What’s a BER?

Re: What’s a BER?

Well thanks for the pronto response gegs 🙂
Must say I feel pretty thick for not having been able to work that one out.

I think we’re all agreed that some of these BERs would be E’ly R’ble if the spares were not priced out of proportion to the original cost of the machine. What I like about Beko washing machines is that they’re easy to work on and the spares are reasonably priced. Does anyone else like them?
I don’t like Miele all that much. IMO,when they go wrong the parts cost an arm and a leg. They’re very heavy to move around and access to motor for brush changes etc is not half as easy as on a cheap,light, plastic tub machine.They’re supposed to be super reliable and that may be so but who’s done the independent analysis? Might seem to us that we don’t see many of them, but what’s their share of the UK market?

The old 95 Hotpoints we all liked because we got used to them. We could repair them with one hand tied behind our backs. So now we regret their passing. But, from the customers’ point of view, they were often slated as unreliable.
I’m rambling. I must have gone into error mode. 😕
Mike.

Re: What’s a BER?

I guess I got a bit brassed off with Miele when I had to do a brush job on a WS5425 commercial recently. And as it was in a nursing home there was old soap powder all over the floor and I got covered in it. Nor much room in the utility room so getting the motor off and back on again was far more awkward than it would have been with a nice little Beko.
Now, I hear you say, you don’t need to take the motor off just the plastic brush ring assembly. But a) I didn’t know that beforehand, and b) I’m not at all sure I could have got the assembly back on properly working on a tilted back machine. (Maybe you’re supposed to lay it on its back?)

From the vast majority of customers’ viewpoint they want something that does the washing not some expensive piece of state of the art engineering. Now I daresay Miele can take some loads in their stride but when something does fail the parts are big bucks. (Except of course the pattern brushes for the older ones).And yeah I know there’s a ten year guarantee on domestic ones. (So that would be even less work for us indys if everyone had a Miele).

There are tons more Beko’s out there than Mieles so we’re bound to see tons more of them. But I wonder how much higher the failure rate is and whether two Bekos on average wouldn’t outlast one Miele.
It’s a bit like Duracell at £3.99 for 8 or Golden Power at £1 for 24. Buy Duracell for smoke alarms but Golden Power for wall clocks.

My most cherished argument is that by committing £700 (?) to the next 10/25 years’ washing you lose out on the accelerating drive towards energy efficiency /water efficiency/ bigger doors/ capacity etc. which you’d have been in a position to take advantage of if you’d bought the machine of the masses.
Mike. 🙂

Re: What’s a BER?

You burning the midnight oil too, Andy?
I would think they wouldn’t notice if the brushes went as the movement of the ship would keep the washing moving. 🙂

Re: What’s a BER?

kwatt wrote:
Mike, from an environmental point of view, the longer lasting machine by not taking up residence in landfill, would cause less environmental damage than a replacement appliance irrespective of the gain from increased efficiency. I doubt, unless something really radical happens, that any improvement in performance could negate the damage caused by additional manufacturing proccesses and raw materials.

K.
Agreed. Though I wouldn’t rule out the possibility of something really radical happening. Remember “pedal power”? 😉
Mike.