Cuisinart CBT-500FP SmartPower Premier Duet Blender/Food Processor, Stainless Steel

Comment: We bought this blender to replace a 35 year old Oster that performed beautifully....yes, it's a hard act to follow.
3 years and 2 months later, the Cuisinart's motor has frozen and burned out. The Warranty is good for 3 years only. Our local appliance repair person recommended buying an Oster or another brand for which it's easier to get parts. Our experience with the Cuisinart:

Pros:
Handles ice well.
Stays put on the counter.
Big, wide top glass jar.

Cons:
Really (really!) noisy.
Metal band that attaches handle to jar slips, allows food underneath and cannot be cleaned under there.
Base of blade is plastic, which cracked after 18 months of use.
Pulse function is difficult to use.
Motor didn't last long.
Can't be serviced readily.
Expensive, given it's early demise.

Oster (or some other brand), here we come!

Comment: Terrible design in the spout. I am writing a review after almost 4 years of owning. It works well, but I can't stand looking at this blender anymore. THe spount doesn't work well. I make a smoothie everyday, so in terms of it being a workhorse- it is. THe problem is when I go to poor the smoothie it drips all over the place. So much crap has gotten under the metal part that surrounds the glass it looks terrible. I can't take the metal surrounding off to clean it either. So, that is a big problem. It looks very dirty at this point. But, I am having a hard time giving it up because it was expensive, and it does the job. The food processer part works great too.

Comment: I purchased this mostly as a compact food processor and to make the occasional smoothie. I have had it for about 2 years and considering the price (I payed about $140) you would expect it to last. Now every time I try and blend something the liquid poors out of the sides, rendering it useless. It is not durable and I don't think its built to last, sadly like most things these days. Not an appliance you would want to use a lot.

Comment: No problems so far, approximately one year later. Doesn't get a whole lot of use though. The main complaint is regarding the blender jar pour spout. What an inefficient design! Liquids just spill over the edge then drip down the side of the jar when uprighted. Also, the inside ridges that go from top to bottom which help to knock the food around are poorly placed. There are four, one in the middle of each side. It would be better to have two on each side because having them in the middle makes it hard to use a spatula without making a mess. When scraping contents to spout (such as it is) it exits at either side of the spout. Not a good design. It's nearly enough to earn 3 instead of 4 stars.

Comment: I loved this combination food processor-blender. It did all the work I needed, it was easy to switch out the different parts of the unit, and easy to wash and clean.

I bought the unit in late 2004, and used it until late 2008, so it lasted for 4 years.

Unfortunately, the warranty is only for 3 years and the motor burned appears to have burnt out. I would expect a blender that costs this much to last much longer especially given that I did not use it all that frequently.

For the first couple years, it performed very well, then it started to have trouble crushing frozen fruit, let alone ice. Then one day it stopped working altogether.

I may try to take it to a local repair shop, but I'm hesitant to spend the time and money to ship it off to the cuisinart repair when they are unable to give me a quote for the cost of the repair.

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Update May 2010: The repair shop was unable to fix it, as the electics had gone out; it costs more to replace them than to buy an entirely new unit. The repairman said that the prices on these items had gone down significantly because they are using cheaper parts. He thought I was lucky and unusual to have had mine last for so long. At any rate, when I looked at new blenders, I thought I was buying the same unit, but I accidentally got the cheaper: Cuisinart BFP-703CH SmartPower Duet Blender / Food Processor,
$78.49 ; I couldn't recommend that one LESS--very cheap and poorly made.

At any rate, I recently used my friend's top of the line cuisinart that is expressly for food processing. It slightly bigger and heavier than this model. It is far quieter and it is done processing in a couple of seconds vice a minute or so. I strongly recommend going that route.