I have an early 2000s (got it for free in 2004) Maytag top loader of the more-or-less classic design. It has had exactly one issue in all this time: A piece of debris got into the water pump, and I had to take that apart to get it out. Aside from that nothing, and in the past decade it has been a busy family washing machine. It'll probably die from the mechanical dial sequencer wearing out, if anything.
The reason the Maytags were so reliable is their mechanical simplicity. Motor runs one way, the machine agitates and washes. Run the other way, the machine drains. The gearbox is simple, so simple that "spin" and "drain" are the same thing. How do you spin a tub full of water? You have a special kind of belt, that acts as a slip clutch so the spin builds up gradually as the water drains away.
Because of the simple mechanics, the tub is deep; the machine has truly gigantic capacity. We fear the day it finally dies and we have to replace it with something else, the only choices being: Really crappy top loading agitator machines, the bizarre "agitator-less" top loaders, and front loaders.
I used to use a Whirlpool built Kenmore machine before that. It had unbelievably complicated mechanics and plumbing (ever hear of a "wig wag"?) But it did have a reverse flush lint filter. That complicated stuff also eventually went wrong. Because if its simple mechanicals, the Maytag does not do any kind of lint filtering. Given that we also line dry, that is an issue. The machine is plainly for a world in which everything goes through a clothes dryer, which strips the lint.
Are you me? I bought mine in about 2006 or so, and in early December 2021, I had to take it apart to remove a child's sock that had been sucked into the pump. Youtube and a couple hours on a Saturday afternoon got it done, my wife was impressed. She didn't think even her mechanically inclined dad would have bothered to try that job. Honestly, the toughest part of it all was getting the main metal sheath/body back on properly. Took me 3 attempts because I was working by myself and the darn thing is so flimsy. It's been running like a tank and I've been impressed with the quality.
I did - I bought a Speed Queen set. To be fair, mine was a set of used units, but after reading thousands of these anecdotes across the internet, I knew that they were easily rated for 10k+ loads.
The part that was true - they're built like tanks.
The part I didn't expect - they're super rudimentary machines. They're loud and not particularly efficient.
I had mine for just over a year before my wife voluntold me to find something else.
The Speed Queen TC5 is a splendid washer. Sadly they still felt the need to junk it up with ASICs for some reason, but it works extremely well. One warning, the "standard" clean or "EPA setting" is the one they included to pass regulatory requirements and doesn't clean like older washers do. Fortunately there are several other settings to achieve traditional performance.
There is a deep fill option that uses extra water. Then the cycle selection additionally has perm press, heavy duty, bulky/sheet, spin, and delicate. All of those are traditional. Only the default “normal eco” setting without the deep fill option doesn’t get soiled clothes properly clean. I use eco for most things by the way since I don’t work in the fields. But if I did this machine would handle it.
Are the front load Speed Queens also best in class? I can see a front loader in our future; they do use less water. The old-school Maytag, especially with the wife's insistence on an extra rinse, uses a lot.
I think Maytag is another example of what I think of as the attitude of profit margin >>> artisanry in modern companies.
It goes something like this:
Company A makes a thing, maybe it was founded by the inventor of the thing, maybe not, but it makes a thing and it is PROUD to make the thing. The thing is reliable, durable, and it does what it is advertised to do, well. It's crafted with care, with QA and built with quality parts.
And THEN the beancounters come in. Oh-ho, they say, you can increase your profit margin on every unit sold if you replace this FooPart with a cheaply made mass produced overseas equivalent.
Also, we will reduce the number of expensive quality inspectors to save costs.
Actually, we are outsourcing ALL labor to overseas to save costs,
and etc etc, the cost of the unit probably doesn't decrease, but the profit margins sure look nice until the point confidence in the product collapses and sales tank.
The scary thing is they can only do that because it sells. Plenty of people like the "new". I think much of that movement is the opposite of sustainability. Software-based products will have even shorter lifetimes.
Even if some cloud service is not needed and it works with "only" a local app on your phone, the phones change quickly and even the OS. Even with backwards compatibility, ten years of lifetime already is ambitious. Devices used to have decades of lifetime. Electronics shortened it, computing elements more so, and now software. The cycles got shorter. The construction also got more and more flimsy. All the devices I got from my grandparents are still usable (cooking, mechanical calculator, photo, film), the more modern it is the less metal and the more cheap plastics that does not age well.
If we had an efficient recycling system, and renewable energy to power the entire cycle it would be doable albeit still wasteful. But we have neither. The cycle is mostly fueled with fossil fuels, adding more and more carbon from deep below ground, and containing the energy of the ancient sun, to the surface carbon cycle. It is not circular, the end products end up dumped somewhere.
Yeah, and I also forgot the 'let's make sure the thing is an unrepairable black box, so make sure all manuals, part numbers, and diagrams are locked behind copyright, let's sue anybody on You-tube showing people how to modify or repair the thing, and let's be sure to add features and fixes only to Thing 2.0 Thing-as-a-service'
At that point we would all be better off if the washing machine design was just open source, since then there would be actual competition among clones, and companies hungry for profit willing to build a brand with some reputation for quality who will do actual Q/A, and when they break parts are available from multiple vendors, and the industry will converge on standard designs for certain major parts.
It's actually intellectual property restrictions that make possible the kind of scam business model you described. And I think without them we would see the cost of living go down as major goods got cloned and extra costs were shaken out of the designs. 3D printers got 100x cheaper in ten years after the patents expired, and I think this principle can generalize.
But without IP you can’t get capital behind ideas and then everything grinds to a halt. In reality, the consumer is to blame completely. If there was an appetite for engineering teardowns of products (AvE style) or in other words if the consumer were actually discerning then the market would reflect that.
> without IP you can’t get capital behind ideas and then everything grinds to a halt
Citation needed. Open source development proves that IP restrictions are not necessary to produce engineering development. And look at 3D printers. Their price went from $50k to $25k after the first ten years on the market, when they were under patent. When the patent expired, development exploded and ten years later the price had dropped to $250. One of the most popular 3D printers in the world, the Prusa i3, is completely open source. Certainly one cannot say that "without IP... everything grinds to a halt" when faced with these examples.
If patents didn't incentivize the development of 3D printing technology in the first place, we might still not have them. You're overlooking the fact that IP drives initial research and development in the first place.
I’m not overlooking it, I just don’t think it’s true. Even when the process was patented multiple groups had the idea (IBM and stratasys both held patents and had to collaborate). Without IP there is still market incentives to sell new technology. I don’t believe the myth that without patents people would not innovate. I think innovation would happen faster!
This is simply objectively wrong. You think the economy can be driven by volunteers? You think capitol allocated with no reward function will produce anything? And 3D printers went down in price because they became a popular diy hobby not because the patents were freed from the shackles of capitalism you dunce…
Do you know how they became a popular hobby? The patents expired and enthusiasts started to design cheap printers. That is literally the origin of the hobby, I know because I was there. Commercial printers still cost $20,000 when hobby printers broke the $1k mark, which was obviously couldn’t have happened if they were still patented.
I’m not saying the economy can be run by volunteers. Engineers at Prusa are not volunteers, they get paid. And they make their designs all open source. They do not need intellectual property restrictions to make their product viable.
I’m sorry for being so rude. But I disagree. I was there too I guess, i built my own prusa in 2011. I just don’t believe that patents stopped people from designing and building open source 3D printers. The early printers were just brass nozzles with a heat element, thermistor, motors belts and an arduino. There’s no patent roadblocks in there. There is a correlation, however, with the hobby computer revolution of the early 2010s…
Yes there was a patent roadblock. The very process of laying down layers of filament to build a model was patented until 2009. Before that people could get in trouble for duplicating those designs. But afterward people could openly collaborate. DIY 3D printers exploded once people were allowed to develop them. And I remember being in the 3D printer groups and seeing people unwilling to infringe on the belt 3D printer patent that makerbot had, for example. Hobbyists were aware of patents and weary of infringement. I built my first printer in 2011 too.
EDIT: Here is an interview with the creator of the first hobby 3D printer. In Europe, unlike the US, research projects are allowed to violate patents. He explicitly calls out the expiration of the patents as the thing that allowed them to expand beyond just research.
https://www.3dsourced.com/interviews/reprap-dr-adrian-bowyer...
“We never had any problem with Stratasys complaining about what we were doing, there was only one thing that happened: we got a letter, very nice and very polite, very conciliatory, from one of their legal people saying they had a trademark on the term FDM and could we please not use it, so immediately I invented an equivalent term, which was FFF and we just edited everything on the site to that instead. That’s the only time they tried to interfere or anything else with the project. They never complained we were infringing upon their patent, which we weren’t of course [research projects in Europe can research a patented technology for the purpose of improving it without any kind of patent infringement], and we weren’t selling any machines.
“Once the patent expired in 2009, of course the project was free to do whatever it liked. Coincidentally, that was just a few months after we got the first printer working. It all came together fairly nicely in that regard.”
Just sayin'. It's not the Accountants, it's the Business majors hired by the investors that are the issue. At the end of the day, its the investment firms and the endless churn to increase profit year over year that does this.
sure sure - it's unfair of me, but I call decision makers of all stripes - c-levels, etc - who are only motivated by short term numbers on a spreadsheet 'beancounters'
My observation is you have the order wrong and the cost cutting is just an attempt at delaying the inevitable.
- Company founded and makes quality product
- Company stagnates, doesn’t innovate, falls behind.
- New CEO can’t fix this, so turns “reliable” brand into “lowest cost brand” to preserve sales.
- Company goes bust anyways
Most companies that have a solid reputation can make more money selling at a higher price point and having bigger margins than the cheaper outsourced competitor.
I’ve been in a few companies like this - the aggressive cost cutting almost always happens after sales have started to tank. When sales are good, everyone is fat and happy and not looking to stir the pot.
Particularly in the context of washing machines, I find this a little hard to swallow. What constant innovation is needed here? The product is infrequently replaced, and mainly just needs to do the one thing it already does.
Sure you have changes - you end up with a few major variations like top- and side-loaders and all that. But the old style doesn't fall off the face of the earth. And companies have plenty of time to simply watch and imitate.
This is bit of a chicken-or-the-egg question - which came first, those customer preferences, or advertising insisting you 'need' the stainless steel washer to keep up with the Joneses which created the customer preferences.
Agreed and your comment reminded me of an old documentary about Edward Bernays the nephew of Sigmund Freud that heavily influences companies around the world in marketing and PR opaganda. [1] The video is black-and-white and long but I would suggest the first hour or so is worth the watch. It makes many cases describing how people are convinced they must buy the thing they don't need.
It is, but it’s also likely a consequence of increasing disposable income. These appliances are also much cheaper (as a percent of income) than they used to be.
They went from “major purchase that should last a decade” to “we’ll get a new one if this breaks”.
That's kind of what I mean though. None of those are particularly innovative and certainly aren't going to end up somehow protected. It wouldn't be hard to just follow along. In the time it takes to do that, a small fraction of the user base will have actually purchased a new machine. The majority of all customers will never even know the other company actually came up with that cool color scheme/whatever first. Not that they'd care if they did.
On a meta point: Sites like these make me appreciate the internet so much. There's a forum for people who are "experts, collecters and fans of [...] washing machines" (among other things). Never would've thought such a website existed in a million years.
Especially these days when the only sites you find if you google a product like this are seo spam comparison sites with affiliate links and some text written by either a machine or someone stuffing as many keywords in the most general article as possible.
Really, any forum that focuses on a specific niche. They could be some of the best places in the Internet. Facebook ate up most of those amazing communities.
Also, for years I have had the phrase "open source washing machine" in my head. Finally duck-searched upon seeing this thread. A ton of existing work/proposals.
After our hand-me-down Bosch machine from the 1980s gave up the ghost, we decided to get another Bosch, but not because of brand loyalty. I think the mid-level machines are the best compromise between high cost brands like Miele and Maytag, and low-cost brands like Gorenje and Beko.
However, as with many things, there has been a lot of consolidation in the space, and many brands are actually owned by holding companies, leading to some unlikely bedfellows. At the same time, planned obsolescence means that the machines are engineered to fail at some point between 2 and 5 years. Long enough to get out of warranty, and long enough that the consumer doesn't feel cheated when the machine fails the day after warranty expires, but not as long as you would expect from technology that has remained unchanged since the 50s except the addition of some sensors and PCBs.
White goods are unique in terms of our expectations for their lifetime, because they are labor-intensive and/or expensive to replace, and a catastrophic failure with a water leak can be very expensive.
I still find it somewhat funny though, that we easily give out between $200-1500 for our phones every couple of years and hem and haw when spending that much for white goods.
Miele's reputation was tarnished this/last year because of their new stance of replacement parts. From now on, only licensed Miele repairmen are able to order spare parts. General repairmen are seeing their Miele parts inventory shrink and will have to stop servicing Miele devices entirely.
I'm not sure if hoarding the replacement parts goes against any of the Right-To-Repair legislation set forth. In your source it even says so ='(
"So long as end users are not empowered to access spare parts and necessary manuals, certain manufacturers could be non-responsive to end users and continue to stifle access to repair.[4]"
I bought a miele dishwasher in 2013 or so, it ran fine for a while but I got an F24 error and it's a relay part.
I took the unit apart as we were in lock down and I didn't expect help to be easily available, and found the relay was in fact no longer a relay but an IC which got damp due to bad installation.
I think a proper relay would have taken better abuse rather than the IC part.
I sprayed it with MAF cleaner (for cars) and once it dried out it was working again. But I did feel a little uneasy recommending miele to friends and families since. little things I guess.
perhaps with chip shortage they'd go back to tried and tested 80s parts?
"I think the mid-level machines are the best compromise...": This is totally true.
I repair our family appliances and low-level and mid-level ones are pretty easy to work on. High-level ones like Miele products and some Samsung products now usually have diagnostic ports, like OBD-II in cars, and some sensors can't be replaced without reprogramming the main board with a valid diagnostic tool.
The only two appliances I had problems with in the last five years were the two European front loading washing machines, a old low-level one who need a 20€ (from the scrapyard) main board every 2-3 years, the other is a high-level one that had two 100€ main boards in less than 8 years. Guess what kind of washing machine will be the next I buy.
Maytag was US-only as far as I knew. It had a reputation for extreme long life and reliability, much like the reputation Volvo used to have for cars. And, like Volvo, this reputation was then squandered.
Back in the 1980s Maytag used to run commercials on television featuring the "Maytag Repairman", who never had anything to do because no one ever called. Americans still remember these commercials fondly.
> Back in the 1980s Maytag used to run commercials on television featuring the "Maytag Repairman", who never had anything to do because no one ever called.
The Gordon Jump era (which are the commercials most often recalled today) actually lasted until 2003:
Maytag was sold in the UK too although distribution was limited. UK urban and suburban homes, especially, have more space constraints than the US. The market was limited to commercial and larger homes (built by owners, mansions, etc.)
We got a Maytag top-loading washer around 1996 and it was still running fine in 2020 when my mother moved out of our family home. I wonder how far away from UK and EU energy and water use requirements it was.
Geography is fun. Besides the fact you can go south from Detroit to arrive at Canada, there's also [at least one] part of the US that you cannot drive to without driving through Canada first:
Via those Wikipedia entries, there are apparently six non-island exclaves of the US lower 48 states within Canada in total, one in Washington State, the three mentioned in Minnesota, and two more in Vermont: Alburgh Tongue and Province Point.
Neither MayTag or SpeedQueen seem available here in Denmark - at least if I check it on pricerunner.dk, I knew both brands but that was because of having grown up in the U.S.
Maytag is not a well known brand in the UK. This may be because top-loading washing machines are not widespread here. Front-loading washing machines are the norm in the UK and in other European countries. It's unusual to see top-loading washing machines for sale.
They were available per https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maytag#Maytag_International. The problem is that they didn't fit with typical requirements in a European home with their cost and space requirements. This relegated them to commercial usage or custom homes with dedicated space for a washer and drier.
> The people I really feel sorry for are the good people of Newton, Iowa, who now have to transform their town from a "company town" into something else if they're to survive economically
My wife is from Newton. It’s a strange place since Maytag left. It was clearly a pretty nice place to live 20 years ago, but now there are a lot of foreclosed homes and a pretty visible meth problem. Still, they are working hard to rebuild their local economy. Prior to the pandemic, I thought that Des Moines might grow enough that Newton might be a desirable exurb, but with more people working from home, who knows what will happen.
For Newton’s sake, I hope so, but if you have (more or less) full remote freedom, why settle for exurbs? What is keeping you in the city’s gravity? Not trying to be argumentative; I’m genuinely curious.
Some people enjoy being close to a city for other reasons that work. Some will go into the city for entertainment, they will want to go to a restaurant, a show, or see a sporting event. Some people like to be reasonably close to an airport. You can have all of these things available to you if you live in the exurbs. You can also have a larger house and a larger yard. Before the pandemic, your commute into the city would be terrible, but that's not as much of a factor now.
If anything, many of our products have become more expensive to repair than throw away and buy new. Partly the rising cost of labor and time it takes to disassemble something, figure out what's wrong (takes some skilled labor), and put it all back together again, and partly because improvements in manufacturing have made it cheaper just to produce from scratch.
The mechanics of something like a washing machine are still relatively simple (motor, belt, drum, pump), but when the PCB goes it seems to be game over as often the part costs nearly as much as a new machine.
Yeah that's game over. I repaired our washing machine when the rear cross piece broke after seven years: took it apart, found the fault (hard to miss of course; when these parts fail, they literally tear apart), ordered the spare part, bought some suitable stainless bolts, and repaired it.
At the ten year mark, the electronics just died. As that consists of one solid resin encased block of electronics (not a part available as spare), repairing it would only make sense if I had:
* Space to put it aside for a while and work out how to replace electronics
* Electrical engineering skills beyond what I have
* A replacement washing machine in the interim (we just had a baby at that point)
* Willingness to invest days in this project
I think I fall within the 5% (3%? 1%?) of people who can manage the first repair, but the latter is a one in ten thousand (optimistic estimate) kind of issue. Economically, it makes no sense to repair it, which is really unfortunate.
It might have been possible to take the electronics from a broken machine of the same type, but these cannot realistically be found here.
Well done on the first repair at least! That's a good point about needing time/a replacement in the interim. I suppose there are some things which can sit on a bench for a while waiting for time/parts, but appliances tend to be pretty important. You could wait 5 days for a part which _might_ fix the problem, or have a new machine installed tomorrow.
So is that basically the economics of modern washer/dryer purchasing then - spend just enough to get 10 years out of it? I feel like modern "smart" stoves are similar - once the logic board goes that it. Seems like also a 10 year lifespan.
If it has moving parts and/or gets very hot and cools over and over again, I assume it will break within 5 years.
I buy my appliances from Costco with a Costco credit card because that means the appliance has a 4 year warranty. The price premium to buy equivalent commercial quality appliances with 5 year warranties is high enough that I would rather just get a new appliance and restart the 4 year clock.
Interestingly enough, as soon as the price of replacing it goes up (because you have less to spend), and an abundance of second hand devices entering your country, this model of repair suddenly becomes feasible. In some African countries you can get your TV fixed if a certain part fails, because the local repairman takes all working boards from broken TV sets and keeps an inventory. It's a business model that is unsustainable in more 'developed' countries. Here repairs are only done on really high-end devices.
Beside that, there is the convenience factor. I can buy a new washing machine, and have it here tomorrow, where they take the old one away, and plug the new one in if I want to buy that option.
You can't get that level service from a repairman. They can't compete with this business model. And even if they could, the chance of them being able to fix it is not 100%, whereas the new one is all but guaranteed to work (for as long as that lasts).
It’s not unsustainable in Ohio. I bought my washer from a guy with a basement full of washers who was obviously repairing with parts from other machines.
Then we posted our broken washer for free and somebody came and took it. It was obviously going to be repaired and resold or used for parts.
I mean eBay is full of sellers that deal in salvaged stuff. There are even sellers who offer rechargeable lipo batteries salvaged out of single use “disposable” vape pens.
If there is a market for something, no matter how small, somebody on eBay is catering to it.
I'd guess it's power FETs that fail. You'd have to design a shield of sorts, manufacture it, and still bury it in a compound with the pi, since high-temp high-humidity environment will kill them in weeks. Of course, being buried in a brick of epoxy, both switching and the pi would have all sorts of cooling problems.
It’s funny how people will happily throw themselves into a hopelessly ambitious open source project but turn down a super impactful project that is relatively simple like this one.
In talking with appliance repairmen (who are, unfortunately, frequent visitors to our home), your statement is spot on. Some brands are better than others (when it comes to dishwashers, they universally praise Bosch), but none of them are built to last. I’m replacing a Samsung dishwasher tomorrow that is not even 4 years old. The main board has failed, and the part isn’t even available any more.
I wouldn’t even mind as much if the replacements at least would have the same (or better) usability and quality (in terms of everyday performance, not necessarily longevity), but more often than not they are a downgrade.
What's so insane to me is that washers and dryers (also dishwashers) are all very simple devices. I would love for someone to just come out with "dumb" versions of these, that attack the design weaknesses of what is currently offered. Something that is designed to last, but also to be easily diagnosed and owner serviced.
Even better if they were designed to be built into existing cabinetry, so you can move with them and retrofit them into whatever home you go into.
They are not simple devices. Maybe they were simple 30 or 40 years ago. Today, not so much.
Some of the complexity is caused by customer preferences, and some of it is caused by government regulations.
A modern washing machine or dishwasher or refrigerator has a computer in it.
The market has rewarded those kinds of products. That happened because consumers wanted it to happen. As in many other industries, especially the car industry, there is an increasing divide between what the general consumers want and what the enthusiasts and tinkerers want.
The major point of complexity I know of is that most modern washers, at least all of the HE ones, effectively weigh the contents based on motor current and use that to determine water fill levels. This quickly turns into kind of a complex thing that requires a computer.
That said I don't know that complexity is really getting that out of hand. I have a fairly modern Whirlpool Duet, an American-made washer although its propensity for playing little tunes makes me think it's an Asian design or at least heavily inspired by the Asian market. It's getting old enough and gets rough enough use that I've had to take it apart a few times for various reasons. It's not super simple, but it's not really very complex either. Some things stand out as improvements. For example, most older washers used gearboxes and belts for power transmission, something that was called out as a strong point in Maytag machines. But this Whirlpool has a large brushless motor mounted directly on the drum, no belt or anything. That seems like it ought to have very few opportunities for failure, and it's also something that would have been hard to do until recently due to brushless motors requiring electronic control. Besides that there is a drain pump motor, water solenoid valves, and maybe five different sensors. The service manual, taped inside the top cover as is common on these appliances, has a one-page block diagram of the whole works that's pretty easy to follow. The sensors do introduce a failure point that can be a pain but it does show error codes on the display and the service manual gives a fairly 1:1 mapping of error codes to which sensor is causing a problem.
One point that has been fiddly and lead to taking it apart twice is the "air dome" which is used to trap an air bubble above some water which is then piped to a pressure transducer and used to measure the water level in the drum. It can easily get clogged up, and you have to do a fair amount of disassembly to get it out and clean it. Whirlpool put out a service bulletin on this and I ended up replacing the air dome and the pressure transducer as well for good measure. That seems to have fixed the problem and the good news is that the parts were rather inexpensive, but the labor was a hassle. I have wondered if it would be better off with something simpler like a float switch or optical water contact switch, but those would probably be just as prone to getting fowled up if not more.
I guess I'm a little skeptical that modern appliances are actually that much harder to work on. If anything they are often mechanically simpler than older ones, but electronically more complex. The main complaint is that the control board becomes a failure point and is hard to diagnose and expensive to replace, but I've never personally had to replace the control board in an appliance. Most of the work I've had to do on my appliances, which are all getting up there in years but still working fine, has been replacing pump motors, heating elements, and cleaning things out. Those are all things you would have run into on older designs as well.
The onboard diagnostics in modern appliances can be really great too - when the heating element in my dryer gave out, it started flashing an error code that the service manual just told me was heating element open circuit. On older machines I would have probably had to run it with covers removed to measure current on the heating element. The control board can do a lot of the diagnostics work for you.
Actually, IMO, the worst part of serviceability for front-loading HE washing machines is that they usually use concrete weights on the drum for vibration dampening. These make them a huge pain to move and work on. If you ever find yourself repairing your washer I'd recommend grabbing a socket set and removing those weights as a first step, it's worth the time to take them on/off just to make the machine 50 lbs lighter for moving it around.
From a regulatory standpoint it's mostly about water usage. Water efficiency standards have gotten stringent enough that electromechanical washers are effectively illegal.
I soak my clothes soak with soap in a 5gal bucket, rinse in the same bucket by pouring the water out in the tub, and spin them nearly dry in a motor+drum and hand and dry over the tub. I can easily throw in a little soda or peroxide, and I rinse it until the water is clear.
its sounds terribly manual and regressive but really its very little work, just filling up a bucket and dumping it out. the clothes come out cleaner (no extra soap and lint), and it doesn't really take any more time. the only hardware, the spinner, is cheap and fantastically straightforward.
I think people have been deceived over generations to consider what goes on inside a washing machine as some kind of arduous and complicated magic.
If I was only doing my own laundry, I would only have to wash a load once a week, and I would never use the dryer since I'm content to air-dry all of my clothes.
However, a family of four tilts the balance in favor of the time-saving machines.
(That said, we /do/ make our own laundry detergent for pennies a gallon and it has saved us a ton of money over the years.)
the panda. mine does have a little bearing noise if it gets up to max speed and is fully loaded. I can imagine making a nicer one, but for the cost and for a few 2 minute sessions a week its great. I live in a multi-unit building so I made a little table of neoprene and plywood layers for dampening.
I have a maytag washer/dryer that is a little over 2 years old. The frustrating part is they have "10 year warranty" stickers all over them. They dryer failed 3 times (different part each time) and I learned that the 10 year warranty ONLY covers the motor and the drum (big metal tube). Those are the 2 parts that never break. On the upside the machine is so incredibly simple I've been able to disassemble the entire thing and fix whatever is broken on my own, so keeping it up and running requires some handiness and some spare parts.
Ironically, I have an LG that was considered top-of-the-line when I bought it ten+ years ago, and the drum is the thing that broke. Still no idea what happened but it had a huge gash. Think I had to pay some kind of service fee but basically a free replacement.
My Bosch dryer breaks its cheap nylon door latch every 2 years. the replacement costs $25, and could be 3d printed, or punched out of metal in about 10 minutes. once the electronics break, I'm just burning down the house and moving to the woods.
I was under the impression(perhaps very wrongfully) that Bosch was supposed to be quality engineering. Was this never true or is it just not true for certain product segments? The last part of your comment made me laugh out loud.
I once had a Bosch dishwasher in a condo that I purchased in the mid 2000s. The control board had a tendency to go bad every few years and flood the kitchen. I had read this was because the board was originally designed for European voltages and certain connections couldn't handle NA current over time. The first time it happened coincided with the birth of my first child. Getting back from the hospital with warped flooring was not a pleasant discovery. Bosch seems like a bit of luxury brand, although I've had some Bosch power tools that have worked out great.
bosch is supposedly middle class in europe, siemens is the upper middle brand
it is quality engineering, but like most german engineered products it expects similarly engineered environment.
think german cars on autobahn
appliances in german household with german conditions
my dishwasher came with water hardness testing kit, you bet I tested my water and gave it everything it asks, salt/own washing tablet etc
They don't usually fail gracefully due to how engineered it got
I do have a whirlpool top loader from more than 20yrs ago, I can tell it's designed to fail gracefully and I dread the day it dies and I'd have to replace it with a 5yr lifespan crap.
(when you overload the whirlpool machine, it's a plastic part that breaks rather than taking down the motor by hard coupling with a metal part. when i just had to replace a $7 part I wish I could buy the engineer a beer.)
First I buy a brand with a good reputation. Then I fire all the designers and keep a bare bones staff, including marketing and social media/PR. Then I coast on slowing degrading quality through shrinkage and part swapping. This can last years or decades while I take in the profit from not having staff.
I worked for an enterprise software company that got bought by private equity and did this. 15 years later the company is still running and has been profitable for a long time.
The M1 MBPs are the best products Apple have released in a long time. They could have replaceable anything and be better, but they're very very good for being pro-level disposable laptops.
I think this is actually a natural market cycle you see across all industries.
New entrant offers incredible product or service, customers rejoice.
Competing products, pale. De facto monopoly is established.
Time passed, maybe a new board and CEO, maybe not.
The now monopoly starts exploiting their dominant position by charging more for worse quality. For some time the monopoly will act as a moat for this behavior.
Customers no longer like the incumbent and a gap is opened that other companies and startups can attempt to shoot through.
Once one succeeds the cycle starts over.
Since someone pointed out this pattern to me I've tried to notice companies that don't follow it. It seems pretty common. Overall though, products and services in the market are still often good. You just have to be careful to buy them from the company that is still rising rather than the declining monopoly.
Look at airlines. Customers bitch about service but then always buy the cheapest ticket.
Same with consumer goods. Sure some consumers will pay more, but if two brands with exist, one lasts 10 years, one 7 years but the 2nd is 20% cheaper, most people will opt for it.
If all the brands are bad, you will have no choice but to accept their awfulness. This is known as the "car dealership", "ISP", or "wireless ISP" model.
There’s profit incentive, but also regulation to make them more efficient. Say they have an undersized motor now, you may have to wash your clothes a few times or do more small loads. This puts more hours on the poor motor and it burns out sooner, causing more waste.
Kind of like those toilets that use 30% less water per flush, but you have to flush them twice to get anything to go down.
This isn’t to say all regulation is bad, but poorly thought out regulation is the worst.
I have a Maytag washer dryer set from 1982. I've done some repairs and looked things over internally and they are extremely well built. I'll keep these as long as possible.
I have just the washer from around the same era, bought at a yard sale 7 years ago for $10. I've taken it apart but only to clean a clog out of the pump hose, check the belt, and lubricate a squeaky bushing. When I had the front panel off I realized it's not too different from my great-grandma's old Maytag washer that we used as a rain barrel when I was a kid. (I think that one originally was powered by a small two-stroke engine.)
My favorite part of owning this washing machine was realizing that I have the same model --though (un?)fortunately not the same glorious avocado color-- used on the set of That 70's Show. [https://productplacementblog.com/tv-series/maytag-washing-ma...]
Mine are white with brown/black control panels and appear to be ageless, they could fit in forever. The washer has what sounds like a belt squeak for the past four years or so, only appears when heavily loaded. One of these days I'll look into that.
Nine years ago the motor bearings on the dryer locked up, it was making a rattling noise for probably five years prior. I think I spent nearly $200 on the motor and new belt, because when I opened it up and looked at things I was thinking this easily has another 30 years of service and you could spent $2000+ and not find a dryer this well built.
You simply can't get machines this good any more and that's a shame.
Mine's white as well which definitely helps the spousal approval factor. Our gas dryer is newer, probably early 2000s, but similar level of technology. I took it apart last year because it was running indefinitely without heating, replaced a $12 solenoid, and vacuumed lint out of everything.
The dryer isn't that heavy and there's always a few on Craigslist, so I'm not worried about replacing it with a similar (used!) unit if I have to, but the 225lb washer is staying in that basement as long as I can keep it going.
There's bad, and there's "Gorenje Pacific" bad. It's -(edit: was Romanian) Slovenian, branded to sound like a Japanese quality brand name. We got one to wash diapers and when it was stolen I was forbidden to replace like with like.
Maytag may have reached an outer circle of Dante's inferno but the cold heart is Gorenje.
Queensland. Wooden Houses on stumps, because tropics. Most people use under their house as a combo workspace, dumping ground, and in our case, washing-hanging-space.
You wind up boarding it up and turning it into "inside" space a lot of the time which is why "legal height under" is a thing in real estate ads here. The rise of AC made it less necessary to be ventilated under the floors. Also its about termites: modern build uses a concrete slab, less risk.
Very interesting! Here (east coast US) houses are on stilts to protect from the ocean, but that’s about it that I’ve seen. Disappointed you don’t live in a tree house!
Interesting, I didn't know that they made a PAP. What year was it manufactured? I suppose the real question is, how well does the bolt lock and slide? The furniture is of less concern.
I've never handled a PAP, they're not common where I live. I have seen the difference between the Russian and the Chinese AKs, though, and so I do understand what you mean.
I'm not in the States so I don't have it handy (gave it to my father)...I think it was a late 1970s model? Bolt was pretty smooth, only had a few misfires over the years, and I was running Wolf ammo and barely cleaning the weapon.
Minor correction to the minor correction: according to Wikipedia, Gorenje has been owned by Chinese company Hisense since 2018, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gorenje
The point of making a brand with a reputation of shit that lasts can never be repeat business. I love my stand mixer, and in 300 years, when I need a new one, the company it was bought from won't exist anymore. Hell, it barely exists today.
So the value of this reputation can only be to sell inferior cheaply made products with it.
The same thing happened to Saturn, another of my once-favorite brands. The trick is to find companies that are producing products that are built too well to sell twice, and figure that out before they do.
This board probably has members of a club made up people (mostly middle aged men in the U.S., with some members in Canada and Australia) who collect washing machines.
I've seen video of a collector's basement which is wall to wall washing machines and dryers, many of them still operational. It's this clip from CBS News some years back:
I purchased a SpeedQueen washer and dryer combo set this October and was delivered towards the end of December. They’re a US-based manufacturer based out of Wisconsin. It is still early for me to post a final review, but so far I love it. You can tell the units are built solidly and they do a great job cleaning cloths. These units were quite a bit more expensive than typical units you will find at Home Depot, but I am happy with my purchase. Supposedly, these units can last 20-25 years.
We sort of inherited a relatively new-ish SQ with our house, and it's been an interesting experience.
I was aware of SQ before, but only minimally so, and so looked into them, finding out there is a split between a sort of SQ fan base and review outlets like Consumer Reports, Wirecutter, etc. At the time, I was skeptical of the fan base, trusted these review outlets more, and had a modern front-loader before that, but figured it didn't cost us anything so would give it a try.
I really love the SQ washer actually. I don't know that I like it more than the front loader before it but it's been very reliable and cleans well.
I've noticed that SQ seems to treat its washer design as if washing machines are tools to be used, rather than as a device that washes your clothes for you. So, for example, I do think a modern front loader would clean clothes better on a default setting, but I can customize the cycles a lot more with our SQ, so in the end they come out the same.
If you have reviews that are standardized so the testers push a "normal wash button" and evaluate the output, it's misleading, because that's not really how SQ machines shine. They're also not very water efficient, leading to some controversies when they started to be reviewed by popular review outlets.
Anyway, it seems like some of the newer electronic control models aren't quite as popular, and there's some issues along these lines with how review outlets evaluate products. The even newer ones that are more like they're older ones are more popular, and I'm not sure the way consumer sites review machines is quite right for something like SQ anyway. If you look at front-loading machines, for example, SQ is a higher-rated brand; I think this is partly due to smaller differences between brands in how controls are implemented.
I think if we had to replace the machine, I'd probably get a front-loader, but I'd probably want a SQ again.
In any event, it (along with some other similar issues with other product categories) has really convinced me that these standardized product review sites aren't quite picking up on certain things in the way I might have thought 10 years ago. Something seems off to me about them in a way I can't quite put my finger on, even though in general I think those kinds of review processes (third-party standardized product testing) are essential and usually the bar to meet.
FWIW I would not bank any major decision - one way or the other - based on anything Wirecutter says. I’ve been screwed over listening to them far too many times to count. Other review sites aren’t much better.
Sometimes it’s better to just go with your gut and word of mouth reputation. There are far too many variables for testers to test accurately, in addition to any biases that may exist.
I’m growing tired of these organizations that claim to be - or are treated as - the end all be all for anything - reviews, knowledge, shopping, etc. It sounds good, but it’s often much different from reality if you dig a little deeper.
Wow. Thanks for posting this. We love our 20 year old Speed Queen. Glad to know I should keep it going rather than replace it if it needs a repair in the next 20 years.
That I couldn't tell you. But I do know that I have been hearing about Maytag problems for at least twenty years.
Before the awareness sets in that a brand has declined markedly, we tend to find that we become aware of complaints more often than before. Then later the penny drops.
While most of this conversation is about washers / dryers, I have a Maytag dishwasher that's less than 5 years old that we are strongly considering replacing. It simply doesn't wash dishes. It splashes a lot of water around, but there's something strange going on where it throws food bits all over our dishes. This is even after we've basically hand-washed the dishes we're putting in it, so we can't even figure out where all these bits are coming from! We had a repairman out and for a couple weeks it was better, but now back to same issues.
Considering a Bosch, would love to get this group's thoughts on manufacturers and models.
We probably have the same Maytag dishwasher. It's also only 5 or 6 years old and I'm about ready to replace it - in addition to not being good at cleaning dishes it also has areas inside of it that are just completely gross with old food, etc. We had a dishwasher in our previous house that was installed when the house was built in 1974 and we had that dishwasher until 2011, a Whirlpool. Yeah, it probably used a lot more water than current models, but it got the dishes clean and lasted 37 years while managing to keep itself clean inside.
Bosch has the highest rating from consumer reports and high reviews across the board. They’re pretty good, but even a brand new Bosch sometimes can’t keep up the load of a family with four kiddos…
I think a bug part of the problem is that phosphates were banned from residential detergents circa 2010, and appliance manufacturers have struggled to find alternatives that work as well since.
Avoid the bottom end of Bosch. The entry level Bosch dishwasher that came with my house has a cheap spot weld on the upper spray hose which failed. On higher end models, a proper, repairable fitting is used for the same purpose as the cheap weld.
Some engineers I know that work at an appliance company said German made Bosch dishwashers are the best. This was their assessment since they test/test down competitor products.
I took their advice and bought one when having to replace
I have an Amana washer that was doing a terrible job, I cleaned every removable part, etc. Same thing it was splattering food everywhere. Then we remodeled the kitchen, and put the exact same dishwasher back in 2 months later (it's hooked up to a new garbage disposal). For some reason it works just fine now, we can't explain it. Maybe exhaust pipe was clogged? Maybe it wasn't level? Maybe something wasn't connected right? I guess I'm suggesting removing it entirely and looking for problems?
What's interesting is that the previous dishwasher worked fine, but all the plastic parts inside had become brittle and were breaking, and at the same time some things transpired such that a family member offered us this new-in-box dishwasher. IE: point being that the previous dishwasher didn't have this food splattering problem.
When the repair guy came out, he commented that the garbage disposal hadn't been properly installed (10+ years ago) and that it might be part of the problem. In theory he fixed that issue, and we assumed that might also have been the problem. But, with it back to spewing food bits everywhere it seems unlikely that was the problem. The level issue you point out is perhaps worth experimenting a bit.
The bits of food makes me think it's the garbage disposal. Is there an obstruction in the hose to the garbage disposal and/or some obstruction in the garbage disposal itself? Got any kids? Maybe you'll find a missing Lego piece!
I hear you on that - I was working on cleaning them last night and while I could get the water to run clean, it was clear there were some bits stuck in them.
Stuff like this is why I find fears about robots taking over any time in the next few decades just hilarious. I don't know of many machines not made by Honda that can work reliably for a decade or more with zero maintenance.
I just moved to SpeedQueen (awne92sp113tw01) washer/dryer combo and the best way I could describe the difference between them and the old set (Samsung, relatively new but rather abused) is that the SpeedQueen uses one "low efficiency wash" to wash what the Samsung set would take two.
The motor isn't any louder. The digital controls are warranted for 25 years. The motor is super strong (water leaving the drum on the spin cycle is way more powerful than the old set).
My wife seems to approve (I don't think she cared as much as I do). Her friends are seem to be aware/care, however.
I had a Maytag front loader washing machine from 2013 and it lasted until last year with zero issues, no mold or anything. Maybe being bought by Whirlpool was a good thing then?
We just ordered a Maytag dryer to replace our Kenmore from 1995. Hoping the matching Kenmore washer keeps working.
Sad to hear the Maytag is not as reliable now, but it still sounds better than some of the other brands. We chose a model without the electronic controls.
Only eight years? Even our crappy LG front loader is still going after that long (rusty thought it might be). Apparently Maytag’s quality has going downhill.
Maytag used to have an advert running with a bored repairman complaining that they never failed .... either they were tempting fate, or they fired that repairman
They stopped making machines he could repair and parts for the few that he could.
I fondly remember the actual Maytag repairman coming to my parents’ house when I was a child (he also did Kenmore and a few other brands). And the subsequent years as he explained what not to buy until it got to the point where he couldn’t recommend anything (at least near the prices his customers were used to in rural eastern Canada).
Had a Samsung fridge of ~2016 vintage for about 4 years until it failed. Basically, the defrost cycle relies on a tiny aluminum "finger" that dips into the ~1/2" hole at the back of the fridge where the cooling coils are. The idea is that it stays warm enough to not freeze. It wasn't good enough to actually do that.
The result was that the coils would constantly ice up and form into a solid block of ice. As this part was behind a lot of styrofoam and plastic that was GLUED INTO PLACE, in addition to having some of the most annoying mechanical design I've ever had the displeasure of disassembling for the shelves and drawers to even get to that part, disassembling it breaks it. The first sign of the ice is the fan making a grinding sound, as it's literally grinding on the ice block.
I eventually rigged it up in a way that didn't allow condensation to form enough to even ice up in the first place, by removing the entire inside back panel, plastic, styrofoam, and all, and putting 4x 120mm computer fans with a cheap external fan controller and a 12v wall wart plug to power it. My wife hated it, but it did work. We replaced it with a nice GE Profile that has been great.
Ooh, also: the ice maker would also ice over and constantly require manual defrosting, which the manual explicitly warns against -- their solution: remove everything from the fridge for 48-72 hours and leave it open for the ice to melt by itself. What a great idea if you have a second fridge and freezer to store everything while that works.
The parts were also very complex, hard to fit together, and very difficult to clean. It was mechanically over-engineered, but had awful reliability, repairability, and ease of maintenance -- spill something on the lower shelf? Prepare for 30 minutes of disassembling sticky plastic panels and yanking things just to clean up the spill that seeped under the poorly-designed panels that are inaccessible otherwise. Make sure to remember where all 8 different lengths of screws go.
Their dishwasher that we unfortunately own isn't much better: the soap dispenser is blocked by anything remotely large in the lower front-left tray, causing the soap to not come out (as the door swings open and is easily blocked by anything in front of it). The drain / valve part (a large one-piece molded plastic part that costs $150 ish) is on the side and attached with an eighth-turn plastic screw comes off at the slightest touch and causes a leak down the side which triggers the leak sensor, requiring pulling the entire thing out, drying off the bottom, and re-attaching that piece on the side. There was a part, I think it was a small plastic wheel to detect water flow, inside of that one-piece molded plastic plumbing / tank / whatever mixer on the side, that had a couple pieces of rust in it from our crappy 100 year old city water main. Because that part is entirely encased in heat-welded thick plastic, it's impossible to remove to clean. Now that one is in a landfill and the new one was quite expensive. The error code is also non-specific, despite having a few dozen wires leading to all the different sensors that can and will eventually fail, so I first replaced the main water inlet sensor, which didn't fix the problem. Lastly, the touch controls are on the top front of the unit, which means it must be opened slightly to control them, and of course they're capacitive touch buttons with no raised edges, so you must look at them to touch the right one, and they don't work with wet hands, which is just a fantastic idea for a dishwasher.
I think Samsung has some of the worst industrial designers in the industry, along with some of the worst product and software people (read up on the Bixby button on their phones some time). Their appliances and most of their other products are pure garbage destined for landfills, and I will never buy another as long as I live if I have any say in it. I have spent countless hours diagnosing and attempting to repair their hot garbage products, and I truly hope they go out of business very soon for making such horrible products that make the world a worse place in so many ways. They make shiny crap that looks good on a shelf or in Best Buy, then you get it home and maybe it works OK for a few months. I have no idea why they have fans out there.
Edit: The only Samsung stuff I own by choice is their B-die RAM and SSDs. Guessing that's an entirely different division.
Ooh. I didn't know about the lawsuit. I've got one of the models listed. I gave up on trying to thaw/fix the ice maker a while back, and now just buy some ice. I figured Samsung was a good brand, but those models of fridge just suck.
The reason the Maytags were so reliable is their mechanical simplicity. Motor runs one way, the machine agitates and washes. Run the other way, the machine drains. The gearbox is simple, so simple that "spin" and "drain" are the same thing. How do you spin a tub full of water? You have a special kind of belt, that acts as a slip clutch so the spin builds up gradually as the water drains away.
Because of the simple mechanics, the tub is deep; the machine has truly gigantic capacity. We fear the day it finally dies and we have to replace it with something else, the only choices being: Really crappy top loading agitator machines, the bizarre "agitator-less" top loaders, and front loaders.
I used to use a Whirlpool built Kenmore machine before that. It had unbelievably complicated mechanics and plumbing (ever hear of a "wig wag"?) But it did have a reverse flush lint filter. That complicated stuff also eventually went wrong. Because if its simple mechanicals, the Maytag does not do any kind of lint filtering. Given that we also line dry, that is an issue. The machine is plainly for a world in which everything goes through a clothes dryer, which strips the lint.