Sunbeam Mode

The welds broke – I bought this ironing board 5 years ago, not the best ironing board but it did the job, till yesterday. I was happily ironing and the welds snapped on the legs. Luckily I was ironing on carpet and my iron survived the full. I got injured though, but only a few bruises. My trusty Big W ironing board is still going after 25 years, so I may go buy one of those again.

Overpriced junk that falls to pieces - buy elsewhere instead and get value for money – I own a Sunbeam SB4400 Mode Ironing Board which I purchased at Bing Lee. The reason I chose this particular model of ironing board, which is quite expensive relative to other makes of ironing boards, was that it looked very strong and sturdy and carried a respectable, well-established brand name. However, two spot welds which attach one of the two sliding legs of the ironing board to the (underside) body of the board have snapped, thereby causing the ironing board to collapse and, in the process, rendering it useless. This occurred when I was simply opening the ironing board to raise it to the normal ironing position. How this has happened is beyond me as it is implausible that the welds would fail under normal operating conditions. I am a civil engineer who has worked with Standards Australia's loading codes so I have a very good appreciation of the loading of structures and elements. Therefore, logically, for the ironing board to fail in this manner, it would be presumed that it would have been subjected to loads and stresses greater than the design working loads and I assure you that I have not, for example, jumped on the top of the ironing board from a great height, or done something similar to cause the welds to fail, if for no other reason than I would have injured myself in the process. In fact, while such an action would almost certainly cause damage to the ironing board platform, it would be unlikely to cause the welds to fail. Accordingly, it can be construed that the welds failed directly as a result of a manufacturing defect/improper welding practice that resulted in them not having the strength that they should have. I would assume that under relevant consumer legislation, it would be expected that this rather expensive ironing board would have been reasonably expected to not fail in the manner in which it has and I therefore request that you inspect my ironing board and provide an explanation for the failure of the spot welds. I note that another review of Sunbeam ironing boards posted on the Product Review website, reveal that other people have also had welds on their Sunbeam ironing boards fail in a manner identical to my situation, so obviously the failure of my ironing board is not an isolated incident and is the direct result of a manufacturing process deficiency and poor quality control. Ideally, I would like Sunbeam to replace my now useless ironing board with a new identical model. Given that this form of failure lies outside the limits of what would be considered fair wear and tear on an ironing board d, and is most likely the result of some manufacturing/welding defect, I consider that such a request for a replacement ironing board is not unreasonable, at all. I therefore wrote to Sunbeam with enclosed photos demonstrating how and where the ironing board failed, but Sunbeam have not bothered contacting me at all regarding this matter which just goes to show that the quality of their customer service to consumers is commensurate with that of the products they sell. I’ve learnt my lesson dealing with Sunbeam and its pathetic products in that I’ll never purchase a Sunbeam product ever again. I hope others will do the same.