Probably a long shot, but does anyone know somewhere in Taipei I might be able to get an Instant Pot repaired? Last night the piece of shit decided to self-immolate, and now the buttons and display work fine but it won’t heat, instead giving an error code indicating a problem with one of the pressure sensors. This is after a little over a year of fairly light use.
I opened it up to find the following, with the connecting wire to said pressure sensor completely burnt off:
…which is a bit more than I can fix with my soldering iron.
I bought it in Costco in March 2021, so I guess I’m well outside of their 90-day returns policy (?) for appliances, and it seems that the manufacturer warranty period is only one year as well. I’d be fine replacing the circuit board myself if necessary but I can’t find one, and I’d prefer not to throw it away and spend NT$4k on a new one after just one year.
Try asking Costco, I don’t know what their policy on defective items is… But problem is stuff like circuit board is proprietary component that isn’t easily available. You can try to bridge all the burned out traces and hand wire this but that is likely too much trouble. You can look on ebay to see if they have the circuit board, but it might as well be easier to just buy another instant pot.
I’m not 100% sure about here but at least in Costco US “appliances” only refers to larger things like a refrigerator or washer/dryer. I think you’re good to return.
Yea I think the rule is in place to prevent people from buying say an iphone from Costco and trying to get a free upgrade by abusing their refund program.
Electronics：Costco will accept returns of televisions, tuner-free displays, projectors, major appliances*, computers, touchscreen tablets, smart wearable devices, cameras, aerial cameras (drones), camcorders, MP3 players and cellular phones within 90 days from the date the member received the item. To protect your personal information, we require you to remove your personal information before return.
Major appliances include:
Refrigerators (above 283L)
Freezers
Ranges
Cooktops
Over-the-range microwaves
Dishwashers
Washers
Dryers
Wine cellars
Electrical garment care systems
Yea I would just get a return from them. Make sure you have whoever bought the item go there with their membership card to return it. You do not need a receipt because the purchase is recorded. I don’t think instant pot counts as a “major appliance”.
Seems to be a consensus, though I’m surprised to hear that. Do Costco really offer returns after so long? I’ve heard they have a good returns policy, but I figured there would be no chance.
Yeah, that’s what I was thinking. I’m not sure what happened to that particular connection to make it burn out like that, but most of the components look fine with the possible exception of the nearby relay and fuse (I’m assuming that’s what the large black thing is; didn’t check). I thought about trying to rewire those connections until I saw how destroyed the bottom of the board was.
I couldn’t find any matching boards on Ruten, Shopee, eBay, etc. (there were some for other Instant Pot models, but this specific model doesn’t seem so common).
Yep, they do. I’ve brought back broken blenders etc. well after a year without issue. One guy at the return counter was even willing to try his hand at fixing the thing when it turned out to be simple fix (something had jammed) and I was happy to keep the working product.
On larger items past warranty, they can also direct you to the nearest repair center.
Costco policy with small appliances is quite lenient, they fix it for you no charge or give you a new one, but you should not open the thing. That usually voids such guarantee. Therefore, my advice is close it up, tell Costco it died on you and no, you did not tinker with it.
That is why people return half eaten bagels to Costco…
Yeah, that’s what I thinking. It was surprisingly easy to open though (just one screw, and didn’t need to break any warranty seals), so I should be able to put it back together easily enough and just tell them about the burning electronics smell and error message.
I think they’ll help arrange the manufacturer to repair if you wish to go that route but I haven’t seen them offer to replace stuff, rather they’ll simply refund. Issue with this is if you bought the item on sale, you’ll get refunded the sale price and not the replacement price which is likely now higher. Some people might buy a brand new one at the new price and then accidentally return the broken sale item as the new one thereby getting the full cost back and still having a new item at the discount price…Actually you don’t need to accidentally do it in Taiwan, it’s practically encouraged! Whereas in other countries there’s a “gimme” date whereby if you buy something at full cost and it’s discounted a short time later they will refund you the difference if you ask, in Taiwan they will not. Instead you can buy the newly discounted item and return it immediately requesting it returned as the item previously purchased at full price.
