s/o: What brand of frontloader washing machine do you own and hate?

[Brilliant]

I bought an LG frontloader in September. I hate it, hate it, hate it. I had heard the hype for years about energy savings and better clothes care which is why we decided to switch. I am counting the days (years) when I can get another traditional top loader.

 

Pros:

1. It saves on utility costs because of the lower water amounts used. Also the clothes are more dry when they come out of the washer, so I'm sure I'm saving on utility costs for drying.

 

 

Cons:

1. The loads take much longer. There's no such thing as a short load. I'm sure my old washer could do a quick load in 40 minutes. The fastest one on my new washer is 53 minutes, and some are as long as 1:27.

2. It's louder - the spin cycle sounds like an airplane taking off in my upstairs laundry room.

3. The clothes don't get as clean!!! My family is not very dirty (no kids playing in mud or anything) but I have noticed our clothes are now visibly stained or have noticeable odors left in them. For example, I had spaghetti sauce splatter onto a dish towel last week. My old washer would have gotten this ou, no worries, in my normal hot-water-and-bleach for whites load. But I knew the front-loader wouldn't. So I carefully rinsed and scrubbed the dish towel in my kitchen sink by hand. Then sent it up to the laundry room. Guess what? A hot-water-and-bleach load did NOT get the remnants of the orange stain out. My shirts all come out with white deodorant residue. I really think that water is necessary for the proper cleaning of clothes - what a concept!

4. I'm so paranoid about the mold/odor issue that I have to wipe out the washer with an old towel when I'm done with laundry for the day. Then leave the door open. I live in fear that a family member will close the door, and we'll be stuck with mold/mildew forever.

 

Rant over. Anybody else?

[at the beach]

We had a Maytag. It was, I believe, Maytag's first front loader. And we bought it. :001_huh: It was the WORST machine ever. It developed mold problems, it broke repeatedly, it wouldn't drain the water, and on and on. They fixed it while under warranty repeatedly, but it kept breaking even when outside of warranty and they wouldn't do a thing about it. It was a lemon, for sure. I told myself I'd never buy another Maytag because their failure to stand behind their product was really disappointing. We had paid a lot of $ for this machine. I believe many others had similar problems. I don't think they ever did a recall, but they should have.

 

We finally junked it. And we bought a top loader. If I bought another front loader, it would not be a Maytag.

[Deeke]

Worst front-loader ever! Drainage errors from almost day 1 and still 5 yrs later. :ack2:

[Sputterduck]

I have a front loader with none of those issues.

 

The shortest washes are 31, 34, and 37 minutes.

 

We have no mold and it's quieter than top loaders. Top loaders get mold, too! Probably more so because people leave the doors closed. You just can't see it in them.

[Julie in CA]

I've had it for about 8 years. It's had multiple pump problems. It smells, even though we leave the door open *always*, which I hate doing because then the door effectively blocks the way to the rest of my laundry room.

It's noisy. It takes forever. It lies about how much time it has left in the cycle. I have to feed it "special" laundry detergent instead of whatever's cheap. It won't spin out the water if I put more than about 6 pairs of jeans in at once (in spite of false advertising claims) AND

*It doesn't leave my clothes dryer than my regular washer did*, so the dryer also takes forever (around 90 minutes to dry a largish load).

Mine is a Kenmore Elite HEt3

[mom4him]

We had a Maytag. It was, I believe, Maytag's first front loader. And we bought it. :001_huh: It was the WORST machine ever. It developed mold problems, it broke repeatedly, it wouldn't drain the water, and on and on. They fixed it while under warranty repeatedly, but it kept breaking even when outside of warranty and they wouldn't do a thing about it. It was a lemon, for sure. I told myself I'd never buy another Maytag because their failure to stand behind their product was really disappointing. We had paid a lot of $ for this machine. I believe many others had similar problems. I don't think they ever did a recall, but they should have.

 

We finally junked it. And we bought a top loader. If I bought another front loader, it would not be a Maytag.

:iagree:This was pretty much my experience with our Maytage front load. I tried to like it but when the mold thing started.....well.....it was difficult to deal with. In the summer I could put a load in when I went to bed and when I got up in the morning the clothes would smell. YUCK!

I endured for 10 yr when it broke down AGAIN and my dh decided we just needed to replace it.(I think he was very tired of hearing me complain. LOL) I almost did a dance in the street!

I Love my whirlpool top load.

[Mrs Mungo]

Cons:

1. The loads take much longer. There's no such thing as a short load. I'm sure my old washer could do a quick load in 40 minutes. The fastest one on my new washer is 53 minutes, and some are as long as 1:27.

 

I have an LG front loader and it has a 30 minute speed cycle.

 

2. It's louder - the spin cycle sounds like an airplane taking off in my upstairs laundry room.

 

Mine is remarkably more quiet than my old top loader, I was *amazed* at how much more quiet it is. Are you sure your washer is balanced correctly?

 

3. The clothes don't get as clean!!! My family is not very dirty (no kids playing in mud or anything) but I have noticed our clothes are now visibly stained or have noticeable odors left in them. For example, I had spaghetti sauce splatter onto a dish towel last week. My old washer would have gotten this ou, no worries, in my normal hot-water-and-bleach for whites load. But I knew the front-loader wouldn't. So I carefully rinsed and scrubbed the dish towel in my kitchen sink by hand. Then sent it up to the laundry room. Guess what? A hot-water-and-bleach load did NOT get the remnants of the orange stain out. My shirts all come out with white deodorant residue. I really think that water is necessary for the proper cleaning of clothes - what a concept!

 

I'm wondering when you bought yours? I've had mine for 3 years and even my husband comments on how much cleaner our clothes get.

 

4. I'm so paranoid about the mold/odor issue that I have to wipe out the washer with an old towel when I'm done with laundry for the day. Then leave the door open. I live in fear that a family member will close the door, and we'll be stuck with mold/mildew forever.

 

Rant over. Anybody else?

 

I have never wiped out my washer. I do leave the door open-you should do that on any washer to help prevent mildew and such.

[Caraway]

I had heard the hype for years about energy savings and better clothes care which is why we decided to switch. I am counting the days (years) when I can get another traditional top loader.

 

Pros:

1. It saves on utility costs because of the lower water amounts used. Also the clothes are more dry when they come out of the washer, so I'm sure I'm saving on utility costs for drying.

 

 

Cons:

1. The loads take much longer. There's no such thing as a short load. I'm sure my old washer could do a quick load in 40 minutes. The fastest one on my new washer is 53 minutes, and some are as long as 1:27.

2. It's louder - the spin cycle sounds like an airplane taking off in my upstairs laundry room.

3. The clothes don't get as clean!!! My family is not very dirty (no kids playing in mud or anything) but I have noticed our clothes are now visibly stained or have noticeable odors left in them. For example, I had spaghetti sauce splatter onto a dish towel last week. My old washer would have gotten this ou, no worries, in my normal hot-water-and-bleach for whites load. But I knew the front-loader wouldn't. So I carefully rinsed and scrubbed the dish towel in my kitchen sink by hand. Then sent it up to the laundry room. Guess what? A hot-water-and-bleach load did NOT get the remnants of the orange stain out. My shirts all come out with white deodorant residue. I really think that water is necessary for the proper cleaning of clothes - what a concept!

4. I'm so paranoid about the mold/odor issue that I have to wipe out the washer with an old towel when I'm done with laundry for the day. Then leave the door open. I live in fear that a family member will close the door, and we'll be stuck with mold/mildew forever.

 

Rant over. Anybody else?

 

This would be us exactly, except I don't think ours is LG. Oh, and now we are going to have to move it into the garage because it has flooded TWICE. And it is on the second floor. Nice. :glare:

[HollyDay]

I had a Maytag front loader and truly hated it!! The mold problem was so bad,that when we replaced it, we had to rewash EVERYTHING! We had to treat the closets, dresser drawers and mattresses. Granted I have a pretty major mold allergy, so what I needed to do was probably more extreme than others. IT was awful!! And the drum was not that much bigger. IT struggled with our comforters. Worst mistake I have made in an appliance ever. Did I mention I hated our old Maytag:)

[Pink Fairy]

I hate my LG too. I was so excited when we bought it about 3 years ago, but like you I don't think it gets my clothes as clean, a normal cycle takes way longer than my old top loader ever did, it holds fewer clothes than my old washer, I didn't have any noticeable savings in my electric bill, and it's just overall a complete disappointment. I can't wait until it dies so I can replace it.

[Danestress]

I don't know it personal preference or what, but my GE is not particularly loud, it gets clothes clean, it uses less water, and it leaves the clothes dryer than my top loader did so they dry very quickly in the dryer if I am using the dryer - the air dry quickly too.

 

I do leave the door open a bit because I have heard that others get mold problems.

[newbie]

I've had it for about 8 years. It's had multiple pump problems. It smells, even though we leave the door open *always*, which I hate doing because then the door effectively blocks the way to the rest of my laundry room.

It's noisy. It takes forever. It lies about how much time it has left in the cycle. I have to feed it "special" laundry detergent instead of whatever's cheap. It won't spin out the water if I put more than about 6 pairs of jeans in at once (in spite of false advertising claims) AND

*It doesn't leave my clothes dryer than my regular washer did*, so the dryer also takes forever (around 90 minutes to dry a largish load).

Mine is a Kenmore Elite HEt3

 

This is the one we had, same problems, we exchanged for Whirlpool.

[Brilliant]

I'm glad I'm not the only one. Misery loves company. :)

 

A couple of people mentioned shorter cycles, so I guess I mis-spoke on that one. My LG doesn't have a *normal* cycle shorter than 53 minutes. I guess a "light" cycle might be shorter but I've never had the opportunity to try one, since, as I mentioned, the washer doesn't get my clothes as clean as our top loader used to. So I am using normal to heavy cycles on clothes I used to use light to normal cycles on.

 

It's only 4 months old. :(

[Spy Car]

Our Miele has been great. Not inexpensive, but top-notch.

 

Bill

[KAR120C]

And I don't hate it, but I know I have fairly low standards. ;) It only started to sound like an airplane when the bearings started to go... and while that was way earlier than I'd have liked (6 years) it was cheap and I think I got what I paid for and then some. I'm replacing it with the same thing.

 

We haven't had the mold issues I've heard other people having, we haven't had any leaks, and the cycles are definitely short... and the water and electricity savings were considerable. And it fits in the limited space we have. So I'm good.

[NicoleB]

We have the Bosch Nexxt 700 Series W&D and have loved them! I was worried about mold in the beginning, but it hasn't been a problem. (Only when I leave the clothes in there overnight on a hot summer night, that is. LOL) I find that if I use some vinegar and baking soda in an empty load once in a while it keeps it nice and fresh. It does take about an hour on the regular cycle and I feel that the "short cycle" option doesn't get my clothes clean enough. It works GREAT on stains though! I don't even have to pre-treat usually. I pack it to the brim and it still does fine, although sometimes I run the "spin" and "drain" cycles if there is still too much water. The dryer only takes 50 minutes. It does get a little noisy on the spin cycle, but not nearly as bad as some I've heard and I think a large part of it is all the stuff on top of it rattling around. Bosch makes great products, if you're willing to put out more in the beginning. Luckily my brother worked at our local Bosch store so we got them at cost. Good luck to you!!!

[nukeswife]

I bought an LG frontloader in September. I hate it, hate it, hate it. I had heard the hype for years about energy savings and better clothes care which is why we decided to switch. I am counting the days (years) when I can get another traditional top loader.

 

Pros:

1. It saves on utility costs because of the lower water amounts used. Also the clothes are more dry when they come out of the washer, so I'm sure I'm saving on utility costs for drying.

 

 

Cons:

1. The loads take much longer. There's no such thing as a short load. I'm sure my old washer could do a quick load in 40 minutes. The fastest one on my new washer is 53 minutes, and some are as long as 1:27.

2. It's louder - the spin cycle sounds like an airplane taking off in my upstairs laundry room.

3. The clothes don't get as clean!!! My family is not very dirty (no kids playing in mud or anything) but I have noticed our clothes are now visibly stained or have noticeable odors left in them. For example, I had spaghetti sauce splatter onto a dish towel last week. My old washer would have gotten this ou, no worries, in my normal hot-water-and-bleach for whites load. But I knew the front-loader wouldn't. So I carefully rinsed and scrubbed the dish towel in my kitchen sink by hand. Then sent it up to the laundry room. Guess what? A hot-water-and-bleach load did NOT get the remnants of the orange stain out. My shirts all come out with white deodorant residue. I really think that water is necessary for the proper cleaning of clothes - what a concept!

4. I'm so paranoid about the mold/odor issue that I have to wipe out the washer with an old towel when I'm done with laundry for the day. Then leave the door open. I live in fear that a family member will close the door, and we'll be stuck with mold/mildew forever.

 

Rant over. Anybody else?

 

:iagree: I had an LG as well and was so happy about 9 months ago when it died (it was only 4.75 years old too, my brother still has my old 12 year old topload whirlpool the LG replaced and says it's working great)

I'm so happy that I now have a Fisher Paykel Toploader. No mold issue, clothes are clean again, doesn't take over an hour for a load to finish and the kicker is the clothes spin just as dry as the FL did.

[danybug]

I really like our Whirpool front loader. Ours sounded like it was going to blast off too, and we just fixed how we had it balanced and it made a difference. I have noticed a few times that I am not sure it has cleaned things perfectly, but I also decided I needed to watch how much I packed into it. I always leave the door open on ours, but I think that seems like common sense with any thing that can trap moisture in it.

[MelanieM]

We have a GE. I *hated* it practically from the day we got it. (In hindsight, we should have returned it right away.) After almost a year, with months of me in misery over the state of our laundry -- smelly clothes, inability to remove basic things like chocolate milk spills, etc. -- I googled online and found a tutorial for changing the water level in our machine. My husband made the modifications and now the thing works just fine. But I will never, ever, again buy a front loader.

[homeschoolally]

Our LG TROMM is terrible, terrible, TERRIBLE.

 

I'd research very very closely before I made the investment in a front-loader. Consumer Reports rated this one A+ so we purchased it, then it ended up being so bad (there some kind of design flaw) there are class action suits with it.

 

Apparently these issues often come up after several months of use.

 

Good luck!