I recently discovered (like…yesterday) that I LOVE writing reviews. My funny bone comes out when I write reviews. Here is an article I wrote from 2013. My coffee pot broke…BEFORE I had my coffee…and I immediately sat down and wrote a review on it in retaliation.
I bought this model in June of 2011 and am aware that some of these points are reflective on the coffee maker’s age. In all honesty, I’m not sure how long a coffee maker SHOULD last. Regardless, here is what mine has done and is doing a year later.
Pros:
Great coffee flavor, every time!
Hot coffee from breakfast time to dinner time (for the first six months).
Easy clean, pull out filter basket
Favorite: I love the pull out water reservoir! I place it in the sink and have it filled WHILE I grind the beans! And if I spill it from a lack of coordination caused by sleep induced stupor, it doesn’t spill all over the electric coffee pot. I can also use the proper cleaning equipment to remove the built up calcium from years of use.
Annoying little cons:
– The 8 cup fill and 10 cup fill are covered by the flip lid on the reservoir, so if you are brewing 8 cups, you can not see the 8 cup fill line. The 10 cup fill line is marked inside the reservoir by a black lip labeled “DO NOT FILL BEYOND THIS POINT”, which I use as a marker instead. I only brew 10 cups, so its works well for me.
– After six months, the lid no longer seals on the carafe, so the coffee does have to be reheated in the microwave after only two hours of brewing. The plastic lip that used to slide into the handle now bows, flexing up. Never been dropped or machine washed. It started bowing about six months after use. I imagine from months of removal for cleaning.
– The carafe does leak, but hardly enough to even mention here. Why then mention it, you ask? Because I wanted to acknowledge the other reviews that were made about this particular “con”
– The opening is small. Really small. Most carafes, I can fit my hand inside to scrub the coffee stains out of the bottom. Not this one. Again, a small con that I quickly dismissed.
– The light on the clock has dimmed SIGNIFICANTLY. To the point, where I can no longer tell time using the coffee maker’s clock. I often press the “dim light” button thinking it is on the low setting, which then turns the clock light off completely because I forget that it already is on its highest setting.
Cons that have pushed me to the point of buying a new coffee pot:
– The “clean” light has NEVER TURNED OFF! Ever! Every morning I stumble stupidly into the kitchen, I set the reservoir under the running water, I grind my beans and think, “Oh! I have to clean the coffee pot.” After 365 + days of this it grates! You’d think I’d remember this every morning, but my higher thinking skills are dependent on the cup of coffee I have not yet brewed. The defective light first lit up after the traditional 30 days of use, AND HAS NOT TURNED OFF SINCE! Not after unplugging the device for 20 minutes. Not when I unplugged it for two days during a move. Not after attempting 4 batches of vinegar/water mixtures followed by a “clean” cycle, which brings me to the next problem. The clean cycle.
– This device boasts an automatic cleaning option. This is a lie. The clean light turned on after that initial 30 day use and I followed the manufacturer’s instructions. I added the vinegar/water mixture and pressed “clean”. To this day, I have no idea if the clean mode actually cleaned the machine. What it did do was omit this incessant, high pitched “beeeeeeeeeeeep” for the entire duration of the clean cycle. I thought it was broken. I tried it again. It beeeeeeeeped again. Not like your car’s gentle, but incessant “buckle me buckle me buckle me” ding that nags at you to buckle up . . . But louder and higher pitched . . . like 4 octaves above high C. I googled Mr. Coffee glitches. And just like the poor man I found on google who located his wife chewing her arm off after the beeeeeeeeeeep continued for 30 minutes, I too was driven to irrational states of madness.
I ended up simply running a batch of vinegar water through it. Four, in fact, just to turn the clean light off. It didn’t work.
– Two weeks after the first use, the filter lid popped open (I’m assuming that is what happened) causing an avalanche of hot watery coffee grounds to flow all over my kitchen counter/floor. This happens once every one to two weeks. There is nothing that can be done to avoid or predict the avalanche. I think the water splatters the grounds under the lid that is supposed to keep the grounds contained in the basket. But once the grounds get under the lid, the lid can’t close freeing the grounds to run amok all over inside the basket. Ever see Gremlins? They enter the drainage system that flows into the coffee maker’s internal passage to the carafe. This, in turns, clogs the drainage because the grounds have boldly gone where no ground is meant to go. The water flow is backed up until the filter basket overflows. The grounds have also clogged the carafe lid WHICH CAN NOT BE DISASSEMBLED for thorough cleaning, and this too gets clogged causing the water flow to back up. So the little water that does get to the carafe during the avalanche, also overflows at the carafe lid. And yes, its hot water because I only brew hot coffee.
To clean, I take my sink hose, turn on the hot water, unplug the coffee maker, and attempt to balance and tilt the coffee maker over the sink so I can direct the water to flow down and into the internal drainage system. Grounds and discolored water emerge all over and if I’m not careful – and I’m usually not because, if you remember, I HAVEN’T HAD MY COFFEE YET – the water that flows through the system comes out of the spout for the carafe which hangs over my counter’s edge because I am that short (4’11) and the coffee maker is that bulky. The result, MORE watered down coffee grounds to mop off the floor and now, my pajamas.
– Yesterday, and this is the deal breaker that pushed me to shop for a new coffee pot, the avalanche occurred, yet again. But this time, after I cleaned the mess and placed my coffee carafe back on the plate (not a hot plate as there isn’t one), the coffee maker omitted that horrid “beeeeeeeeeeeep”. If you try to brew a pot of coffee and have failed to replace the carafe due to caffeine deprivation, it will beep at you. But yesterday, the beep got stuck and WOUDLN’T STOP BEEEEEEEEEEEEEPING at me. I had to keep the coffee maker off and it never finished brewing the last 2 cups of my thoroughly saturated, dreg induced “coffee” mixture.
The irony of this? I HAVEN’T HAD MY COFFEE YET TO HAVE THE MENTAL CAPACITY TO DEAL WITH THIS CRAP!!
So today, I am reading reviews for other coffee pots that don’t spill over, that don’t have built in long, incessant beeps at ungodly decibel levels, and that have no “clean me” light reminders that never shut off.
Don’t get me wrong, if you can ignore the orange “clean me” light, the coffee maker IS GREAT between the avalanche of 01/14/2013 and the avalanche 01/22/2013. Just remember to clean the coffee maker by brewing your traditional vinegar/water mixture on the 1st of each month.
Personally, I expect much more out of an $80 coffee maker. If I had paid $45 for this, I would have mopped up the mess and sync’d my twitches to the beeeeeeeeep while cursing myself for not buying the more expensive model. But this IS the more expensive model.
Not worth the countless, coffee-less mornings I’ve had to endure kneeling in a puddle of ground-filled coffee mixture.
8 July 2018
I have switched to using the Bodum French Press. My coffee days are perfectly pleasant in every way.
