Advice Needed Washing machine

Our 5 year old Ideshit washing machine has given up the ghost. The drum bearings are dead and the whole thing is making a massive racket, along with making unpleasant burning-seals type smells... While we could replace the bearings, it's rather uneconomical and probably easier to buy a new machine.

What's the best manufacturer these days to go with, taking into account reliability and warranty?

Ta.

TBH, apart from snob value, they're all much of a muchness.

My last two are Candy and I got ten years out of the first and the current one is eight years old and I've only had a door seal to change. Even that was caused by mould growth (ie my fault, for not leaving the door ajar when not in use), not failure.

At around £220 sovs, we're talking twenty and a couple quid per year.

PS, I think Candy are from the same stable as Indesit, but don't let that deter you!

Paid £35 for my Hotpoint (that's pre-indeshit buyout Hotpoint), probably around 18 years old, far more reliable than the junk you can buy today that'd need replacing again in a few years, and it's very serviceable with plenty parts available and surprisingly easy to work on...

I was unfortunate to have bought a Hotpoint 12 years ago when some idiot designer cut down the size of the concrete block for some reason & it used to move about & smashed part of the kitchen unit,
I had the engineer out several times to try & stabilize it after 6 years I had had enough of stuffing foam & paper to keep it in position & threw it out,
I have had a Zanussi for the last 5 years & am very pleased with it.

@Captain Jack before you scrap your old machine, I would advise to collect some useful parts out of it, such as: the motor , some wiring, electronic components. Especially the motor can be very useful in another DIY projects. New machine..... well, take your better halve to the shop and let her choose one.

I have a 20+ year old Whirlpool top loader still going strong. Top loaders are inherently more reliable than front loaders.

CJ

Are you a WHICH subscriber (somehow I doubt that)? Is so, check out their website because they do keep tabs on the usability /noise/reliability issues.

Bought our 1400 rpm Zanussi on the basis of recommendations on there, and it's now been doing Ok for the last 7/8 years. Only had to replace a door seal ( a pig of a job!) early on, and we were probably responsible for that damage.

Also worth looking at the energy consumption!

FWIW, would not buy any current Indesit or related machines!

I found a nice Sears Kenmore washer/dryer (mismatched pair) at a second hand store for about 30 of your UK pounds, this was 25 years ago and they are still working like new.

Indesit, hotpoint, ariston , candy are usually not very good , but it s nice to read that some of them can survive after a couple of years.

Good household manufacturers are German , for this first group, I mean the "real" made in Germnay, not the 1st price made in Spain, Siemens/bosch/Neff.
The top is Miele ( but also the top for the prices)...
By Electrolux, AEG is not so bad .

But there is a cheap price manufacturer with good machines and spares are also not expensive: Fagor, made in Spain for most of there products.

My Parents has a Miele for 25 years.
They then moved house, and left the machnine behind in favour of another old Miele in the new house.

We buoght an AEG at the advice of Which? in the UK in '07, and brought it with us to DK.
Worked fine for 5-6 years until it began smelling a bit. Tried cleaning it, washing with chlorine etc etc, but nothing helped.

We have a Miele here in the house now. Was bought on advice from Danish version of Which?.
We're on second iteration of Mieles. The first one gave up everything after 1y11mo on 23 Dec 2015. Heck of a timing.
(Most likely the electronics got fried somehow. It was just completely dead.)
As we were under warranty, they just gave us a new one. That's the kind of service you want!
They didn't even want the old one back, and I sold it on local version of Loot for 50 GBP!

Would probably buy Miele again.
Does the job, quiet, works, manageable User Interface.
Expensive, yes, but the Miele guy said the expected lifetime was 20+ years...

Over here runs a Miele W9460 almost 20 years !
I replaced 2 years ago the drum bearings , in the time before replaced twice the carbon brushes and twice the waterpump .
Last repair , 2 shoc absorbers .
Still good working

Couple of weeks ago I picked up washer previous users wanted to replace by newer model, even it was in working condition. So I cannibalized it for spare parts (like I've said earlier) and garbaged the rest.