I'd say their other key ingredient is the fact that this is a perfect product. It does what it should do perfectly and it will still do it in 50 years and more.
We got one for our wedding 6 years ago and hardly ever use the thing. Growing up, my mom had a Sunbeam mixer where the bowl spins and the beaters stay in place. Maybe just bias because that's what I grew up with, but I liked the way that mixer incorporated ingredients a lot better. Unfortunately, Sunbeam only makes super cheap products now, so I don't know that you can even buy such a thing anymore.
My mom still uses the same one she had since I was a little kid, which means it's at least 25 years old and possibly older. They're a great piece of machinery, far exceeding today's expectations of how long a product should last with minimal maintenance.
I had to replace snapped dough hooks three times with my KitchenAid and eventually the hinge started to go. Ended up going back to Kenwood and haven’t had any problems since. Anecdata though.
The regular KitchenAid is so-so, but the Pro (with the bowl-lift mechanism) has a significantly better dough hook and a stronger motor; it’s well worth the extra hundred bucks (especially if you bake bread)
We've been through with all kinds of machines. Either there were not strong enough or just seemed to die after their usual life time.
After seeing one really old Kitchenaid machine at my SOs parents, I finally decided to buy one. Never regretted it. We make Pizza at least once a month my GF makes cakes once every 2 weekends. It is in use a lot. Especially the dough hook looks massive and I can't imagine a dough that could break it. So what did you do with it? ;)
No idea? They were plastic plated unforged metal; the plastic would gradually flake off into the dough then finally the hook would snap. I assumed there was just a bad batch of hooks in the market until the third one broke. The Kenwood hooks are forged stainless instead.
Just to be sure we're talking about the same thing. This is how ours look like after something like a decade: https://imgur.com/a/ozd7MIY There is some use to it as you can see at the bottom and a dent where I guess it fell down. But nothing compared to what you describe.
I can't imagine what could break it. Maybe grinding bricks ;)
Sort of tangential: it appears that many KitchenAid mixing blades have substantial lead contamination [1]. I've seen similar results in testing at my local county health office.
