Black & Decker CM1509 8-Cup Programmable Coffeemaker with Thermal Carafe

Not good enough for Goodwill
There are so many things wrong with this coffeemaker that I don't know where to start. I wanted to like it - my husband and daughter bought it when she and other family were in town visiting and our Braun coffeemaker stopped working. That was Mothers Day. I finally gave up yesterday, three months later. Here are the problems:

1. Weak coffee. There are two kinds of coffee drinkers in America: "is that tea or coffee, Mom?" coffee drinkers and coffee shop coffee drinkers. Yes, there really is a difference, and it begins with strength of the coffee (along with being freshly brewed, good quality beans, clean equipment, and, in most places, filtered water). But I digress. If you're OK with Aunt Mildred's coffee, you may be OK with this machine. It evidently pushes the heated water through the grounds too fast. There is no way to get a really strong cup of coffee, no matter how much coffee you use. For regular strength, we were using twice as much coffee as with the Braun...

I don't know what everyone is complaining about
Maybe Black & Decker recently changed the way they manufacture this machine but I have to say I am at a loss over why so many people are complaining. I bought this machine on sale at Target (Amazon turned out to have it for the same price, go figure) and then I found it online to look at reviews. After I read some of the more terrible ones, I was ready to return it without even trying but I figured that, since I already had it in my house, I might as well see how it works. A week later, I'm pleasantly surprised, so much so that I want to address some of the complaints I've read:

Coffee Temperature: Yes, this coffee maker either doesn't have a heat plate or it turns off once the coffee is done brewing (I'm not quite sure). Well, that's the point - leaving coffee over a heat plate for hours makes the coffee taste terrible (it's the reason I tossed my old coffee maker). The coffee this machine brews is hot - it's so hot that, after pouring a cup immediately after brewing, I...

Not bad if you like cold coffee
We bought this coffee maker about 5 days ago and were immediately and continuously disappointed. The carafe keeps the coffee tepid at best. There is no heating element on the coffee maker. From the moment coffee is made (not very hot) it gets cold. Within 30 minutes it is not drinkable. Additionally, the reservoir fill markers are easy to see but it is very, very difficult to see the water level. Unless you look directly into the coffee maker reservoir or pour the water into the reservoir from some premeasured container, it is almost impossible to determine how much water is in the reservoir.

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