to improper or careless packing.

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I got mine new for $189 on sale at the long gone Consumers Distributing more than 40 years ago when it was still a Hobart machine and I still use it all the time. No problem. Its built like a tank.

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Interesting. That’s about $575 today. In a different thread I mentioned fixing up an old Sunbeam drop in toaster (the kind that automatically lowers/raises the bread). The YouTube guy with the video demonstrating the wiring etc. said they sold for $30 back in the day, which is over $300 in today’s dollars.

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I got the refurbed Pro 600 yesterday and opened it up. Very pretty; not a blemish. All the speeds seem to work but I didn’t put any load on it. I did do the dime test and it failed out of the box, but I only had to move the set screw about 1/2 of its travel distance to get it to pass, so that’s good.

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There have been a couple of design changes from my ~ 20 year old Pro-600. For one, the cap covering the PTO drive is a lot nicer than on mine. Just cosmetic, mainly, but still nice. This next one I’m not positive is a change or maybe I just don’t remember right - the bowl if you zoom in on the next photo below has very noticeable circumferential mill marks all along the inside. If I drag a fingernail from bottom to top straight up a side, I get quite a bit of vibration and noise. On my old one, I can (barely) see similar mill marks and it feels pretty smooth to the touch. Maybe mine have just been worn smooth over all the years of use (and ScotchBrite scrub pads)? Or maybe they’ve enhanced these on purpose - could be it helps with bread dough kneading to have the sides more “grabby”.

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The hook is a bit different. Same overall design and shape, but it’s about 25% lighter than mine and looks almost as if it has a coating. Daughter 3 (who worked in an Italian bakery throughout high school and college breaks) says their mixers had a hook looking like this one (just larger), rather than looking “bare metal-ish” like my old one, and she doesn’t think it’s a coating because they use theirs day in/out with nothing coming off. Most of the mass reduction was from the ~ 1/4 length of the spiral shaft nearest the head. My old one is almost 19 mm in diameter where this new one is about 14 mm.

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I didn’t photo the whisk but it seems to be cheaper materials. On mine, all the tines come to a point exactly at the center of the cone. On her new one, 3 of the 6 loops were bent askew and I had to bend them back into place. On my old one it feels like the loops are harder to bend and stay in place better.

Overall, as long as this thing lasts her (Daughter 2) for years I’ll be pretty happy with the purchase.

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I bought a refurbished pro KA from Amazon US like 15 years ago, still working fine today. My hook looked like the heavier bare metal one, but I guess it is the older generation. Design change slightly for the machine, for example, the metallic handle to unload the bowl doesn’t have that black plastic on it, also the button screw in the front mine has black plastic.

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It’s quite a looker!

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