Cycling UK Forum

To some degree washing machines suffer from being cheap mass consumer items. When I was a lad they were stupidly expensive and so you repaired them over and over.
These days you can pick one up for a days wage... So seriously - how well built do we really expect it to be? It's going to be stamped out of tin foil with cheap bearings and parts.

Folk above mention Miele having a 20 year life span, others point out how expensive they are. In reality they're probably about as expensive in real terms as washing machines of old.
And therein is the answer.

We have a Hotpoint which was made here in N. Wales- Bodelwyddan. Factory now closed. (China??)

It is now 27 odd years old!
It has had new bearings twice (just like a Bottom Bracket !!), one drive belt, a good few sets of brushes, several water valves, a suspension strut, and a controller- which was replaced years ago under warranty.
It's a bit like Triggers broom!

I keep it going because it's a hot fill machine drawing its hot water from the domestic system. The heater element is switched off by the thermostat being overridden by a so called "economy switch"; simple but effective.

An excellent idea for anyone generating their hot water cheaply.
I don't know why its not more popular?
It has saved me a small fortune over all those years in electric costs.

These days a hot fill machine is hard to source although I believe they are available again.

We recently replaced a Bosch that was 11ish years old. I repaired it once a couple of years ago. It needed new motor bushes, and I found it easy to do. I probably could have repaired it again, but one of the weights had come loose and broken, and Bosch don't make them anymore, so I had some work to do to find one, and they were expensive to get in Norway, so I gave up and bought a new one.

Our new machine is a Samsung. It does better on daily wash cycles, though I miss the 'stains' cycle on the Bosch. The Samsung has one, but it doesn't seem to be quite as effective. On the other hand it is *much* more energy efficient. It's also much quieter. Of course, I cannot yet say anything about the reliability.

pete75 wrote:

greyingbeard wrote:I get the impression that the cheap ones are getting cheaper...chinese tat regardless of make...best avoided.

Oh yeah. All the 1.3 billion people in China are incapable of making anything of decent quality.

Last year around early November my boss mentioned he'd spent a modest amount on fireworks concluding - 'They're probably Chinese rubbish but they'll do ...' When I said if they were Chinese they were probably quite good he just gave me an odd look. Oh well....

Ben@Forest wrote:

pete75 wrote:

greyingbeard wrote:I get the impression that the cheap ones are getting cheaper...chinese tat regardless of make...best avoided.

Oh yeah. All the 1.3 billion people in China are incapable of making anything of decent quality.

Last year around early November my boss mentioned he'd spent a modest amount on fireworks concluding - 'They're probably Chinese rubbish but they'll do ...' When I said if they were Chinese they were probably quite good he just gave me an odd look. Oh well....

as ever its not the ordinary people who should be blamed, its the big businesses looking to make stuff cheaper than ever but not to pass all the savings on to us

My latest washing machine is still working after 3 years but the bodywork has completely rusted away at the bottom like some 1970s car because the metal sheet is so thin.

Last time that I changed the bearings, I waxoyled inside the bottom of the machine.

beardy wrote:Last time that I changed the bearings, I waxoyled inside the bottom of the machine.

Paulatic wrote:I'd put money on this Miele is still running long after his Indesit dies.

You might well lose it then, these are the current washer dryer reliability figures from Which:

Bosch 80%
Miele 74%
Indesit 73%
Zanussi 72%
AEG 68%
Hotpoint 65%

(I think the percentage relates to the number of machines that haven't broken down within the first 5 years)

My Indesit was the most reliable machine available at £380, and 3.5 times cheaper than the Miele that Which recommended. On that basis the Miele would need to last about 45 years to pay for itself, and I'm not likely to live that long.

greyingbeard wrote:

Ben@Forest wrote:

pete75 wrote:
Oh yeah. All the 1.3 billion people in China are incapable of making anything of decent quality.

Last year around early November my boss mentioned he'd spent a modest amount on fireworks concluding - 'They're probably Chinese rubbish but they'll do ...' When I said if they were Chinese they were probably quite good he just gave me an odd look. Oh well....

as ever its not the ordinary people who should be blamed, its the big businesses looking to make stuff cheaper than ever but not to pass all the savings on to us

That's not quite what I meant - the Chinese invented gunpowder and fireworks. I thought that was common knowledge - as far as a I know they are very good at making fireworks. Of course I suppose they might export cheap and nasty fireworks to us - but they certainly make good stuff too.

Bosch 80%
Miele 74%
Indesit 73%
Zanussi 72%
AEG 68%
Hotpoint 65%

Arent Indesit and Hotpoint the same machines but with different badges on?
Which would make me wonder about the reliability of Which magazine stats.

Ben@Forest wrote:That's not quite what I meant - the Chinese invented gunpowder and fireworks. I thought that was common knowledge - as far as a I know they are very good at making fireworks. Of course I suppose they might export cheap and nasty fireworks to us - but they certainly make good stuff too.

China is a big country with a lot of manufacturers.
Some of those are trying to make a living using the same dodgy equipment they've had for many decades (or using other countries castoff equipment).
Whilst others have invested in state of the art equipment.
I think the only thing you can really say is they probably have the largest range of quality of almost anyone; from awful to brilliant.

If anyone is to blame for shoddy Chinese stuff then it's probably the importers who are bringing in the cheap crap in order to make more money. The good stuff's there, you've just got to find it.

Might it also be that we're all so much cleaner than we used to be? My mother had a weekly wash day, I'd do the laundry twice a week with a family, my daughter seems to use her washing machine every day.

For years we had to make do with a washer-dryer because we simply didn't have the space for two units. Must have been invented to cause grief! Now having had our extension built, we can accommodate a separate dryer. Both our washer and dryer are Bosch and they seem to be holding up over the years.

But I still remember from my childhood, when we had one of these:

complete with mangle. Couldn't be faulted. But I remember, my mother ditched the mangle but kept the washer, when we acquired one of those new-fangled spin-dryer thingys....

Washing machines are one of those things that we really got right.

An "essential" machine that is bought cheaply, needs almost no maintenance and lasts for decades.
Couldnt live without it and the annual expense is hardly noticeable.

Not much profit in meeting the customers' needs there. It needs modifying until it is complex, expensive, temperamental and rapidly obsolete.