Greetings all!

When my wife and I bought our home around 8 years ago, we inherited my
mom-in-law's 20-year-old washer and dryer...presumably, so we thought
at the time...as a stop-gap measure until we bought our own. Well, the
truth is, these old Kenmore appliances worked great, and were very
capacious and never harmed clothes, so we just kept them. But my wife
has always been waiting for the point when one broke, so she could buy
us a fresh set.

Well, she finally got her wish. The dryer stopped working, and though
I reckon I could fix it (or have it fixed), this event signaled the
moment at which we commit to getting a 21st century washer and dryer.

After some research on the matter, I am frustrated and stumped. The
wife really has coveted a side loading washer for ages, but as soon as
we started researching them, all kinds of negatives appeared. Can
anyone address any of the following?:

(1) Putting holes in clothes. A search on the web suggests that lots
of people seem to have had this experience. My old Kenmore, with the
old-school agitator, has never harmed a single garment. I think if I
got one hole per thousand garments, that would be one hole too many for
me. I have zero tolerance on the whole hole issue.

(2) Water spilling/leaking out of the front. That's a deal breaker
too.

(3) User-overide of preferences? I love Best Buy, and this is not a
slam at them, but the person I spoke with on this matter had absolutely
no idea about the products he was assigned to sell. They seem to
market these front loaders as having all kinds of presets -- for
instance, the washer adjusts the amount of water for the amount of
clothes I put in; also, somehow the washer monitors the dirt in the
water and keeps running until until the dirt presence is sufficiently
low.

Suppose, JUST SUPPOSE, I want to wash one sock with the maximum amount
of water the washer can hold. I am not saying I would do this...but
CAN I tell the washer I have put in a huge load, even if that means I
have to lie to the robot?

Also, we do loads of wash with dirty, junk towels we use for cleaning
up dirt in the basement, etc...and we don't really care that these
towels get ultra-clean. I don't want the washing machine to continue
washing these nasty towels for hours trying to reduce the dirt presence
to zero.

What side loading and front loading washers do people recommend. I am
very keen on high capacity washers.

If anyone just wants to tell me what to buy, please do...I have had to
make a million important household decisions over the last 8 years, and
one million is apparently my limit. I'm spent. I feel like Ingrid
Bergman in Casablanca..."You think for me, Rick."

Chuck