Longest Lasting Washing Machines?

[Brian Kent]

Second vote for Miel, not to mention how quiet they are.

It just struck me, miel is french for honey, odd.......Rod.

I checked on the Miele. I was really hoping to pay less than $2,150 plus shipping from London.

[John Fricke]

I never rely on reccomendations of appliance salespeople. I feel that they reccomend what makes them the largest commission. Over the years we've had good luck going with consumer reports best buys.

[Dennis Peacock]

My grandmother had a very old wringer type washing machine. You could run over that thing with a truck and it will wash and spit the truck out....or at least it seemed that it would.......

They don't make them like they used to. We have already been through 5 washing machines and the next one will have to come with 6" sealed bearings and a 50HP motor.

[Tom Godley]

I bought a vacation house a few years ago and I inherited a midlevel GE dryer and a very old Maytag washer (the original Maytag with only a few pushbuttons). They were both not working correctly and I was going to just replace them until I priced out the LG set that Consumer Reports had as the recommended set. Since I was planning some renovations - the thought of having to work around and have workmen move a new $2500.00 set a few times convinced me to look at another solution.

For less that $100.00 I had both units working and its been three years and all is still well. Depending on what is wrong -- they are not very hard to fix - all the parts are easy to get and the info to fix them is all over the internet.

I also am not sure about the real value in some of the newer units -- I hear a lot of complaints. My sister replaced her front loaders with a F&P top load set about a year ago and she like everything about them except the plastic top because it is not flat.

I guess if you have a lot of kids the water savings would add up on the most efficient units. The last set I purchased were from Sears and made by Whirlpool -- Had to get one of the electronic boards replaced - so far thats it in about 10 years

[Nate Carey]

Brian, after you've made your purchase (I'll bet you won't go too long without a machine); let us know what you decided on and why...

...we'll all be over to give it a try!

[Nate Carey]

I also am not sure about the real value in some of the newer units -- I hear a lot of complaints. My sister replaced her front loaders with a F&P top load set about a year ago and she like everything about them except the plastic top because it is not flat.

Tom, that's my only complaint about our Fisher & Paykel...otherwise it's a real performer with some very innovative features...

[Dan Friedrichs]

Avoid LG. I just bought a house full of new LG appliances, and find them to be the most un-user-friendly things ever made. Quality and appearance and features are all fine, but I get the impression that the folks who designed them never took them home to use them for any length of time. Two examples: The oven beeps (loudly) 8 times once it reaches pre-heat temperature. The menu allows all the other "beeps" to be shut off or adusted in volume, but not this one. Personally, I find it really annoying! The microwave has a "More" button that lets you add more time to whatever you're cooking, but it only adds 10 seconds at a time. How often do you only want to add 10 seconds?! Unless you're adding 30 seconds or less, it's fewer button presses to press "Cancel", put in a new time, and press "Start" again.

So, yeah, they look nice, but I think they're poorly thought-out designs. Every one of the LG appliances I have suffers from this myriad of poor usability.

[Mark Hix]

I bought a 5 yr old Kenmore set 20 yrs ago, wife talked me into a new set last year...bought Kenmore....service guy has been out twice already replacing parts...bought the upper middle priced set so no reccommendation here.

[Rick Moyer]

If it had been up to me, which of course is wasn't, I would have chosen a no-frills machine for less money. Not much to go wrong there and most of the major players would be fine. That being said we got a Kenmore front loader HE and I do like it. I think you could get the clothes just as clean on a budget machine however, albeit with more water usage.
Our last machine, GE, lasted 16 years.

[Jon Knauft]

I have a high end Kenmore front-loader. Within 5 months one of the main electronic boards went on it. It was under warranty but the repairman said it would have been an $800 repair. He had to remove a fair amount of the top of the washer to get to it. Before that we had a midrange GE that lasted for 14 years. I can't give you a recommendation but I would say don't spend the money on a high end gizmo laden washer. I haven't been impressed.

-Jon

[Paul Ryan]

I forgot to add that my friend the repairman, strongly suggested against LG. For one he didn't like working on them. But the main reason was parts. LG's are made in Korea and some parts can take a long time to get due to the ocean deal. Fortuatly unlike wood working equipment most of our appliances have not went over seas yet. I have heard of LG machines being down for 2 months due to part accesability. I don't know if you have a SWMBO but she will have a large say in what you purchase. I also suggest buying a top load, and a simple one. I think ours has 17 cycles, some of the new ones have 30+. Ours also has dials instead of push button electronic controls, less to go bad. Good Luck

[Art Mulder]

Who has a washing machine that has lasted forever and what kind is it

Brian, I went through this just over a year ago, and we settled on buying an LG set from the orange borg. So far we're very pleased with it. Look me up in 10 years and see if I've changed my mind...

Seriously, they are good on water. They are not overly loud. And the cycle is much quicker than the European tumble washer it replaced. The clothes get cleaned, and everyone's pretty satisfied. (well except for whichever child has the "start the laundry" chore...)

I think we found it. Fisher & Paykel...
http://www.fisherpaykel.com/ ...Brian, check them out, I think you'll like what you see...Nate

I regularly see a few (not many, but a few) solid fans of these units. I looked at them but was concerned about the relative small capacity that they seem to offer. Not to mention the fact that I couldn't see them locally.

Don't base your decision on a washer that was quality-built 20 years ago. It may not be quality anymore.

Exactly. That refrain is repeated everywhere. There has been a lot of consolidation of companies over the past 10 years. Doesn't really matter how good Maytag was 30 years ago.

[Brian Kent]

I am not a subscriber to ConsumerReports (magazine or online).

If I subscribe online, do they give you access to all past test results or just whatever they happened to test this month? My wife doesn't want to put out the $26 bucks to find they didn't rate washers this month.

Looks like there is a whole lot of dice-rolling out there (by which I mean "over here"). Not much to depend on. This is one appliance where I will buy an extended warrantee.

By the way, thank you Sawmill Creek for the Off Topic Forum!

Scott Smith, does your brother want to sell the 1930's gasoline powered Maytag?

[John Fricke]

As a online subscriber to CR you have at minimum access to their latest tests in any category. My wife normally does the research but I just logged in and there is a whole big section on laundry available. There may be an archive section but I'm not sure.

[Ken Fitzgerald]

We bought stackable Maytags in 1970 while in the Navy living in a trailer court. We used them until the we replaced them for bigger units in the late '80s. Maytags were so expensive we went through several Kenmores.

Most recently we bought some upper end Maytags and so far they have been great.