Washing Machine Rip-off

Rambler1

Hi,
Can anyone advise where I can get a list of new washing machines that do not have sealed drums?
For those who do not know what I mean; it appears that washing machine manufacturers have been changing their machine designs so that it is now impossible to repair a machine in which the drum bearings have failed. This basically means that once it is out of warranty, if the bearings fail ( which they all to frequently do) you have to replace the whole machine. In older machines it was possible to buy bearings for about £50.00 and fit them yourself or have them replaced by a repair man. Now your choice is to either replace the whole drum which costs £200.00 plus or replace the whole machine.
This is marketing madness and in a time when we should be reducing the amount that we send to the tip, these bandits are ripping off their customers and at least halving the life of washing machines. The manufacturers answer is to buy their extended warranty, but if you're not a legal whizz kid then you have no chance of knowing what exactly you're buying. Rest assured its just another way for these bandits to rip-off us the customers.
This sort of activity needs to stamped out, we are being dictated to by bandits who will stop at nothing to take our money.

shaun_from_Africa

Rambler1 wrote: »

This is marketing madness

As far as the manufacturers are concerned, it will be anything but madness.
By selling machines with sealed drums, they can stop having to make so many spares available to the general public and there is a good possibility that a sealed unit will have an average longer time to failure than one with easily accessible bearings and I'm sure that they will have employed design engineers and product planning engineers to look into the potential losses and gains from these changes and will have decided that it's financially advantageous to manufacture this way.

The only way to ensure that "This sort of activity needs to stamped out" happens is for potential customers to choose a different make and for the company concerned to start seeing their profits hit but this is never going to happen.

d0nkeyk0ng

Can’t seem to quote shaun from africa but I’m on my smartphone. A few washing machine repairmen have told me that the bearings in sealed drums tend to wear out faster than in non-sealed drums.

To OP, have a look on the ukwhitegoods forum. There’s some articles which back your point - sealed drums mean uneconomical repairs, meaning more sales for washing machine companies. Multiple brands are owned by the same group (a bit like how say VW own Audi, Seat, Skoda and Porsche).

I was looking into options as our Bosch washing machine bearings are starting to go. It came with a sealed drum which is £220 or thereabouts. Either I can have a punt at doing it myself or getting someone in (at £80-100/hr), which equates to the cost of a new machine.

Some Bosch washing machines do have unsealed drums but you have to check whether they do or not. You can look on the Bosch website for spare parts to help decide. Miele use sealed drums but offer 10 year parts and labour on some of their washing machines.

That’s about as far as my research got me.

Rambler1

Hi Shaun,
I agree with you in one regard; the whole purpose of the change is to make more money for the manufacturers. Who cares if we are filling the land-fill sites with machines which should have lasted 3 to 4 times longer than they are currently doing.
Having used a variety of machines for many years I can assure you that typically while replacing bearings was a big job it allowed about 90% of the machine to continue to provide the service it was designed for. The only difference in the drum design is that where the two halves were previously screwed together they are now plastic welded to prevent anyone from accessing the bearings. The bearings haven't changed only the access to them. In fact there is good reason to believe that bearings are actually lasting as long as they did with the split drum design.
With regard to changing to a different manufacturer, the point is that it appears that most if not all have adopted the same rip-off tactic and won't state up front whether the drum in their specific machine has or has not got a sealed drum.
What next! Car tyres that you replace when the air pressure drops after some use? Cars that you cannot service, just replace every 10,000 to 15,000 miles? Its pure madness to think that it is right to speed up the rate with which equipment gets scrapped, the Earth can't continue to take this nonsense, what mess are we creating for our grandchildren and great grandchildren?

Ganga

Rambler1 wrote: »

Hi Shaun,
I agree with you in one regard; the whole purpose of the change is to make more money for the manufacturers. Who cares if we are filling the land-fill sites with machines which should have lasted 3 to 4 times longer than they are currently doing.
Having used a variety of machines for many years I can assure you that typically while replacing bearings was a big job it allowed about 90% of the machine to continue to provide the service it was designed for. The only difference in the drum design is that where the two halves were previously screwed together they are now plastic welded to prevent anyone from accessing the bearings. The bearings haven't changed only the access to them. In fact there is good reason to believe that bearings are actually lasting as long as they did with the split drum design.
With regard to changing to a different manufacturer, the point is that it appears that most if not all have adopted the same rip-off tactic and won't state up front whether the drum in their specific machine has or has not got a sealed drum.
What next! Car tyres that you replace when the air pressure drops after some use? Cars that you cannot service, just replace every 10,000 to 15,000 miles? Its pure madness to think that it is right to speed up the rate with which equipment gets scrapped, the Earth can't continue to take this nonsense, what mess are we creating for our grandchildren and great grandchildren?

Will never happen with cars,there are to many garages out there not to cope also how many washing machines do you think get scrapped every day,most of the machine is metal and that is recycled by the scrapmen.
Whilst i sympathize with you about a job that even i can do and have done sometimes you just have to admit defeat and come up with plan b

Rambler1

Hi Ganga,
I think that if you take a look at current washing machines you'll find that there's in the region of 50% plastic.

Personally I object to manufacturers designing products to be scrapped in one third of the time that they used to last and consuming more raw materials while filling land-fill sites. If we the customer do not fight back these bandits will just continue to rip us off and screw-up our environment.

For the record I have now found that Bosch do at least two models that still have split drums so that's what we'll be buying.

Environmental protection starts with each of us.

EssexExile

Rambler1 wrote: »

the whole purpose of the change is to make more money for the manufacturers. Who cares if we are filling the land-fill sites with machines which should have lasted 3 to 4 times longer than they are currently doing.

That's the way just about the whole world works. Companies make stuff that they hope you will buy to make themselves as much profit as possible. The more you buy the happier they are. Like you I wish the world wasn't like this but I can't see it changing anytime soon.

getmore4less

Part of the problem is people are a lot less able and labour cost have gone up a lot relative to original manufacturing costs now that manufacturing has more automation and cheap labour.

The EU could have added life cycle factors into the delegated energy rating scheme.
Min 5 year parts/labour warranty or min no cycles for a high user.

Car manufacturers have gone down this route but that works for things costing £1000s not so much when the base cost for a washing machine is around £200 delivered from Turkey.

Beko sell 5y warranty products under the grundig brand.

Is there really a market for a machine that will last 10years+ that may need fixing a few times, built to be easy to take apart and replace main components.

Reminds me of the ultimate repairable item a broom, 3 new heads and two new handles and it is still going after 20 years.

Was there not a company that tried to sell life cycle machines with decent warrenty that went bust?

jk0

I suggest a 2nd hand Miele. There's one in Bristol on ebay with a starting bid of £20.

George_Michael

getmore4less wrote: »

The EU could have added life cycle factors into the delegated energy rating scheme.
Min 5 year parts/labour warranty or min no cycles for a high user.

If they had done that, the manufacturers would have raised their prices to cover their extra costs from warranty repairs which would mean that all purchasers would end up paying more for something that only a small percentage of them would gain benefit from.

It might also mean the end of budget priced appliances. After all, would any manufacturer want to sell a £200 washing machine with a 5 year warranty if they thought the cost of repairs over the 5 year period would exceed the profit from selling the unit?

Doozergirl

You're all behind.

The EU has literally just signed off on obliging manufacturers to make things, like washing machines, easier to repair.

I think it only goes as far as making parts available to professional repairers but it is a step in the right direction.

...if we're in the EU.

https://resource.co/article/eu-paves-way-right-repair-13045

But this does go to show that if you are passionate about something, things can be changed. There's no need to be defeatist about these things.

I am the proud owner of a VERY LOUD washing machine. It cannot even be five years old. Last time it was repaired (a rat ate the supply cable :eek:) my engineer warned me that he thought the bearings were going and that I should just replace it when it got unbearable. It's such a shame as it still looks like new and there's nothing wrong with it otherwise. It's a travesty.

At the time, I didn't even notice that it was getting louder. We're waiting to move house later this year and so I'm holding out before buying.