Here's a dialogue with Bob Jones that resulted from his posted message. He
felt that it should be posted to the list (thanks Bob!):
Hi Janet,
>Hope my netiquette is okay, since this is my first try at a response via
>e-mail. I was intrigued by your posting to the bread digest about the
>problem with your Hitachi breadmaker, and would love to post this answer
>to the Digest and see who else responds, but I haven't a clue how to do
>that without you receiving a copy of the whole Digest! But I will
>learn... :^).
>
I think you should send this to the entire digest. It would be interesting
to hear if others have experienced the same problem. Just send it to
Bread@cykick.infores.com
>My Hitachi worked fine for about 2 months, then began doing the same
>thing yours is doing. Previous phone contact with Hitachi in the U.S.
>resulted
>in a courteous, helpful, cooperative, consumer-oriented response, and on an
>800 number yet. Unfortunately, when they found out I was calling from
>Canada, they told me I'd have to deal with their Montreal people. No 800
>number, and a very rude response that boiled down to "tough, that's not
>our problem, talk to whoever sold the machine to you". Needless to say, I
>haven't bothered to contact Hitachi about the 'bread hockey pucks'
>problem I share with you. I too tried many yeasts and flours and
>variations with no luck--it is a machine malfunction we're dealing with here.
I did call their 800 number several months ago and really didn't get much
satisfaction. They offered help like "did you use the exact ingredients in
the handbook?" Not much help really.
>
>So last week we went back to the store we bought the machine at, and when
>I said that I wanted to speak to them about a problem with a bread
>machine, the clerk said immediately, "Is it a Hitachi?". Apparently they
>were getting an unreasonably large percentage of Hitachi machines being
>returned, and they had no hesitation about refunding our money even
>though we'd had the machine for about 4 months by then.
>
This really baffles me. Really all a bread machine does is stir and heat. I
can see it stir and I know it heats because it bakes. If fact I know it
heats OK because the bread rises OK. When it goes into bake mode, that is
just a high heat cycle like an oven. I can't see how the bread machine could
be at fault. Did they give you any ideas about the failure mechanism?
>We use our bread machine constantly and really miss it, after 10 years of
>making bread the old fashioned way every 2 weeks; but we're reluctant to
>try Hitachi again. Unfortunately, the selection here is meagre; and we
>would have to buy a machine without many of the features we enjoyed with
>the Hitachi if we change brands. For the time, we remain in limbo,
>gathering info on other brands and hoping the local selection will improve.
>
>Can you let me know what happens in your case? I assume you'll have to
>deal with Hitachi since you've had your machine 2 yrs. Best of luck to you!!
I will let you know if I ever resolve the mystery.
Thanks for your response!
Bob Jones
bjones@bdt.com