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Just had a drawer slide fail on an 8 year old kitchen I built
Went back to a customer's house last week to fix a drawer that stopped rolling smooth. Thought it was maybe some debris or a loose screw. Pulled the drawer out and the ball bearing cage on a $12 pair of slides had just given up. Plastic parts cracked and bearings all over the floor. I put those in when I was still using the cheap bulk slides from the big box store to save $4 a set. Customer wasn't mad but I felt bad. Replaced them with a $28 pair of soft close slides from a real supplier and it took me 45 minutes total. Has anyone else had a budget slide fail years down the line or am I just unlucky?
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cooper.reese22d ago
Alright but @the_sean, that's a weird take. 8 years from a $12 slide isn't a success, it's a ticking time bomb you just got lucky with until it wasn't. If you build a kitchen for someone, you're not just selling them parts, you're selling them a working kitchen for years to come. A drawer falling apart is a big deal for a homeowner, even if the slide was cheap. It's not like you warned them, "Hey, these might crack in a decade, good luck." That $28 upgrade shouldve been the base level from day one, and you'd have saved yourself a trip back and the awkward feeling of watching bearings roll across their floor.
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I gotta disagree with you on this one. An 8 year lifespan on a $12 slide isn't a failure, that's basically the product doing its job. Those cheap slides are designed to work for a few years, not a lifetime. You got 8 years out of something that cost less than a fast food meal. That seems like a win to me. The real mistake was expecting premium performance from a budget part. You put them in, they worked fine for nearly a decade, and now you upgraded to something better. That's not bad luck, that's just how cheap hardware works.
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