Thread Number: 44370
How the durability of Washing machines have changed
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Post# 651966   1/8/2013 at 22:40 (4,097 days old) by norgechef (Saint George New Brunswick )        

My gram has a Roper top load washer that she has had since 1996 and its just a very basic 4 cycle 2 speed model and I have to say its done ALLOT of laundry since then. Since we live in such a small town we sometimes joke about how its probably done everyone's laundry in the town since 1996 for one reason or another! I have thought for years that one day it would just stop working because of the amount of large/ extremely overloaded loads that were put through it daily. I remember in early 2009 my Aunt (my gram's daughter) had a young child and were in allot of financial trouble so they had moved in with my grandmother and at that time my grandmothers sisters washer was broke so she also brought her laundry there. So basically the washer never stopped running for a full 24 hours until they moved out and to my amazement it was still working when they moved out, and is still (just barely) working today! In 2011 the neutral drain pack went out so it just goes straight to spin without draining first and still does does it today which has created some strange scraping noises during the spin cycle that may indicate that the clutch or something is weak but im not sure. Anyway now that I have have given the machines life story I will get to the real issue lol....Sometime in the past month a spring or some suspension device has let go because the spin often goes out of balance and the tub is always tilted to the right corner, even if i move the drum by hand it slides right back to the right corner. When it does a balanced spin the drum just goes all over the place on full speed spin and makes noises like snapping springs and rattling chains so its definitely got something wrong with the suspension but my gram says when it finally breaks she will just come to my house and do laundry because they are too old to be lugging on large appliances and refuse to buy today's ''electronic junk'' lol so I guess what im really asking is how long will the washer last before it breaks? I must say sorry for carrying on and on about it but its just been in our family for sooo long and I felt like it might be nice to talk about how good of quality appliances like this were made....id like to see one of these modern whirlpools last even 5 years with that kind of daily use!




Post# 651970 , Reply# 1   1/8/2013 at 23:16 (4,097 days old) by DADoES (TX, U.S. of A.)        

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Why not investigate and fix the broken spring?


Post# 651974 , Reply# 2   1/8/2013 at 23:55 (4,097 days old) by rp2813 (Sannazay)        

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Sounds like the process of killing off the machine due to ignoring repair needs is nearly complete.  The last domino should be falling in short order.


Post# 651982 , Reply# 3   1/9/2013 at 00:51 (4,097 days old) by arbilab (Ft Worth TX (Ridglea))        

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16 years doing the whole town's laundry is not too bad. OTOH, in 60 years of machines I have never known one to wear out its suspension. 1996 was the beginning of the end of durable appliances.

Take electronic controls. There is no "wear" on them at all, yet they frequently fail and are very expensive to replace. There can be no excuse for this other than shoddy engineering.



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