On Sat, 23 Aug 2003 16:31:54 +0100, "JimM"
wrote:

I know this may be an 'each to their own' type question, but is there any
particular makes of washing machine that are generally accepted as being
better than others. (When I say better I mean more reliable)

We've been married over 25 years, and in that time must have got thru
about half a dozen washing machines.

We reached the conclusion that the cheaper the washing machine is, the
more noisy it will be, and the more likely it is that it will decide
to walk around the kitchen. It's one of those situations where you get
false economies by buying at the low end - save a couple of hundred
quid to cost several times that over a lifetime.

The reason for these problems is because on the cheaper models they
are pretty much slapped together, and don't have features like soft
start - they go from zero revs to full speed instantly. Whereas
something like a more costly Zanussi will slowly build up the spin
speed over a couple of seconds. We've come to the conclusion that
Zanussi is about as good as we want to pay for - £400-ish.

Not forgetting that going from zero to full speed not only makes the
WM walk, but it does long term damage to the main bearings.

Andrew

http://www.handymac.co.uk