Maytag window air conditioners

Sometimes a brand’s reputation is misleading

Maytag window air conditioners sound like a good investment. After all, the Maytag Corporation is over 100 years old and built a solid reputation for itself as a top-quality manufacturer of washers, then dryers, then a brand selling countless other appliances. Many of us grew up on the TV and magazine commercials showing a bored Maytag repairman who has absolutely nothing to do.

The story of Maytag window air conditioners is very different. Luckily, these air conditioners are no longer currently marketed, but when they were, they were a bit of a quality disaster. And it’s not hard to appreciate why: Maytag window air conditioners actually have nothing to do with the Maytag corporation, other than the fact that Maytag earns licensing fees from the sale of their brand name.

Fortunately, Maytag window air conditioners are far enough in the past that the only likely way you’ll come across one is if someone is trying to give it away to you. And as I hint at in Window AC units, the less you pay for a window air conditioner at purchase, the more likely you’ll be paying through the nose for it in energy costs during its operating life.

Maytag window air conditioners are actually made by a company that filed for bankruptcy protection in the summer of 2007. Fedders had been one of the largest room air conditioner manufacturers in the US since 1947, and in the late 1990’s, after a number of turbulent (and not all that hot) years trying to make a profit selling room air conditioners, Fedders began outsourcing parts and the manufacture of entire air conditioners to other companies based in China. This actually helped improve their bottom line during the Asian financial crisis because the cost of Asian-sourced parts and Asian-manufactured units declined significantly in US dollar terms. Unfortunately, at the same time that Fedders began outsourcing room air conditioner manufacturing and parts, it also started on an ill-fated venture to produce commercial HVAC systems, and took on significant debt to do so. It survived its brush with bankruptcy only by divesting much of its product portfolio, and it appears to have stopped making window air conditioners altogether.

In 2001 Fedders entered into a license agreement with Maytag, allowing Fedders to sell its air conditioners (or in many cases, the air conditioners it designed and had companies in China manufacture) under the Maytag brand for a 10 year period. Initially consumer experience with these Maytag window air conditioners was positive. Many of the models appeared to be highly efficient and operate quietly and dependably for years. But the financial pressures Fedders was under by the first few years of the 21st century seem to have caused it to cut many corners in terms of quality. While some customers of Maytag window air conditioners raved about how quiet their window units were and how effectively they could cool a room, just as many customers complained of failing compressors or fans within the first few months of operation, failing circuit boards, or extremely noisy operation within a year or two of purchase.

And those who were planning to take advantage of Maytag’s excellent reputation for customer service when they bought Maytag window air conditioners, were in for a rough surprise when they tried to get warranty support. In many cases, consumers reported that the 1-800 number and the website address given to register the product or get warranty service were no longer in operation. Many customers contacted Maytag directly to complain, and the response from Maytag was that Maytag itself was not responsible for these units, as they were made by another company. Where customers were able to get service by getting through to Fedders, the turnaround time was excessive (some reporting a wait of up to 4 months to get a unit replaced or serviced – long enough that the cooling season is already over in many northern states and in Canada) or that the replacement or repaired unit broke down soon after it arrived.

Maytag window air conditioners were not particularly ambitious on the energy efficiency front either, although some of them managed to achieve an ENERGY STAR rating – which simply means they were at least 10% above the minimum allowable efficiency of an air conditioner of their capacity sold in America at the time. Bear in mind that as of 2023 the ENERGY STAR requirements for window air conditioners are significantly higher than they were bcak in the 2001-2011 timeframe when Maytag window air conditioners were made, so even if you still have a Maytag window air conditioner with an ENERGY STAR label, chances are it’s quite inefficient.

The Fedders corporation sold its air conditioning business to a European company called Airwell, and came to be known by the combined name Airwell-Fedders. As of late 2023 I can’t find any evidence of that ongoing partnership; Airwell appears to focus on larger HVAC systems including an air-to-air heat pump, air-to-water heat pump, and hot water tanks.

If not Maytag, then who?

In general, if you find a room or window air conditioner for sale on an overstock website, or at a big discount at one of the big box stores, you are probably getting a combination of low quality and very modest efficiency. That means you’re fairly likely to need warranty (or post-warranty, fee-based) service at some point within the first few years of owning the machine, or that, when the machine inevitably fails within the first few years of operation, you’ll just toss it, figuring you already got your money’s worth.

But buying a cheap room air conditioner also means you’ll wind up spending a lot more money operating the unit than if you had bought a high quality, energy efficient unit, and then there are the added environmental costs – not only the extra energy you consumed operating the unit, but the environmental costs (energy and raw materials) of manufacturing it, and the environmental disposal costs for the refrigerant.

I would recommend buying air conditioners of the following brands, all of which get relatively strong, consistently positive reviews. I’ve ordered these from highest to lowest peak efficiency – based on data from ENERGY STAR:

1. Midea – CEER up to 16.0
2. GE Profile – CEER up to 15.7
3. LG – CEER up to 15.5 (although LG has a reputation for expensive parts and service)
4. Frigidaire – CEER up to 15.0
5. Vissani – CEER up to 15.0

You’ll notice the word ‘brand’ above. That means the brand name is not necessarily the manufacturer. LG is an original equipment manufacturer, while GE and Frigidaire are brands that appear on products made by hundreds of different manufacturers. Unlike Maytag, however, GE and Frigidaire do not sell their brand to others to license, so they have to be more careful about maintaining its reputation for good quality.

Frigidaire is both an original equipment manufacturer and a company that rebrands other manufacturers’ products to take advantage of its own reputation for quality, and then sells those brands itself. This is unlike Maytag which did not make air conditioners itself. Instead, Maytag simultaneously tried to uphold its reputation for high quality in the appliances it manufactures, while selling its brand to a cheap manufacturer and ruining its quality reputation in that particular segment.

Admittedly, it’s unlikely you’ll ever see a Maytag window air conditioner for sale at this point – but their story provides a cautionary tale around trying to make money off your high quality brand name without ensuring the people you sell the brand to have the same focus on quality. It means we all have to be extra vigilant, when shopping for any type of product, to ensure the company whose brand you are trusting actually stands behind the product that bears their logo.