Have only been reduced 2-4" from what they once were. Of the more than 50 SQ TL washers that we sold last year we didn't turn any up and their have been no complaints from the owners. That said it is fairly easy to adjust the water level switch in the control panel. And no doing so will not void the complete washers warranty unless you cause the problem.

Life of a SQ TLer ? They are rugged machines, SQ makes the 25,000 load claim for their Front Load washers not their TL machines. But I would normally expect a SQ TL to last at least 10 years of heavy use and in some cases with lighter use 2 or 3 times that. Doing a lot of light loads in any washer will shorten its life more than doing doing less maximum loads. It is normally the shear number of loads plus time that determine when things will wear out or simply fail. Remember these washers were designed to be used in commercial use where they are almost always overloaded and they still usually last over ten years with this heavy use.

The majority of the parts of a washing machine wear every time the machine is run including, the water valve, timer, water pump the motor, oil seals, main water seals, various electrical switches and even the lid hinges on the washers lid. None of these parts wear any faster if the washer has a big load in it as opposed to a small load, yet every part of any mechanical device will only last for so many uses.

Basically they would have to show that you caused a problem, yes if the WLS goes bad after you adjust it or the machine starts flooding you may have an issue. But first of all how are they even going to know that you adjusted it?. It is your washer, think of it like a new car where you can change the tires and wheels, put in a different sound system etc. and if you screw it up part of the warranty may be voided but not the entire product.

Hi Bob and everyone else, I did NOT suggest always overloading your AW, what I did suggest is that if your washer is rated for and holds 9 large bath towels and you constantly only wash 6 you are harming your machine far more than if you occasionally wash 10.

As most of you know I work on repairing and selling washers and dryers and have for many years. Every day I am consulting with customers as to how to solve their laundry appliance problems. One piece of information I always get is how large is your family and how many loads are washed and dried per week. It is always interesting that one family of four will only do say 3 or 4 loads per week and the next one will do more than ten loads per week and the latter will have far more problems with the washer and dryer. I have also found that the homes where their is a full time house keeper or full time stay at home house wife where everything is always immaculate have the most washer and dryer problems and the machines will be replaced years earlier.

What does go wrong with say a classic Dependable Care Maytag Washer?

If it was constantly overloaded I would expect to find, broken gears, broken or cracked agitator,  inner tub broken loose at mounting point, maybe broken suspension parts?. I don't think that anyone here including myself have seen any of these possible problems on a MT DC washer.

What really does go wrong with a MT DC Washer?

Timers, inlet valves, Main motor { bearings and centrifugal switches ], water pump [ rarely ], center seal, oil leaks from bottom transmission seal, sticking and on older machines broken motor rollers, Leaky fill inlet air-gap, leaks from various hoses and occasional bad WLS or lid or program switches. Yes Bob some of these problems are fixed fairly easily, BUT any repair call today costs $100-200 and most people will only do this a few times before the washer is out the door and scrapped.

All of these failures are far more likely the more you use the washer and NONE of them are affected by heavy loading. Doing a 2nd rinse will also greatly shorten the life of any washer, yes it is fun and sometimes necessary, but you are not doing it for the washers benefit. If fact the two of the worst problems that a MT DC washer can have [ oil leaks at the lower transmission seal and loose snubber pads always seem to happen to the lightly loaded machines that are run a lot ]. In a spin drain machine there is a lot more vibration and wear on things like the snubber pads as a light load is far more likely to be out of balance than a proper full load.

With all this talk about everything in the world wearing out I guess all of us here (Combo, Qualin, myself and Norgechef you can join us too) are going to have to switch to Citrucel because the grit from Metamucil is going to wear out the spoon.