By Paul Smith
Former Head of Test | Kaiwhakahaere Whakamātautau
In the biggest change in our product testing since the 1960s, we have incorporated a lifetime performance score to help shoppers buy appliances they know will last.
It’s no longer good enough for products to just perform well when they’re new. We’re the first international consumer organisation to only recommend durable appliances that work well for a long time.
We’ve tested products for more than 50 years. That testing shows many modern appliances work well when they’re new, but some of them aren’t built to last. This change doesn’t mean we’ve thrown out our heritage – we still assess ‘as-new’ performance. However, we also include measures of reliability, owner satisfaction and repairability.
Only models that perform well and meet all three measures will be recommended.
Our scoring comes in response to manufacturers building products that don’t last and can’t be repaired. This “take, make, waste” approach is unsustainable. Waste needs to be seen as a design flaw. End-of-life recycling is important, but it’s a last resort to divert materials from landfill. Products need to be designed to be repaired, reused and refurbished – preventing them reaching end-of-life so soon.
We've been running our annual reliability survey for more than a decade. Consumers have told us that appliances don’t last as long as they used to, and they are getting increasingly harder to repair. This means shoppers are paying for needless replacements and the planet pays by another appliance ending up at the tip.
We're continuing to develop lifetime scoring and, in the future, we’ll also include an assessment of how easy it is to repair a faulty product.
Find our lifetime scoring on our lab-tested product reviews for:
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