Thread Number: 29334
Hoover Serial Numbers
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Post# 446268   7/2/2010 at 05:05 (5,018 days old) by poptasticdave (Sheffield UK)        

poptasticdave's profile picture
Hi,
This question might be lurking somewhere else on this forum, in a rinse hold or stuck in a heavily soiled long soak, and if it is can anyone point me towards it?

"How can I work out the age of my Hoover appliances (wasshers and vacs) from the Serial numbers?"

Sorry if this is a daft question that seems obvious to everyone else!


CLICK HERE TO GO TO poptasticdave's LINK





Post# 446308 , Reply# 1   7/2/2010 at 09:26 (5,017 days old) by hoover1100 (U.K.)        
The machine in the link

was made in August 1983.

the serial number starts with the model number (A3260) then the next 3 numbers denote the last number of the year and the month of production (308) 3 being 1983 and 08 being August. Not sure if this is the same for the vacs, but definately the washers.

Fantastic machine, one of my personal favourites, definately a keeper!

Hope this helps.

Matt


Post# 446332 , Reply# 2   7/2/2010 at 11:23 (5,017 days old) by matchboxpaul (U.K)        
Hi Dave.

Matt has explained the serial number to to a 'T'.

Can confirm that this coding system was used pretty much throughout the Hoover range, through to the mid 1990s, when a less sensible system was adopted, probably at the behest of Candy (not a dig at Candy - but why replace something that works, with something that is less easy to understand?).

The Hoover serial number strategy covered everything from Irons, washers, dryers, dishwashers, vacuum cleaners, polishers etc etc.
Where it tended to go a bit awry was with foreign produced Hoover badged machines. Tended to be a bit hit and miss as to whether it was a Hoover serial number or one from the manufacturer.

An example of a miss is Gary's A1094 Topline, which was Made in France by Brandt and which does not have a Hoover style serial number...


Post# 446333 , Reply# 3   7/2/2010 at 11:26 (5,017 days old) by matchboxpaul (U.K)        
another miss....

is Mikes 4805 AutoJet dishwasher, which was made by Zanussi.

Whether the '7109' bit refers to September 1971, I dont know. Any Zanussi experts able to confirm.
September 1971 would be about the right date....


Post# 446334 , Reply# 4   7/2/2010 at 11:29 (5,017 days old) by matchboxpaul (U.K)        
Back to pure Hoover....

in the form of mine and Mathew's (keymatic3203) Hoover 3236H which, if the Zanussi '7109' thing is correct, came of the production line a month after Mike's dishwasher!

The 3236H is dated October 1971...


Post# 446335 , Reply# 5   7/2/2010 at 11:31 (5,017 days old) by matchboxpaul (U.K)        
a foreign 'hit' (I think)

in the form of the FAGOR made, but Hoover branded D7114 Crystaljet, that I picked up 2 weekends ago.

Probably January 1986...


Post# 446338 , Reply# 6   7/2/2010 at 11:36 (5,017 days old) by matchboxpaul (U.K)        
One of the Candy style serial numbers?

Hoover A2155 end of the line New Wave Plus 5.

Looks to be a Hoover easy to understand number, but the usual system goes a bit awry!

A2155 - fine
7 - ok 1997
27 - erm ....... gone wrong!!!!


Anyone help?

Paul



Post# 446339 , Reply# 7   7/2/2010 at 11:39 (5,017 days old) by matchboxpaul (U.K)        
Another whacky-un....

on our U1060 Turbopower.

Same style as the New Wave above.

Makes no sense to me..


Post# 446341 , Reply# 8   7/2/2010 at 11:44 (5,017 days old) by matchboxpaul (U.K)        

What was once easy to understand, became a bit non-sensical and weird.

Ah well.

At least we have the old stuff to show how it should be done!

Your A3260 Electron looks lovely and in superb condition. Keep her going and dont ever pension her off.

Did you notice that D6182 that was up in Sheffield last week?

Paul


Post# 446343 , Reply# 9   7/2/2010 at 11:49 (5,017 days old) by matchboxpaul (U.K)        
One thing...

both myself and Matt forget to mention.

The Hoover serial numbers require you to know the decade that the machine was made in, to enable you to equate the '3' in your serial number to 1983 and not 1973 or 1993.

There you have it.

Hoover - Who better!

Cheers
Paul




Post# 446347 , Reply# 10   7/2/2010 at 11:59 (5,017 days old) by matchboxpaul (U.K)        

and here are the dryers that you are after.

D6180 and D6182...


Post# 446365 , Reply# 11   7/2/2010 at 13:45 (5,017 days old) by poptasticdave (Sheffield UK)        
History

poptasticdave's profile picture
Thanks all for your help.
I won't be getting rid of it - here's the story:
I had a Hoover Electron 1100 E (electricity board model) which I bought in 1986 when I first left school and moved in on my own. It was sold as new but factory regraded through the YEB showroom here in Sheffield.
It operated perfectly without any trouble whatever until 2005, when the drum bearings started to go. Until then all it had ever had was 3 or 4 belts and a couple of door seals, all fitted by me. In 2006 I had the drum bearings replaced by an Authorised Hoover Dealer - at a cost of over £100 - but I was determined not to replace the machine knowing that new ones were all cold fill and having solar water heating by them, along with having a great fondness for it. Sadly in August 2008 I found that it was leaking quite badly on spin cycles only and also that on the 800 and 1100 rpm spins there was a horrible rattling which I correctly identified as the drum knocking the heater as the heater bracket had corroded off. A bit of investigation very swiftly revealed that the tub had rusted through on the weld at the top over the door and on spin water was being flung out of the hole.
With great regret I had to scrap that machine as no dealers were interested in repairing (not surprising really as getting a new tub was impossible and such a repair is a rebuild).

Because I have the solar water heating I bought an LG WM14440TDS which boasted a hot connection and promised to use hot water on washes of 60 degrees and higher. Since the vast majority of my washing is whites that I used to do on "whites economy" (prog D) on the Electron that seemed to be a sensible solution and at £800 with a reasonable, though not glowing, Which? report and a 10 year warranty on the motor I thought it was going to be OK.

How wrong I was!

It was instantly apparent that it used no hot water at all - even on a 90 degree "boil" wash the hot valve only opened for 10 seconds during fill. A call to the service centre and an engineer's visit resulted in "no fault found - operating as designed".
It was also instantly apparent that the wash times, which were horrendous to start with (2h 52 mins for a 60 degree cotton wash????) were very ambitious indeed since the machine spent at least 15 and often 45 minutes "balancing" before each spin in every cycle. As a general rule 3.5 hours for a cottons 60 cycle was a good guesstimate.
To add insult to injury, the wash performance was quite good, but not exceptional, but the rinse performance (as Which? correctly said actually) was poor - only I'd have called it diabolical, rather than just "poor". In fact, I could have rinsed the laundry better by hanging it in the line and spraying it with the garden hose.

However, I decided I'd better stick with it and hope I could live with it until I could afford a Miele Little Giant commercial machine with hot connection and high water levels, or until someone like Miele started to import a machine with hot fill like their "allwater" which is sold almost everywhere in the world except the UK.

The LG had other ideas. By 9 months old the control panel started to "lock out" every wash, so if I had a second load to go in, I could not start it until a good 4 or 5 hours after the first had finished, when things had "cooled down". Then in July 2009, when it was 11 months old, there was a big firework display and all the fuses (plug, circuit and distribution board) blew.

Getting LG to log a service call took over a week because with the machine totally dead there was no error code to report and without an error code they did not want to log a fault. Finally I managed to get an engineer out who took one look at it, didn't even open it up, and said it needed 3 new circuit boards which he described as "programme", "Control Panel" and "power". He promised them for the following week but they never came. In OCTOBER 2009 - yes it took over 2 months - I involved the retailer that I'd got it from as the parts were still not forthcoming and the engineers explained that every time they ordered the parts LG returned the order saying that had used invalid part numbers, but when the engineers asked for the correct part numbers LG gave them the ones that they had just rejected!

Oddly, the day after I rang the retailer, the parts and the engineer arrived and the machine was running again within 20 hours of my call to the retailer.

However, the engineer suggested that the fault may have been caused by running the machine full and said that anything over half full was not advisable. Great eh? I get a 7Kg machine and can only was 3.5 Kg at any one time - 1 Kg less than a 26 (ish) year old Hoover???

I followed his advice but the performance and programme times were no better and worse still, after the repair the temperature control was useless - 40 degree washed regularly got up to 57 degrees and 60 washes rarely got over 52. (or else the display was faulty.)

Then on June 6th this year (2010) there was a second firework display and blown fuses, so I gave up.

I rang my local second hand washer shop and asked for a machine that "MUST" have hot water fill that really uses hot water, should "preferably have a mechanical timer" and a Hoover Ecologic, Logic or Electron series would be ideal.

I nearly fell over when they offered me the A3260 in the pictures on my link!!!! Needless to say I snapped their hands off and let them have the LG to ditch / sell / laugh at / whatever.

It is in incredibly good condition I must say, although I am slightly worried that the "non fast coloureds" wash (cycle F) seems to wash very hot - I hope that they have not mis-connected the 'stat when they did their reconditioning work.

So there you have it, and I WON'T be getting rid of it!!!!!


Post# 446370 , Reply# 12   7/2/2010 at 14:18 (5,017 days old) by hoover1100 (U.K.)        
"non fast coloureds" wash (cycle F) seems to wash ve

My Grandad has a Hoover Ecologic Washer/Dryer (A8596) from 1992.

I noticed this problem on his too, I eventually discovered that the timer has become misaglidned by one click, so to get the desired cycle you have to set the timer one click past the letter on the dial. This meant that by setting the dial to E (non-fast coloureds on his machine), it was actually still in the 60c section of programme D (fast coloureds) so it was heating to 60c.

You won't notice on the fast coloureds cycle, as the cycle before it on the timer is also at 60c, but if you choose whites economy, you may find it actually heats to 85 as on the whites programme, because of the timer being slightly out of line.

One sure way to know is, on the non-fast coloureds cycle the machine should go into gentle action for the first few minutes of the wash and during the heat phase, the "dilution rinse" should also be much longer. If it is heating to 60c, it will do the fast wash rhythm throught the cycle and the dilution rinse will be much shorter.

If this is the case, try starting the wash with the dial set one notch past the corresponding letter, this solved all the problems with my Grandads machine.

Best of luck!

Matt


Post# 446390 , Reply# 13   7/2/2010 at 15:19 (5,017 days old) by matchboxpaul (U.K)        
So there you have it, and I WON'T be getting rid of it!!

I am very glad to hear it!

Hi Dave

What a story of nursing a golden oldie through to a decent age and then getting your fingers burnt by a young whipper snapper!

The length of many cycles on modern machines is a complete joke. My mum wasnt impressed when she bought a Hotpoint WF-series machine, five years ago.
The time taken to do one standard load in the new machine, she could have done three in the old one.

Ah well. You really have got yourself a very nice example of the version-2 Electron and what complete luck! Ringing up a second hand shop and being sold a total classic!
Wonderful story and thanks for telling it.

Any support you need for your new machine, not that you will I am sure, just drop a message and we will all try to help.

Will keep my eyes peeled for a D6182 dryer for you as well. Keep us updated with how you get on with your electron.

All the best
Paul
p.s a memory of your old steed below? I assume, with you saying 1986, that your previous electron was a version-3 A3392 Electron 1100 de luxe E


Post# 446393 , Reply# 14   7/2/2010 at 15:23 (5,017 days old) by matchboxpaul (U.K)        
or.....

was it a very late version-2 model A3294 Electron 1100 E de luxe?

If it is this one, then what are the chances of replacing an A3294 with an A3260, 25 years after they were built!
The A3294 is an A3260 electron 1100, but in electricity board drag.


Post# 446394 , Reply# 15   7/2/2010 at 15:25 (5,017 days old) by poptasticdave (Sheffield UK)        

poptasticdave's profile picture
Cheers Matt - I wondered about the misalignment too - I've had this on other machines of other people's that I have come across.
I don't think that's the case though - J (fast spin) and H (special treatments) and all three "stop" spots line up perfectly and do what they say on the tin.

Also, as you say, and as I was aware, there is the rhythm issue - it does exactly as it should and washes with gentle rhythm during the heat phase BUT the dilution rinse is very short - as I would expect on a hot cycle - and not long like on G (Woollens).

I fear that 'stat is mis-connected or faulty. I'll have to get the shop to look at it: if I do it myself (and I have several spare stats "in stock") I expect it will invalidate their 9 month warranty - which would be a bit silly.


Post# 446401 , Reply# 16   7/2/2010 at 15:37 (5,017 days old) by poptasticdave (Sheffield UK)        

poptasticdave's profile picture
Hi Paul.
It was an A3294.

I still have the instruction manual in fact - a bit dog-eared but still in one piece.
Dave


Post# 446446 , Reply# 17   7/2/2010 at 16:27 (5,017 days old) by AquaCycle (West Yorkshire, UK)        

aquacycle's profile picture
Hi Dave,

Now that is a STUNNING machine. I am incredibly jealous. Is that the garage you have it in? That room needs to be filled with old washing machines :). Hope you find the matching dryer for it at some point.

best,
Chris


Post# 446451 , Reply# 18   7/2/2010 at 16:36 (5,017 days old) by poptasticdave (Sheffield UK)        

poptasticdave's profile picture
Hi Chris,

It's in my workshop, where I do my wood turning and so on, and also where the 32 year old Glow Worm 52B super gas boiler is housed along with the 180 Gallon solar heated hot water cylinder.

If I had room to collect washers I probably would, but as it is I have over a dozen of my favourite Hoover Vacuum cleaners and a glass cabinet full of Smith's Sectric electric clocks .... I can't fit anything else in!!!

Glad you like the washer - I am delighted too; and I might add it's just for my everyday use as it was intended.



Post# 446467 , Reply# 19   7/2/2010 at 16:59 (5,017 days old) by Rolls_rapide (.)        
Yo! Matchboxpaul!!!

Could you show us some pics of the Hoover dishwasher you recently obtained?

Ta :-)



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