Review on 🔪 KitchenAid K400 Countertop Blender, 56 Ounces, Contour Silver by Thunder Ballman

I bought this blender in November 2019 after much research. Lower price. The positive reviews of this car helped me with the final purchase decision. When I opened the box, I immediately liked the car. It was very attractive. It was heavy and appeared to be a reliable machine that would last a long time. When I read reviews of comparable machines, the negative reviews included comments and pictures of broken jugs and describing bits of plastic getting into the mixed food. I kept this in mind when I first started using my new Kitchen Aid machine. I have never used ice in the car and have never added parts to it that could break the jar or slow down the engine. When using the machine, I always lightly pulsed the food several times, first crushing it, then increasing the speed to mix. I've been very, very careful to make the blender last a long time. I used the blender less than 20 times in November and December 2019. I liked it and it worked quite well. I bought a machine to make smoothies but it only lasted a couple of weeks and almost a year before the blender came back to work. My wife used the blender about a week ago (Nov 2020). For her salad dressing, she used only liquid ingredients and was careful with them. The machine made an awful grinding noise and after cleaning the jug we found the blade was loose and dangling around the bottom of the jug. It was melted and crushed and there was plastic in our food. Please see the photos I uploaded. I've tried to inquire about a replacement part on the Kitchen Aid website with no success. I was on hold for almost an hour before giving up. I tried chatting but to no avail. The parts page on the site didn't help either. It seems I'm now stuck with an expensive car that I've hardly used and now it's useless. As you can imagine, I do not recommend this machine or Kitchen Aid. We have been big fans of Kitchen Aid products for many years and many of our appliances are made by this company. After the experience with this product and the incredible experience on Kitchen Aid's website, this will be the last time we buy from this company.