Ladies, can we talk washing machines please?

sunshinetours · 23 August 2011 at 3:52PM

Everyone will have their own favourite brands etc and that is why companies spend so much on marketing at the end of the day. hotpoint over past 10 years or so has an awful reliability record but many many people still reckon on it as a trusted brand. It take years to change people's perception of things that they don't buy
very often

The fact that your 15 year old Hotpoint lasted 10 years doesn't mean they are made the same way now. Just look at how much these machines cost now - they are cheap compared to say 15 /20 years ago - therefore something has to give in the costing of those machines. Quite often it scheaper grade plastics or electonics that will burn out due to low quality components

Something with a decent manufacturers warranty as standard will almost certainly be better made as the manufacturer cannot long term support high levels of parts failures

For me the choices would be if I was spending around £1k or so , ISE or lower end Miele providing they both had 10 year warranties
At around £400 to £700 or so, Siemens providing it had their 5 year warranty

I wouldn't buy a cheaper machine than that purely for reasons above, bnot because they don't wash clothes fine etc but purely because they are statistically more likely to go wrong and wear out quicker. If I only used a machine a couple of washes a week I would buy cheaper.

RacyRed · 23 August 2011 at 3:55PM

Forgot to say, I wash my kingsize duvet in my beko regularly (plus a selection of single and double duvets the cats manage to make a big mess of).

GarnetLady · 23 August 2011 at 4:13PM

As far as I remember Beko were doing pretty well on Which trials.

RacyRed, I have a Beko condensor and I love it as well as my washing machine and has been a godsend with a small baby in the house

I agree with sunshinetours as far as people buy a brand thinking going to be as good as they've always been, when the reality is quite often different. Several brand of sewing machine come to mind...

aliasojo · 23 August 2011 at 4:16PM

jackieb wrote: »

Hold up! Have you ordered it yet?

No, I got fed up thinking about it and ordered a larder fridge and freezer instead. :rotfl:

Just be thankful I didn't start a thread about those too.

I NEED to order a washing machine and dryer today, I'm getting desperate now.

I have 2 aunts living nearby and they have been kindly doing a load for me now and then but obviously I don't want to take advantage. They both have the same washing machine except one is a 1200 spin speed and the other is a 1600. There is a huge difference in how wet the washing is at the end. I was surprised at just how much wetter the towels done in the 1200 were, compared to when they were done in the 1600.

Maybe I should just give up on the duvet idea. :undecided

Gillyx · 23 August 2011 at 4:17PM

I live in a rented place and the washer and drier we have are both Beko, and I quite like them. Only thing is wash times, half an hour for a quick wash or 2 and a half for a normal!! I was made aware though a lot of modern washing machines are similar with times.

lostinrates · 23 August 2011 at 5:08PM

jackieb wrote: »

Hold up! Have you ordered it yet? It only takes up to a kingsize 10.5 tog duvet. I tried my son's 15 tog kingsize one and it was too big for the machine. It's a big drum but not that big. I don't think you'd get a domestic machine big enough to take a superking duvet in.

Is there anywhere, I wonder, where you can get machines designed for laundrettes...reconditioned perhaps? I'm starting to look at washing machines too....like Pigpen but for different reasons I want too, but one to be really big and neither have to be pretty! I wash our horse and dog stuff (hence need for a big machine) and would be ok putting the occasional domestic item in a bigger machine use dprimarily for animal stuff (at the moment we all use one machine and I just have to clean it well and rinse it between animal stuff and ours).

aliasojo I'm really bad at decisions too. I've been looking at this sort of stuff for a year now, washing up by hand is getting tedious and the fridge shelves broke at the weekend, so now have only one working shelf and decisions will have to be made soon!

I looked at the big LG machine on which?...not sure of model and don;t have which password...it looked ok, but no handwash function, it was the best ranked below the miele. I really want a handwash function but don't need/want a steam one.

Good luck!

aliasojo · 23 August 2011 at 6:35PM

I just signed up to Which to read their washing machine reviews. On their Best Buy table, they have a Miele machine at #1 and an LG at #2.

LG acknowledge the balance issue by stating.....

'We are sorry if some of your consumers have experienced load balance problems with their 11kg washing machines.

We had an issue with the control board on a small number of these machines, which was resolved soon after launch. There may, however, still be the odd machine from this batch still in the market. If anyone is experiencing this problem please contact LG Customer Services on 0844 847 5454 and we will arrange an engineer to come to your home and upgrade the software on your machine. Please be aware that the machine always needs to be placed level on a solid floor for best results.

jackieb · 23 August 2011 at 7:29PM

lostinrates wrote: »

I looked at the big LG machine on which?...not sure of model and don;t have which password...it looked ok, but no handwash function, it was the best ranked below the miele. I really want a handwash function but don't need/want a steam one.

The LG has a delicate setting and a wool one. That's pretty much the same as a handwash setting. You can have the temperature from cold to 30C on delicates and 40C on wool, and the maximum spin speed on both of these cycles is 800rpm, but you can change that to 600, 400 or no spin at all.

pulliptears · 23 August 2011 at 8:00PM

My mother had a Beko. day 366 of ownership it tripped all her electrics and refused to work again. I wanted to fight Curry's over it by Mother preferred a quiet life and replaced it (she said she'd never liked it anyway).

mildred1978 · 23 August 2011 at 8:38PM

I have an all seasons superking duvet. It has 2 layers that join together to make a 13.5 tog duvet. This house is so warm I only ever use the 9 tog one. That fits in my 11kg LG easily.