Zojirushi

The Zojirushi corporation manufactures all kinds of consumer goods, including coffee makers. When we were looking for a new coffee maker, we decided to get one of theirs online; the description fit all our requirements, and online we didn't see any major negative reviews. Ours is a drip-style machine; water from a tank in back is pumped through a heating element and dripped through a basket of coffee grounds into a carafe.

We were happy with the machine's performance for about 6 - 7 months, when the pump abruptly failed. We were pleased enough with the experience to go ahead and buy another one as a replacement. Unfortunately, the second one failed in about the same amount of time, in the same fashion.

A coffee maker is one of those things that's hard to justify repairing, especially long distance when shipping costs are factored in. The time you spend on the phone and packing it up are also part of the cost. However, we had two of the same machines fail in the same way, so we figured it was worth alerting the company to see what they could do.

They came through with flying colors. I'm pretty sure that whatever the warranty was on the machines, it had expired by this time. They promptly offered to pay for shipping both ways to pick up, repair, and return both machines. We shipped only the brewer bodies for each; they suggested we hold on to the carafes because they didn't need repair. When they returned to us, it appeared that one was reparable (and came back without the carafe), and one was not. They seem to have decided to send us a new one to replace the second machine.

We've not yet had enough time with the returned machines to see if this problem will happen again. If we have one fail again in the same way, we'll at least contact them to see if they want to repair it further. In that case, I wouldn't recommend you purchase one of their coffee machines. Overall, though, I'd have to say I'm very impressed with their prompt and friendly customer support. If you're thinking of buying a Zojirushi product, you should at least factor in their apparent willingness to stand behind their product and keep the customer satisfied.