Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

We bought this grinder from Amazon in March of 2014, so it just went out of warranty. It worked fine pretty much most of the time. We had a Krups before this, and would have kept using it but had water damage and had to be thrown away. It worked for years without incident, but was a hassle since its grinding cup couldn't be removed. The KitchenAid grinder was better in that you weren't dragging a power cord over your canister where the coffee would go. Even so, my wife wasn't as happy with the way this new grinder seemed to not grind the beans as evenly as the Krups once did. It was a small complaint, and we continued using it. Today I went to empty the stainless cup, and it wouldn't twist off as normal. I didn't force it, I tried wiggling it a little while trying to twist it. That didn't work, so I carefully laid the grinder on its side and the cup finally came off. I then realized the problem was that a large piece of plastic was preventing the cup from being removed. It was part of the bottom of the cup that interlocks into the motor unit, to hold it in place while grinding. It's just out of warranty, so I tried to simply buy a new cup for it. I figured that would be easy. Not the case. I've been all over the net and can't find the part. I've been on all the sites, so I don't believe they are selling it. This would mean having to buy a whole new unit for the sake of the one part that is most likely to break and takes all of the "abuse." The plastic at the bottom that interlocks to the motor shaft has a thin area, and that's where it broke. The plastic itself is quite brittle and reminds me of the older appliances that used Bakelite parts, although I'm sure that's not what it's made of. In short, I can't recommend this grinder since if you can't even buy the one most important and obvious part for it, then the whole thing is worthless. Everything else on it is like new. I've also noted others have had the same problem with this model. I've included a picture. You can see that this hasn't been abused, scraped, bent, mishandled or not used according to the manual. It just broke. I would venture to say that eventually it will happen to yours as well. KitchenAid could diffuse the whole problem by simply offering this part on their website for a reasonable price. The fact that it's not there is ridiculous. KitchenAid has been a trademark for tough reliable products for years, so we purchased the grinder with that in mind. We once owned a KitchenAid dishwasher which was built like a tank. Sadly, I believe they've resorted to making their products overseas like all the other U.S. companies have. Once that happens, then there is no way of knowing what the component parts are really made of.