I Can't Complain: My Coffee Maker Is Driving Me to Drink

Two months ago, my trusty Mr. Coffee carafe coffee maker sprung a fairly significant leak in its base and had to be replaced. We had guests and terrible caffeine headaches, so we pretty much just bought the first carafe coffee maker we came across, which happened to be this Cuisinart:

Shiny, eh? It's a lot fancier than poor old Mr. Coffee. It has a separate water filter, a special button for making smaller pots of coffee, and a nifty little light to tell me when it needs cleaning. As an aside, the first one of these we brought home worked for approximately 8 hours, and then stopped working entirely. This should have been a warning, but as usual I failed to heed it.

About two weeks after we brought Cuisinart #2 home, the red "clean" light started blinkly merrily. Naturally, my first inclination was NOT to actually figure out what that meant and how to make it stop. Instead I pushed the clean button and various other buttons, alone and in combinations, until I realized that was having no effect. However, I noticed that pushing the clean button made it change from blinking to solid red, so I just left it that way until the next time I made a pot of coffee, in hopes of fooling it into thinking I'd cleaned it. And hey, it worked! For 24 hours, until the next time I made coffee, when the light started blinking again. Since we only use the coffee maker on the weekends, I cheerfully ignored the blinking light for a week. The next weekend, after we made coffee, I tried fooling it again, by running a pot of plain water through it with the clean light on solid red. That also worked... for one coffee cycle. This coffee maker is NO fool.

I ignored it for another week, and then decided it might be helpful to RTFM. The manual explained that when the light is blinking, the coffee maker needs to be "descaled" and provided detailed directions for how to do this, involving precise measurements of white vinegar and water. This was too much work for me, so I just dumped some vinegar into the thing, pushed the clean button to make the blinky light solid, and ran it. Success! The light went off! Of course, now the coffee maker smelled horribly of vinegar, so I very reluctantly ran a pot of plain water through it. More success! The light was still off! Whoo hoo! Now giddy with my victory over Cuisinart #2, I ran another pot of water (because it still stunk of vinegar) and then another. No blinky light! No mere kitchen appliance can defeat me!

The next morning, I happily made a pot of coffee in my Officially and Properly Cleaned Coffee Maker. Thirty seconds into the cycle that $*#*&%^#%@ blinky light came back on. This time I followed the cleaning instructions precisely. The light went off, but two pots of plain water later it came back on. I have now cleaned this coffee maker more in two months than I cleaned its predecessor in three years (I NEVER cleaned old Mr. Coffee). No matter what I do that light keeps blinking, silently mocking me.
I think I'm going to have to resort to the solution my dad suggested when, years ago, I asked him to do something about the annoying shift light on my Jetta. He went into his work room, rummaged around for a minute or two and came out with a roll of silver duct tape. "What's that for?" I asked, expecting some complicated explanation about electrical wiring. "Put a piece on the dashboard, just over the light. That should take care of the problem..."

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Like my Dad always says, the more buttons there are, the more there is to go wrong. :) I have put tape over the "service" light in my car (not my current car) b/c even after having it checked out, there was nothing wrong with it. I think that is a good strategy for the coffee maker or just return it and buy a totally different one.

Posted by: beth | December 09, 2008 at 12:48 PM