My Kitchenaid Pro 600 stand mixer stopped working. The planetary gear just stopped turning.

#kitchenaid

My KitchenAid pro 600 stand mixer stopped working. It just wouldn’t turn. It’s less than 4 years old. I contacted KitchenAid and they said my options were to buy a new one or pay to have it fixed. What?! The life expectancy of a $500 appliance needs to be more than 4 years. They replied that they have a low failure rate. I thought that they should have no difficulty repairing or replacing the odd lemon if it’s that uncommon. Nope.

Well, I use it all the time for kneading bread, making pasta, grinding meat for sausage, spiralizing vegetables (to be pretty and add interest to a salad. I’m not falling for the fake pasta business), etc. etc. I had too much invested in all the accessories to walk away from it. So, I went online to see how to fix it. I found an excellent repair video that ereplacementparts.com put up. (Those blue letters are a link to the video). The guy is wonderfully thorough. That thing that wont turn is called a planetary gear.

I posted about it on Facebook and it turns out that a number of my friends had had the exact same problem. Since the failure rate is clearly a little higher than what they suggest  😉 (maybe they’re averaging in the longevity of the old mixers that used to work for 30 years in their numbers), I thought I’d post about the fix so you wont get super frustrated if it happens to yours.

I pulled my mixer over to the kitchen table next to my laptop and started taking it apart with the video.

There’s tons of grease involved, and there’s metal shavings from the damaged gears in those, so it’s best to toss on some surgical gloves. Or your fingers will feel a little sore and itchy for a long time. <ask me how I know> He instructs you to replace any of the damaged gears. I examined each one as I was going along, and they all looked fine, so I was worried I wouldn’t be able to recognize a damaged gear.

Then I saw it! The teeth on the worm follower gear looked completely stripped. Haha! I needed a new worm follower gear, and new planetary grease. (You have to replace the planetary grease regardless of what else you’re replacing so that the metal in the old grease wont wear down your shiny new gears!) I went on e replacement parts, and they were out of stock on the worm follower gear. Bummer, because I really wanted to support the business that made the video. I found the parts on Amazon. The total was $60. I could have saved $30 if I’d gone with another brand’s grease, but it had mixed reviews, so I decided not to mess with that.

I popped them in today, and bam! Working mixer. Just like that! 🙂 Thank goodness, because this girl’s in the mood for a little pasta!

These are the replacement parts I got, but it depends on which gear(s) of yours are damaged.

Whirlpool 9706529 W11086780 Replacement Gear Parts

Whirlpool 4176597 Replacement Grease Parts

May your favorite appliances last forever! Or at least a reasonable amount of time. 😉