I've written a few reviews...

...some of them on products I'd just purchased, where I've given you my initial feelings and experiences with optional updates later. Other times, I see a product in my house that I've used for a year or more, and realize: "Hey, I can write a review about that!" This...would be the latter.

I love to write...

...but I think a part of me knew that this would be a difficult to write review, because while I:

* Loved the company overall
* Had a great history of owning their products
* Rapid and stress-free replacement of defective products (moving parts always break eventually...don't kid yourself)
* Exceptional design and durability overall
* Great selection of products
* Color coordinated (everything coordinates in Cobalt Blue and White!)

This particular product...

* Had so many quality issues
* Was not well designed or engineered
* Aside from the motor, the rest is mostly cheap plastic

Now, before we go on to explain each item above...

...let me just say that my household is well on its way to owning every, single, current KitchenAid product. Here's a list of the major stuff (I'm not going to list all the color-coordinated spoons, towels, pot-holders, etc.):

- Refurbished 3 Speed Blender (White) RRKSB3 - Purchased in 1993 or so. This blender would probably chop bricks, but you would void your warranty.
- Professional 11-Cup 670 Watt Food Processor (White) KFP670WH - Purchased a month ago. I've owned food processors before, and was always disappointed by the quality. This product is insanely well-built, processes food quickly, and is just all-around great.
- Professional 6 Qt Stand Mixer (Blue) KP2671XBU - Purchased middle of 2003. Having owned three of the lighter-duty models prior to this, I enjoy this model for its size and higher rated wattage.
- Timer (Blue) KG150 - Purchased a month ago. Best kitchen timer I've owned. Easy to set and use, ergonomic, loud signal with a weighted bottom. Perfect!
- Ice Cream Maker Attachment (White) KICA0WH - Purchased this past week. So cool! Fresh ice cream from your KitchenAid mixer...who could imagine?

Needless to say, I love KitchenAid...

I came back from a few weeks of business travel last month, and decided to treat myself. Drove up to the KitchenAid factory in Greenville, Ohio and took the $5.00 KitchenAid Experience tour. It was amazing! I learned a lot about the products, got to see how they were manufactured. Saw a huge warehouse full of big boxes destined for all over the world. Quite a bit of fun! Had the opportunity to see new products, old products and specialty products. I was surprised to see that "all" of the current mixer attachments fit the original mixer from way back. It's so cool that they've tried to design their product without all the typical planned obsolescence that most manufacturers build-in.

Once the tour was over, I went over to the KitchenAid store which is downtown, and got to see all of their products sorted by color...so if you have a preference for cobalt blue (which I do), then you don't have to look around much to find what you're looking for...and maybe pick up some other things that you didn't expect. Upstairs is the new stuff, and downstairs is quite the collection of refurbished and sale products. You can also order over the phone by calling the store. Neat, eh?

However...

...I really hate this juicer.

The first day....

I get the juicer home, and I'm so excited. I take all the packaging out (I read a few reviews here, so I already knew to be careful to not throw away the cleaning/scraping tool out with the packaging) and place it on the counter. Wow. The motor inside makes it pretty hefty, so although my first reaction was: "gee, there's a lot of plastic here...plastic switch, plastic case...nothing like the painted metal of the other products..." I decided to give it a chance. It did have a nice feel to the plastic switch - solid click on and off - and the rubber feet on the bottom felt pretty well designed and attached. I would have to purchase some fruits and veggies to process the next day.

A few problems....

Something I did notice when I first took it out of the box the first time, but hid it away in my subconscious until I first used it, was that there was a rattling sound inside. I later came to find out that it was probably a bolt that had gone loose, or something that had fallen off. I did buy it new, though, so I wanted it to be perfect. Something sounded wrong when I used it, and I was fearful something might fly off if I continued to actually make juice. I called the company, and they shipped me a replacement model UPS Two-Day, and it even came with easy and free return shipping for the defective unit. Piece of cake. I love KitchenAid!

But the replacement unit also had the same, exact problem! Something that sounded like a small piece of metal rattling around inside the unit. Yes, I checked to make certain that I was shaking the replacement unit and not the old unit. I checked serial numbers. Both shook...both made the noise. Weird!

I think I went through three iterations, and I was told that I could, indeed, make juice with the unit while the other unit arrived, because it was probably just an internal "cosmetic issue" that would not affect the performance (the piece hung-out on the bottom when not shaken, most likely, and the motor was in the middle).

I have to admit...

...that while the plastic feel of the unit did turn me off, the experience of having to replace units that were obviously damaged during the shipping process did not. Things break in shipping sometimes, and that's not the manufacturer's fault. I, of course, tried to made juice with each of the units as successfully as I could.

On the (w)hole....

I set you up above. If you hadn't ever owned a KitchenAid product, it's good that you know how much I love the company and their products...because it makes you appreciate how disappointed I was with this particular product's design. It's not like I was buying something by a crappy company where I would just write-off problems as "this is a cheap, crappy product from a cheap, crappy company." Au contraire! This was from a great company...and I feel it diluted the brand. BECAUSE....

The hole was too small! Unless the KitchenAid testing department used baby carrots, baby cucumbers, baby EVERYTHING, there is no way they could have thought that their product was superior to all of the other juicers on the market. The cheapest juicer I have seen has a hole approximately two times the size of this model. I just don't get it! I have to spent 15 minutes cutting everything into bite-size pieces, which means:

() Apples into eighths
() Cucumbers into quarters
() Broccoli into HALF-FLORETS!
() Carrots into quarters

Now...this means that this is not a time-saver. I can't simply cut the top off of a carrot and put it in the hopper and get juice. It means I have to cut each carrot's top off, then cut it length-wise (which is more challenging, and takes more time than a cross-section cut), TWICE, leaving me with four pieces. This means that with other juicers, I can make one cutting motion and place it in the juicer; with this juicer, I need to make one easy cut and two more challenging cuts for each carrot. That's not a time saver...that's a time waster.

Plastic: Revisited....

When I use many of my other KitchenAid products, they feel solid. I can feel that they're made of a strong metal, base coat, color-painted then top-coat. These are built more strongly than most cars, I think. The motor on this juicer spins really fast...and, like a washer on spin-cycle, gets out of balance really easily. The rubber feet are nice, but the plastic casing, and the high-placement of the motor, combine for a really high center of gravity, and this model quite often dances around the tested-level counter after a few fruit or veggie pieces. It's funny...and if you try to hold it by the top, it usually torques out of your hand, opens the top, which (for safety's sake) cuts out the motor. If you hold it from the bottom, it still moves, because of the momentum of the heavy motor, combined with the light plastic of the case - it just wants to keep dancing! This would be great for, say, a ballerina...but for a KitchenAid appliance...this is not so good.

Pulp Fiction (Basket)....

Besides the motor, which is typical A-plus quality KitchenAid material - the Pulp Basket is really high-quality. Not as easy to clean-out as they would have you believe, though. That is why they include a nice cleaning-tool. You will need to use this, or be frustrated endlessly with poor design. If you don't use the tool and opt simply for running water in the tap (and I have a very powerful option on my tap!), you will end up pushing all of the (now rinsed) pulp onto the opposite end of the basket, which won't come out because there's a lip that holds it in! WOW! All baskets I've seen in other company's offerings are in such a shape that you can easily rinse and wipe clean both the inside and the outside with water and a towel. Not so for this. You really need the included tool, water, and a lot of patience to get this really clean (as I always need my items after use). So while it's sturdy and it seems it will last forever, you'll probably throw it against the wall in due time well before its natural life has expired. Poor design.

Now take into account the fact that this product will wobble and dance if you don't clean it out, say, a quarter of the way through your juicing process, and I hope you've got more time on your hands to waste. Take it apart, clean out the pulp, put it back together, juice. Do that three times and you're not feeling the love. I'm sure with kids crying for their carrot and apple juice, it's a nightmare.

For juicing, I much prefer the pulp-ejection type of models. It just makes more sense, and makes for a lot easier clean-up!

Speaking of clean-up....

Once you've gotten everything prepped, the juice made, and you're ready for final clean-up, you're left with cleaning:

* The basket as mentioned above
* The counter top where you made the juice because the spout is placed too low for anything but a short glass, and you WILL spill juice with this juicer
* The pusher and the top

...AND...

All Your Base Are Belong To Us....

The base. Yes...you will need to take this electronic device, with an electronic safety switch, on-off switch and motor...and somehow safely clean all the juice and stuff out of it. They really should have made a removable part that comes in contact with the juice and pulp...but they didn't. So I have to somehow carefully clean the inside and outside of this unit without submersing it (that's always bad!!), and without knowing which parts are water-proof or water-resistant. Every time I clean this part, I'm concerned that I'm going to short out one of the switches, or fry the motor with water. I just don't know. The directions aren't really clear on this either. This product should come with a Care and Cleaning book with nice, useful, step-by-step directions on how to use the product and how to clean the product...but as I recall, the directions were missing in the first box I opened, and useless when I finally did get them. "Clean with warm, soapy water," or something just as useful, indeed. They didn't include succinct pictures or directions because they know that most customers will pull the directions out of the box before buying the product...and if I had been able to do that, and had seen the gymnastics that this product requires, I would have skipped buying it entirely!

My overall opinion....

I'd like to be able to say that KitchenAid "really tried" with this one...but I can't. It's just too poorly designed, not well thought-out, and unless you use the product infrequently, it's not really fun to use. It sits on my shelf most of the time now.... I take it out periodically, with visions of ease-of-use dancing around like sugar plums through my head...and then I encounter The Monster of Usage and Cleanup and I put it away for a few months or so.

The price was okay...but, really, if I had this to do over again, I would not buy this particular product without having used it first...with someone who has "had it for years" and knew how to use and clean it properly and efficiently. It is not "easy to use" nor is it "easy to clean" because of all the required prep-work, breaks for required cleaning, and final clean-up.

If KitchenAid were to release another juicer, and were to fix all of the problems I wrote about above and mention below, I would certainly give it a shot. Bigger fruit and veggie feed chute (much bigger!), efficient pulp-ejection system, easier to clean base, lower center of gravity, higher juice spout, lose the flanges on the pulp basket and redesign it for easier cleaning in general.

Sorry KitchenAid! I loved the tour and the store though!

Your very loyal customer,

--Amarand Agasi

Recommended: No

Amount Paid (US$): 99.99