Found a KitchenAid Blender at Goodwill

[human]

Walking through Goodwill can be sort of like a fishing expedition. Sometimes you don't get a bite at all and other times the bites are overwhelming. Yesterday skewed toward the latter. In addition to scoring a nice Kirby Gsix, which I needed like I need another hole in my head, I found something my quasi-girlfriend has been pestering me for recently--a KitchenAid blender. It's a five-speed model with pulse and ice chop settings. The thing is in immaculate condition. It doesn't look like it's seen much use at all. I plugged it in and put it through it's paces when I got it home and short of mixing up a batch of margaritas, it appears to work perfectly and saved me a ton of money. They had it priced at $20 and with Tuesday being educator day, I got it for $18. It ticks all the boxes except color. She wanted a red one but this one's silver. Hey, beggars can't be choosers. If she's not happy with the color, I'll get her a red rattle can and she can change it. My only concern is the carafe is glass and she's clumsy as hell so it'll be interesting to see how long it lasts.

 

[fan-of-fans]

I prefer a glass carafe myself. With the glass, the blades can be taken out for cleaning, and they also don't get cloudy/scratched with use like a plastic one does.

 

[suckolux]

Check the coupler,we had many failures. There may be replacement parts available now.

 

[human]

@fan-of-fans: I agree that glass is nicer; that is, until it breaks, which happens with alarming frequency on her tile kitchen floor. What usually clouds clear plastic is repeated runs through the dishwasher. Washing by hand avoids this.

@suckolux: I'll check that. The only testing I've done so far was to plug it in, push the buttons and observe that the blades spun when and how they should. They had it wrapped together with plastic wrap to keep the various pieces from going missing and I did not remove this to conduct my cursory testing. I know what you mean, though. I had a nice Osterizer blender once on which the coupler was metal on the motor side and rubber on the carafe side. Not surprisingly, the rubber got ground down to the point that the blades wouldn't spin at all and replacements were nonexistent. I think it ended up at Goodwill after I got a replacement.

 

[fan-of-fans]

The KitchenAids that have the rubber gear problem seem to be the very first ones (the UltraPower models) which were made from about 1993 to 2007-ish. They have a rubber clutch that sits on top of the motor that drives the blades. They often get worn down, I saw one at Goodwill that was completely worn down and wouldn't turn the blades.

The newer models made after that use a plastic recessed drive on the motor that doesn't seem to give as many problems.

The older rubber clutch replacements are readily available on eBay. The newer ones seem harder to find, but like I said, I don't think they have nearly as many issues.

You can also get replacement blade assemblies and rubber jar gaskets.

I recommend getting genuine Whirlpool FSP parts. I bought a generic gasket for mine on eBay (it was missing when I got it) and it leaves pepper like pieces of rubber every time I blend something.

Yours sounds like the newer version to me, being its silver, so I imagine it shouldn't have the problem with the clutch.