Nate Nagel wrote:
Couple years ago the girlie bought a new Mr. Coffee "thermal"
coffeemaker because she liked the eco-friendliness of not having a
heating element under the carafe, and also it had a timer so you could
set it up the night before.

Fast forward to recently - the lid of the carafe doesn't pour nicely
anymore. Would like to buy a new lid, or a new carafe if I had to.
Well, it's not available on Mr. Coffee's online store which is
apparently run by a third party. When I contacted them, they
basically said "if it ain't on the web site, we don't sell it" and
suggested I contact Mr. Coffee customer service. Which I did,
something like four days ago, with no response yet.

So... is there another brand of coffeemaker that wouldn't leave me
high and dry like this? Or should I just give up on the "thermal"
thing altogether and buy the cheapest regular coffeemaker with a
timer that I can find, so I don't have to worry about a specific
carafe?

Don't get one with a timer - that's just one more thing that can go wrong.
Get a separate timer; the kind that the pot plugs into and in turn plugs
into the wall. My timer, so far, has outlived three ten-dollar coffee pots.