Washing machine lifespan?

cottonhead

Hi I have no idea about this so hope someone more experienced can advise.
Have had my washing machine for just over 7 years. About 6 months ago the powder drawer wouldnt empty so I started buying 2-1in-1 gel capsules to put in the drum. The last few washes the clothes have come out smelling unclean and the spin doenst seem to take so much water out.
Am I best off just buying a new machine ? Is 7 years a fair amount of time? We live in a very hard water area by the way.

Antispam

7 years isnt too bad. Mine is at least 5 years but I got i with the house. I did have pump replaced last week. I just recently started cleaning mine out on a hot wash with soda crystals as I been told as low washes may create problems with blocking especially if you use less detergent

faerie~spangles

Have you cleaned the filter?

This found behind the kick plate at the bottom of the machine.

Pour a cup of vinegar into the drawer and set the machine to the hottest wash. Run it through and empty cycle.

The gel detergents tend to lead to a build up of gunk.

samboette

You may find it's because you've changed to a liquid detergent.

I regularly use powder but changed to a liquid when there was an offer on those big 80 wash bottles of Persil. Within a few weeks I too noticed the machine and our clothes smelt horrible. Cue washing the machine on 90 with soda, then white vinegar but it was still smelling.

We went to buy a new one and whilst speaking to a very honest guy at an independent shop we mentioned we used liquid detergent, he immediately said that the liquid builds up on the internal parts and pipes and unless you are doing frequent hot washes then it can build up and begin to smell and advised us to go back to using powder. We duly did just that and within a week the smell vanished, we have used powder since and the smell hasn't returned.

The man at the shop saved us £500+ we did however go back to him a couple of months later to buy a dishwasher!

Ben84

It does sound a lot like the pump filter is blocked. Have you ever emptied it before?

Yolina

My machine's been going for just about 13 years, and I'm hoping to get many more years out of it, I'm in a hard water area too. I regularly clean the fluff filter and the detergent drawer and also do an occasional hot wash with soda crystals, I've been using liquid detergent with no problems (so far!) The not-spinning-well symptom is often due to the fluff filter being full.

Peartree

Try this forum http://www.ukwhitegoods.co.uk/forumsphpbb3/

A lot of extremely helpful tradespeople answer queries here. They once saved me a lot of money when I was ready to bin my fridge for what turned out to be a very simple problem to solve. I also posted there to get advice when I was buying a new washing machine and, again, they saved me money!

ormus

i reckon on about 7 yrs per machine before you have to start spending money on it.
we have owned 3 indesits over the last 21 yrs or so. when they break, just skip em and buy another one.
no wasting money on warranty/service contracts.

kwatt

Thanks Peartree, we do try to help people as much as we can.

I wrote a bit on this subject here.

It is often a very misunderstood subject as there is no specific time on how long any appliance should last. It depends on the usage really.

Soda crystals, vinegar etc. are old wives tales, doesn't work and more so on modern machines as neither kill bacteria, which is the problem with low temperature washes and liquids. Just do a maintenance wash every so often and all should be well, I even wrote instructions here.

All washing machines are designed to do XXX number of cycles or hours of use before a Mean Time Till Failure (MTTF) and that varies massively depending on price. Cheap machines, 600-1500 cycles/hours. Mid range, 1500-2500 cycles. Better stuff, 5000 cycles/hours and upwards. Really good machines will be designed for 10,000 cycles/hours and more.

There is a huge gulf between the cheap rubbish and the good stuff.

All the manufacturers know these figures. Very few publish them though.

K.

forgotmyname

I phoned Indesit about a noise my machine was making, They tried to flog me stuff to clean the machine. Basically said the cold fill machines are useless and bad bacteria builds up in them because of this.

Also cleans the machine from limescale and other nasties that build up from 30 and 40 degree washes.

Think we all need a big cooking pot to boil our clothes in and get rid of washing machines until they are safe to use.

cottonhead

Thanks guys for the info. I have tried to clean it in various ways and the smell just gets worse and the clothes wetter. It was quite a cheap machine so thinking I might just get a new one like ormus said.
Thats really interesting about the gel capsules. I only started using them when the powder drawer stopped emptying but now I know what can happen I will stay clear of them. Have to say when I ran the machine empty on the hottest cycle there were loads of bubbles despite me not putting any in. Just shows that the gel probably does stick in the system and not wash out properly.