Anybody else like IKEA furniture

[Jonathan Whatley]

I've had good experiences with Ikea. I grew up in Toronto, a BIG Ikea town. There are now two Ikeas in the City of Toronto proper, another about one block north, and another a few cities west (hi Johann!). I wouldn't be surprised if there's no concentration like this anywhere in the U.S. (and there isn't really elsewhere in Canada).

[Johann]

Don't like it at all. The stuff is low quality and I am not a fan of the look.

The look - you either like it or you don't, I guess. It's a subjective thing. I'm sure there are plenty who would agree with Ryoder about the quality. Twenty years ago, I was one of them, but not any more. Back then, some of their stuff even looked a bit "disposable" and sometimes appeared to be made of very cheap materials - "kräpp," "kärdbørd" etc. - excuse my mock-Swedish. Back then, I'd see two-year-old IKEA chairs and sofas out for garbage pickup. Haven't seen any in recent years!

But even then, I thought some of the designs were really cool, even if the execution was in dodgy materials. SO good that home-brew fans would copy them in good wood, etc. I think IKEA quality in general has gone 'way up over the years and the design has held up, too.

IKEA itself has been over-the-top successful. A few years ago, in 2007, Ingvar Kamprad, the founder, was the fourth richest person in the world, with assets of $23 billion, according to Forbes. Mr. Kamprad, now 87, hasn't been able to hold on to the No. 4 position, but he's done pretty well for a guy who delivered mail-order furniture to the post-office and local customers in his own car, back in the 1940s. A Volvo? Likely, although I'm not sure.

Johann

[taylor]

Just bought this shelving storage today to put underneath my mounted TV in my bedroom. I must be addicted to IKEA. EXPEDIT Shelving unit - high gloss turquoise - IKEA

[Lindagerr]

I LOVE Ikea furniture and you guys are making me think I should call my son and tell him to bring me some when he comes up from NJ next week.


BUT PLEASE no more praise for Volvo at one time they were great cars made to last for ever and they had great customer service. Today I had to have my 2004 XC90 towed from the dealer to a cheaper mechanic. The car has burnt out its THIRD transmission, it only has 118,000 miles. Volvo of America knows it is a problem in 2003-2005 XC90's but they refuse to acknowledge this. There are millions of complaints on the internet just Google XC90 transmission. There is a class action suit but I'm not sure if it was settled and they will be lucky if they get $500 each. My car has all the bells and whistles I bought it used but the original sticker was in the glove box $53,000 in 2004!!!! The dealer first wanted $350 just to diagnose the problem then it would be $7-8K to fix it, the car is only worth about that. So we are stuck between a rock and a hard place, we can't really afford to get it fixed again (the 1st replacement was at 46K miles, the second we paid for at about 92K miles) but on the other hand if we don't fix it I don't have a car and we can't sell it like that at least not foe much money and we can't afford to buy a new(used) car now. So we had the car towed to a mechanic who will take the motor out ship it to somewhere like Indiana have it rebuilt with better then new parts and put it back in all for only about $4000. Oh and the best part is it will only take about a month for me to get my car backbanghead Sorry for the rant this is just a sore point I needed to get out.


OK now I just need one more post to make 1900 just 100 more to be a Queen :coolgleam:

[Daithi]

I'm getting ticked with IKEA right now.

I bought a set of nice bookcases through their website about 4 days ago. I received an email confirmation of my order almost immediately. It said "Thank you for your order! Your order is now being processed..." and gave an estimated delivery date of Sept. 6th. I haven't received any other emails since. It just so happens that I will be off from work the first week of September, so I wanted to call and confirm delivery. I called and was left in the call queue for over 20 minutes. I finally gave up. I went to their website and used "Ask Anna". She couldn't help and gave me the same phone number I had just tried.

One thing that is particularly annoying, and not limited to just IKEA, is to be sitting in a call queue where the message keeps saying "Your call is very important to us..." Apparently it isn't so important that they can hire enough people to answer the damn phone in a reasonable period of time.

[Lindagerr]

Yes that is annoying , and when you get to hear the same adds over and over or the same bad elevator music over and over. One place I used to call had a local radio station as their call music. It might not have been my choice in music but at least there was variety and a talk break now and then.

[Johann]

Yes that is annoying , and when you get to hear the same adds over and over or the same bad elevator music over and over....

Agreed. Strangely, the worst offenders for interminable wait-times here in Canada seem (to me) to be:

(1) Any government office
(2) Any telephone company

After those - the bigger the company, the worse the wait-time.

Johann

[taylor]

Finished assembling the Expedit shelving case in high glossy turquoise. I LOVE the color but it's the type of color that 3 years from now I may be saying, "What was I thinking?". I guess I'll cross that bridge when it comes but right now I feel like buying a disco ball and doing the John Travolta dance when he was young/skinny and doing that thingamajig with his index finger =) Now I have to figure where I need to put this blue Hemnes storage bench HEMNES Bench - black-brown stain - IKEA which was what I originally planned on being underneath my mounted TV but it just looked like there was too much wall space since it's not really that big. This one is definitely a keeper. I love blue furniture, gotta buy some more. On top of that I ended the night with the color blue, watched Smurfs 2!

[Johann]

BUT PLEASE no more praise for Volvo at one time they were great cars made to last for ever...

The reason they aren't the same may be - they haven't really been Volvos for years. Volvo car division was bought by Ford and later sold to a Chinese firm, Geely, which in the past has had a horrible reputation in the West. Last I heard, a few sub-$10,000 Geely cars were being imported into the US -- just a handful of dealers.

Years ago, Geely mopeds and small motorbikes were sold in the US. They got some terrible reviews. There was a "geely-sucks-dot-something" website with horror-stories. Here's an excerpt on the sale of Volvo (car division) to Ford and then to Geely, from the Volvo Wiki:

"In 1999, Volvo sold its car division Volvo Cars to Ford Motor Company for $6.45 billion. The Volvo trademark was shared between AB Volvo, where it is used on heavy vehicles, and the unit of Ford, where it was used on cars. Volvo stopped posting profits in 2005,[vague] and in 2008, Ford decided to sell its interest in Volvo Cars. In August 2010, Ford completed its sale of Volvo to the parent of Chinese motor manufacturer Geely Automobile for $1.8 billion"

Johann

[Johann]

Last I heard, a few sub-$10,000 Geely cars were being imported into the US -- just a handful of dealers.

Whoops! Sorry! No Geely cars in US. Those cheapies I read about were from Chery (yes, that's the spelling) - another Chinese car company. Here's the wiki on them:

Chery - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Geely cars are sold in a number of countries, but not US or Canada - The oft-despised mopeds, etc. were sold in North America, as I said. Cuba has purchased a large number of Geely cars. I've read that many Geelys are used as taxis and police cars there. Geely's parent company also makes the famous black London cabs.

Volvo continues to make cars without interference from its new owners, so it's still somewhat like the days of Ford ownership, I guess. Geely wants to make cars in China branded as Volvos. Volvo in Sweden is OK with that, but the Chinese State has not yet approved it, says the Geely Wiki.

Johann