Went to an IKEA kitchen display and almost lost it over the soft-close hinges

I was at the IKEA in Elizabeth, New Jersey last Saturday with my wife. She wanted to look at bookcases. I got stuck by the kitchen section. Some display had these cheap particleboard doors with soft-close hinges on them. The screws were already starting to strip out. I could see the hinge cup was off by like 2 millimeters. Told my wife that thing won't last 6 months in a real kitchen. A store worker walked by and said they get complaints daily. I wanted to pull out my pocket screwdriver and fix it right there. Has anyone else walked into a store display and just seen all the flaws screaming at you?

3 comments

3 Comments

wendy_lee489d ago

I mean, is stripped particleboard on a display model really that big of a deal? Those things get opened like 500 times a day by goblins who just wanna slam them.

val_ramirez9d ago

Went through this exact same thing last month at the one in Paramus lol. I used to think those soft close hinges were a game changer, figured they made cheap cabinets feel premium. But then I actually looked at how they're installed on the display models and yeah, the screws were already stripped out and the alignment was off. Totally changed my mind about the whole setup. That whole system relies on the hinge holding tight and if the particleboard gives out you're basically screwed. No pun intended.

miles_robinson209d ago

Doesn't the stripped screw just mean people were rough, not that the hinge system itself is bad?