5 Costco Items You Should Avoid Buying as You Prepare for Summer
Written by
Laura Bogart
Edited by
Gary Dudak
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The old song may go “summertime and the livin’s easy,” but for some Costco shoppers, it sadly doesn’t prove true.
Costco might be a haven of summertime finds for customers looking to outfit a patio, find the best supplies for a blast at the beach or a super chill pool day at home, or get the most mouth-watering options for a barbeque. But, like any other store, it’s not perfect. There are going to be some summer items that leave customers in the cold.
To help you determine what won’t be worth your cold hard cash as the months get warmer, GOBankingRates did an investigation into the Costco items you should avoid.
Produce
No summer cook-out or picnic is complete without fresh produce, from the tomatoes and lettuce that make a burger complete to the cut squash and spinach to complete the perfect side salad. However, according to a recent post from Eat This, Not That! you’d do well to find that produce at a local grocery store and not Costco.
When compiling the items that received the most complaints on Reddit’s hoppin’ Costco-related threads, the site found that customers didn’t find the produce that fresh or alluring. They reserved a lot of ire for the Costco avocados – a staple of much summer fare.
“Members specifically sounded off against Costco’s avocados. They complained that the Peruvian avocados tend to go from underripe to overripe in the blink of an eye, rendering them unusable,” the article said.
Kirkland Brand Batteries
Whether you’re taking a portable radio to the beach or simply relying on flashlights or other battery-powered candles and devices to help you get by during blackouts caused by summer storms, odds are, you’ll need reliable batteries.
Unfortunately, Costco shoppers on Reddit don’t exactly find the Kirkland brand of batteries to be the most reliable. One user lamented, “Kirkland AA/AAA batteries. I seem to have bad luck with them. While I haven’t taken notes or performed a test with a double blind study, it sure seems like they develop corrosion quickly and often. I’ll buy batteries from Costco but it is only Duracell or Energizer.”
Another Redditor who actually works at Costco jumped in to affirm the user’s viewpoint. “Costco employee here. We see the KS batteries do this a ton. I’ve had to hazmat soooo many Kirkland batteries due to leaking,” they wrote, before advising fellow Redditors to simply “stay away” from the brand’s batteries.
Michelin Wiper Blades
Like many Americans, you might be considering summer travel. Regardless of whether you’re going over the river and through the woods to grandmother’s house or simply to the boardwalk for an afternoon, you’ll need a car with reliable parts.
One Redditor complained about the low quality of the Michelin wiper blades they got at Costco, describing their issues in vivid detail:
“Several years ago I bought a few sets for myself and a few family members’ cars seeing how very inexpensive they are. All pairs made extremely poor contact, where the middle portion of the wiper pass almost looked unphased by the blades. I gave them a chance a few years later hoping it was a bad batch but to my surprise experienced the exact same problem.”
They were far from alone in their ire about the windshield wipers. Another Redditor chimed in, saying, “Those things… oh God… The rubber came off the wiper blade for me, exposing sharp metal. I now have permanent, very deep scratches on my windshield. They’re very poorly designed.”
Banana Boat Sport Ultra Performance Sunscreen Pack Broad Spectrum SPF 50
While the Banana Boat Sport Ultra Performance Sunscreen three-pack might come at a price that any avid beach-goer, or parent with several young children, might want to soak up like the rays of the sun, even a $18.99 price tag can’t make some poor reviews look golden.
Writing for the Dr. Axe website, Leah Zerbe, MS, NASM-CPT, NASM-CES, ranked this sunscreen among her worst choices for 2024. In fact, it made the very top of her list of “Most Toxic Sunscreens to Avoid.”
Introducing the list, she wrote, “When it comes to sunscreens, here are some of the other worst overall offenders scoring in the Red Zone (10) for major safety concerns. Overall, these products tested poorly in the EWG analysis and are considered bad choices for sun protection.”
Kirkland Signature Brisket Burnt End
In its analysis of Redditor reviews of Costco, the Eat This, Not That! site was disappointed to find that the Kirkland Signature Brisket Burnt End was found to be anything but a delectable treat for the summer grilling season.
Redditors cited a tough, chewy texture and mediocre taste as primary reasons they’d probably go elsewhere for their picnic grub.
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