Customer Reviews

Oster 6854 14-Speed Blender, Brushed Nickel

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(11)

 

 

Put 3 or 4 ice cubes in and they crushed easily. Add more, no problem, add more, machine starts just spinning in place. Now if you add frozen berries, blades still spinning with no action. Add liquid, good results. Add one frozen berry at a time and you get a nice smoothy. If mixture gets too thick, will not blend but just spins blades. I put in a can of sweet potatos added some water, turned dial to "baby food", no blending, blades spinning. Added a LOT more water, and it worked beautifully. I said it's inconsistant because it works great if you keep stirring and poking the ingredients down toward the blades or add enough liquid or make sure you add the frozen things first but not too many of them or one at a time after you've added liquid. Seems like a lot of work but I have nothing else to compare it to. My only other blender is 18 year old oster and couldn't even handle one ice cube so this seems like an improvement. Still might take it back to BBB and try another brand. When it works, and you do everything just right, you get a wonderful results.

The blender appears to be well designd and well made. I originally opted for a "fancier" unit, but upon discovering that these more expensive designer units have the blades held by a plastic housing, which invariably cracks - bought this one instead. So far it looks like I made a smart buy!!!

This worked great for a few uses. It even crushed ice effectively and I liked the pulse function. I agree with someone else that the collar at the base is lame and difficult to deal with.

Then the dial stopped working. Wouldn't turn right of the middle. I thought maybe it was stuck, so I pulled on it *gently* and the whole dial broke off.

So now I have a rather large paperweight. Guess I know that I need to spend more money on a blender next time.

Thanks, Oster!

I purchased this machine and I used it a total of 6 times before it started belching blue sparks and had smoke pouring out of it.

I have grown up with Kitchen-Aid and Oster products, Oster has always meant long lasting and decent quality in my book so I went with this Oster Blender when it came time to purchase a new one. Like a moron I didn't keep the receipt due to my previous misconception that Oster makes a quality product and I was under the silly impression that this Blender was going to last me a few years... not a few days. My mistake, now I am stuck with a smart looking dud that is going to end up as landfill.

Here's a run down on performance:
Pina Colada style blended ice drink - It mixes liquids fine, as soon as you put the ice in it bogs down or it will just spin and do nothing. I had to constantly keep tapping the ice down hoping that it would hit a blade and break apart. Results were disappointing, good slush mixed with large ice chunks.

Soup - Basic tomato soup made from stewed tomatoes. It began to liquefy just fine, but again... the motor just sat and spun out. I had to keep "pulsing" the machine to get it to work. Results were again disappointing and the soup was left "mealy", not smooth.

Basil Pesto - Simple basil, olive oil, pinenuts, garlic (that is already crushed) and finely grated Parmesan cheese. This is the stuff that the blender finally died from. I had made one other batch of Pesto previous to this and it was fine, in fact I was actually quite happy with the result. But again, the time it died and the successful pesto the motor began spinning while nothing moved inside the pitcher.

Non-peformance related... the collar thing at the base of the pitcher is retarded. It is loose and it jostles around up and down... it's just plain poor design. They were trying to make it look sleek, and they achieved that at the expense of creating an annoyance and making it a nuisance when it comes cleaning time.

There are two positives to this machine. #1 It is sleek and nice to look at. #2 The glass pitcher is rough and tough, nice and thick. You could beat a home intruder senseless with this pitcher it is so hefty.

In the long run, I have had some el cheapo $14.95 blenders from Target in the past that have out performed this machine. I will never buy from Oster again, such a disappointment.

It started when I opened the box and pulled out the really cheap product pamphlet: the thinnest, cheapest newsprint type paper with the barest info on my new Oster® 14-Speed Blender with Brushed Nickel Finish, not even any recipes. Then I pulled out the blender jar. Granted, I haven't bought a new blender in years, and hadn't really thought about how 'tiny' 40 ounces is, a little over 4 cups. My old one was probably double that; I do drinks for a Crowd; soup for a Family. Forty ounces ain't gonna cut it for me. Second surprise - the brushed nickel finish was...a spray-on shiny silver paint on the flimsiest thin plastic screw-on base. I could actually flex the base with my fingers. One misstep with that blender would definitely yield a cracked base, and scratches in the paint. I pulled out the motor: it, too, was flimsy and spray-painted silver. The cord was maybe 12 inches long, if that, and the dial for the speeds seemed flimsy. I was shocked because 'back in the day' an Oster blender was a brand you could trust! I wish I had read more reviews before purchase and sending it back!!

I bought this blender when my boyfriend broke his jaw and required an all liquid diet. I used it very little. When I did use it, it was quite weak in power. It finally died on me after a couple uses. Overall this was a very disappointing purchase.

I bought one of these 3 months ago. Looks great. Works great...for about a dozen uses. Then it just stopped running right in the middle of whipping up a batch of frozen drinks. Since I didn't have a receipt on it I just tried to fix it myself. Nothing seemed wrong. No funny smells. It just stopped without warning.

I thought "OK, a lemon". The last Oster blender we had lasted a LONG time. So, I ordered another one. Keeping the receipt this time. Last night it quit. Same deal. No warning. Just stopped. So, now I have to try to deal with warranty repair and all that mess.

Whatever you do, don't buy this blender. I don't think I'll ever by an Oster branded anything again.

When my 20+ year old ugly, cheap blender finally broke a second time, I thought I'd splurge and buy a new blender. I found this model on a popular auction site. The metal-looking plastic isn't impressive, but it looks good. The glass jar is nice and heavy, and the interior ribs help make sure that things blend the way you want them to. The lid is a floppy material that's an improvement over the old, rigid lid I had on my old blender.

I wouldn't try and crush ice in this thing. The motor smells like a toy train transformer after a few seconds, but all we use it for is mixing up protein shakes and fruit smoothies, so all it has to do is blend frozen berries. The pushbutton is a good idea, and the range of speeds is more than ample.

Overall I was fairly happy with the purchase. Not a bad value. It does what I want it to do and didn't cost an arm and a leg.

We have used this product for over a year and found it to be amazing. Ice crushing to smooties- all worked well. A nice pick

as some reviews state, it does get stuck at times but only because it is not fully on right (tighetened) or not placed on the proper setting
i absolutely adore this blender, we got it as a wedding gift over a year and half ago. it's extremely powerful, unlike the wal-mart version i had previously. I spend a lot of time in the kitchen, and have made soup, pestos, breadcrumbs, smoothies, cake icing, etc. with it, no need for a food processor with this. the sad thing is that i went to grab it out of the pantry (we have a small kitchen so i cannot leave it on the counter as that's valuable real estate for chopping, kneading, etc.) and i dropped it, the glass shattered so we're now looking for the replacement jar.

for the price, it's excellent, no need to buy more expensive, just make sure you've assembled it right, placed it properly on the motor, and are using it right

:-D