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This one has been bugging me.
We’ve had a Beko washer before, and TBH never really had any trouble with it. To the best of my knowledge it was still going at 7 years old, which can’t be bad at £170.
BUT, it was a long way from being a quality product.
Being a consumer electronics enthusiast, I know all about the reputation Beko have in some other areas (plasma TVs in particular) when they manufacture product for other manufacturers “to Toshiba specifications” or whatever.
Namely, real Tosh fantastic, Beko (or Vestel) Tosh pretty poor.
So, what evidence do we have that these units are any better in the longer term? Beko seem quite capable of making stuff that works, but reliability is still budget and I’m very suspicious of any company who farms out production to other companies.
So what is it exactly that makes ISE different, and why should I buy one? I know all about the cheap parts yada yada, but when the majority of the cost of many fixes is labour, this is not necessarily a deciding factor if the tendency to fail with minor gremlins is average-to-high.
I have no issue with the idea of a “budget” manufacturer being capable of producing reliable kit (one only has to look at Hyundai/Kia in the car world, who have the like of Renault and Peugeot well and truly licked in the reliability department) but still, there’s more to a quality product than upgraded perceived build quality.
Re: ISE / Beko — what makes one better than the other?
In a way J.J. you answer your own question. When you say :-
‘I have no issue with the idea of a “budget” manufacturer being capable of producing reliable kit’Thing is, all companies and countries are capable of producing quality kit but the main reason they are approached by recognised brands to build equipment for them in the first place, is predominantly price driven.
For years now the independent service sector of our trade has seen,
the large multiples drive down the cost of appliances. Initially this was a good thing in my opinion.The only thing is, that the practice went on for so long that it has reached the point where it has drastically affected the build quality of modern day appliances.
When I came into this trade the average life expectancy of a washing machine was 12 to 15 years with the odd reasonably priced repair during that interval.
You yourself are now amazed that your particular appliance has actually reached seven years old. I can assure you that nowadays most machines don’t even reach five. Unless of course, you have been persuaded by one of the ‘Shed’s’ to take out an extended warranty, to even assure yourself that it will reach five with no additional cost.
It is therefore not surprising that over recent years we have seen, literally, mountains of short life washers discarded for the want of a few parts, as they are now deemed to be, not worth the cost of a repair.
This in turn has led to irreparable damage to our environment with ever increasing carbon emissions required to replace these short life products. Remember, it takes very little additional carbon to build a robust appliance, as it does to build a budget one.
You should be aware that UK Whitegoods was actually set up and created by independent appliance repairers. Expressly to assist, both trade and public alike, to repair appliances, rather than simply throw them away at the first sign of a problem.
You could say that our members were environmentalists even before the term was ever invented, as repair and service was always our stock in trade.
One point I would question in your post is the statement is that labour cost’s are the determining factor in not repairing an appliance. This may be true of manufacturers’ own service but it has never been an issue for the independents, as we have never charged their exorbitant prices.
The main reason that people do not have repairs carried out is that manufacturers have shifted a large proportion of the profit generator from the finished product to the cost of spares and service. We now have a situation where one or two key components of the appliance are more expensive than the finished product itself.
You ask ‘So what is it exactly that makes ISE different’
ISE was created by members of UK Whitegoods who wanted to try and address some of the issues mentioned but if your not that bothered about excellent after sales service and your only concerns are short term, price driven, environmentally damaging or wasteful
(Basically if you don’t give a Tosh 😆 ) then you might not get it.Perhaps the following links may give you a clue as to what we are about. 😉
http://iseappliances.co.uk/index.php?id=1148290797http://iseappliances.co.uk/index.php?id=1148290903
http://iseappliances.co.uk/index.php?id=1148290889
http://iseappliances.co.uk/index.php?id=1186071556
RegardsSean
Re: ISE / Beko — what makes one better than the other?
I’d add that trying to compare an ISE10 with a £170 Beko is like comparing a Kia with a Ferrari, there just isn’t a comparison to draw between the two other than they both wash clothes.
K.
Re: ISE / Beko — what makes one better than the other?
Thanks for the detailed response.
I am still not entirely convinced — why did ISE themselves go with Beko, a company at the lower end of the market, with a reputation in other markets for not producing kit to particularly high standards even when contracting out, and with a parent organisation that has been criticised in the past for pollution problems in their native Turkey.
Why not contract someone like Bosch, Miele or one of the several very high quality Japanese brands that never see the light of day over here, yet are responsible for some very classy appliances in their home market? (I’m thinking specifically here of Mitsubishi, National and Sanyo).
There still seems to be some cost compromise going on here. If I am given the choice between a £500 Beko (ISE) and a £500 Miele, I’m sorry but the ISE doesn’t even get a look in in my book. Too many variables, too little track record.
As for Kia vs Ferrari, hmmm. Has anyone tried to take a Ferrari to 150,000 miles? Modern Kias will manage that with no sweat if properly maintained; Ferraris are categorically not built with durability in mind. Yes, they are works of art, but it’s a very odd comparison to make.
Fiat vs Honda, or Citroen vs Toyota I would have accepted (worst vs best in the mainstream car market in reliability terms).
Re: ISE / Beko — what makes one better than the other?
jjames,
I don’t know where you’re trying to go here with this.
Beko can make good product, just like many others can as well, but what they cannot do, as we have explained, is produce good quality product AND have low prices, it’s that simple. We used Beko for the CI555 but Beko is not producing any of the other machines so I don’t get why you’re having a pop on that front in any event. Unless of course you’re going to try to tell us that Swedish Asko produced machines are poor quality, in which case I will seriously fall about laughing.
Japanese machines aren’t as nice as you think and they are made specifically for the home Asiatic market, not for EU consumers although they are looking at expansion into the EU now in low volumes. The way that washing is done in Asia is entirely different to both US and EU markets.
As for the picky comments about the comparison made, you obviously missed the point and have decided to try to ridicule it.
If I didn’t know any better I’d think you were trolling.
K.
Re: ISE / Beko — what makes one better than the other?
Beko can make good product, just like many others can as well, but what they cannot do, as we have explained, is produce good quality product AND have low prices, it’s that simple.
Fine. So please explain the depth of R&D that has gone into the CI555 that makes it better than Beko’s reference designs (is it even based on Beko’s mundane product?). As anyone who has worked in the design of electronic products, as I have (for a small bespoke electronic engineering firm), knows that the key to reliability is not necessarily as simple as throwing higher specification at a fundamentally inferior product.
This is not a trivial point: Honda did not achieve their position by simply upgrading those parts that didn’t perform. It was achieved by many years of meticulous research and development.
Unless of course you’re going to try to tell us that Swedish Asko produced machines are poor quality, in which case I will seriously fall about laughing.
At no point did I mention Asko. Indeed that flags up exactly the point that I am making — if Beko’s designs are good enough to be brought up to the industry best in their class, why not work with them for the manufacture of the higher-end designs as well?
Japanese machines aren’t as nice as you think and they are made specifically for the home Asiatic market, not for EU consumers although they are looking at expansion into the EU now in low volumes. The way that washing is done in Asia is entirely different to both US and EU markets.
It still doesn’t alter the fact that these machines are almost universally substantially more expensive, and have been shown to last longer than the typical badly-made Euro-garbage we have to put up with on this continent. The devices are very different, but the expertise of these companies can easily migrate to Euro-centred designs — the companies in question have proven this time and time again in other fields.
As for the picky comments about the comparison made, you obviously missed the point and have decided to try to ridicule it.
Not really. The comparison appeared to confuse specification with quality. Kia are by no means at the bottom of the pile in engineering quality terms, even if they probably are fairly close to it in terms of the specification of some of their products.
Re: ISE / Beko — what makes one better than the other?
And you are an expert in all of this how?
Washing machines are primarily mechanical devices with moving mechanical parts, most unlike the field in which you are involved, and fitting inferior components or using inferior, cut down or poorly designed materials will lead to an early demise through wear and tear, fact and end of story.
Most electronic devices have little or no moving parts. A totally different methodology applies.
No you didn‘t mention Asko, I did. We wanted the ultimate in robustness so that’s what we went and got using a proven design and it also leads us away from the silly ill-informed threads such as this one which serve little or no purpose so far as I can see. This is because, even if we had used Beko or whoever to manufacture from one of their plants we would still have people like you coming up with stuff like this.
I didn’t say that Kia were the bottom of the pile but then neither is Skoda or pretty much any other badge these days unless you want to look at India and the likes of Tata, but even they aren’t the joke they once were. Which leads to an interesting thought about Beko doesn’t it?
As for your speculation about Japanese washing machines, just go and use one, I have and they ain’t as good as you would like to think that they are I can assure you. Perhaps you would care to read this article amongst others on the site before commenting any further on the subject.
In the end if you want to argue about the engineering merits then please try to do so from a position of knowledge and not idle speculation based on poor information that you are seemingly just guessing at. However that is not why this site is here and I think we have answered you most comprehensively thus far in this thread and the other one regarding cookers that I answered earlier today.
And, for someone that only joined the site three days ago you seem to appear to profess a vast knowledge of whitegoods and yet acknowledge that it is not your field, very confusing that someone with no experience of the industry or how it works can think that they are such an expert with three days of browsing. I’ve only been at it twenty odd years and I’m still learning something new almost daily.
K.
Re: ISE / Beko — what makes one better than the other?
kwatt wrote:And you are an expert in all of this how?
I never said I was an expert. I was querying what made the (base-spec) ISE any better than any other cheap unit on the market. From what I can gather ISE’s strategy seems to be one of good after-sales rather than anything else.
If this LG unit I have is toast, I had been considering buying the ISE, and this post was intended to test the water. Your defensive tone has caused me to rethink that position. All I was after was something along the lines of “our engineers have spent some time carefully selecting the most compatible and highest quality components available, have identified the weak areas in the existing design, and have worked with Beko to resolve these issues before marketing the final product”. Your comments have disappointed me.
Washing machines are primarily mechanical devices with moving mechanical parts, most unlike the field in which you are involved, and fitting inferior components or using inferior, cut down or poorly designed materials will lead to an early demise through wear and tear, fact and end of story.
So with that being the case, any monkey can piece together the best parts and therefore produce the best product, right? No way. Yes, pricing down component quality has a negative effect, but that does not necessarily mean that pricing up will have a similarly positive effect. There always comes a point where specification gives way to design. These are basic engineering principles, and I refuse to believe that mechanical devices are any different in principle. You don’t need to be in the field to realise that.
Most electronic devices have little or no moving parts. A totally different methodology applies.
Depends on the product. We would not compromise on component quality, but most of the issues I encountered with our designs (including the failure of mechanical parts under the control of electronics) ended up being caused by poor electronic design rather than component failure — in fact it’s often the software that is at fault. If we’d upgraded the mechanical components, they would often still have failed in the same way.
As for your speculation about Japanese washing machines, just go and use one, I have and they ain’t as good as you would like to think that they are I can assure you.
I lived in Japan for six months, and used a Mitsubishi in that time. Technologically light-years ahead of the stuff we get here — quiet, fast, huge loads and expensive (about £1200 I believe). I can’t say how well designed they are internally, but suffice to say that when I mentioned
the European CE/whitegood makes in general I got a few raised eyebrows — they treat most of them with suspicion and consider them unreliable.Re: ISE / Beko — what makes one better than the other?
I think we’ve already covered many times over what is different from Beko, a simple search will glean many answers on that subject.
However you are no longer able to buy an Arcelik produced ISE, nor will you be in the near future as the ISE5 changes at the end of this month and the 555 is out of stock.
There is not, I don’t think, a defensive tone at all as there is nothing to defend. We spec machines and test them based on field experience and by knowing what breaks we try to avoid those issues. In each area we do use the best components with the best performance that we can achieve and that means it’s not perhaps as cheap as other machines, nobody is hiding from that fact and I had assumed that the philosophy was clear.
In any event it is irrelevant as that model is no longer available.
What we see are how machines fail in the field when used in real life situations and, it is all too often the case, that down grading key components serves to lead to early demise. The design of a washing machine has changed little in basic principal since Bendix introduced the front loader in the 1950’s IIRC, the basic principals mechanically are fundamentally unchanged although obviously the way in which they operate has changed over the decades.
Electronics, totally different, it would appear that industry turns on it’s head every few years with new technologies. Ours does not and moves at glacial pace with (until recently at least) an extremely long product replacement cycle by comparison.
I am sorry but the electronics industry, especially browngoods and IT does compromise component quality to achieve price points. Unless there is no difference between a Chinese flat panel at £350 and a Japanese produced one at three times that price. We also see cost cutting in this industry and whether that is a deliberate tactic or just poor design is open to debate, but it nonetheless does happen.
You may not do so but many companies do.
Living in Japan you will be familiar with the pre-soaking required to get most machines there to even produce half decent results then, usually in bath water. In Japan I am informed that this is largely due to water restrictions but in any event, European customers would not accept that.
Some Japanese companies have tried here before, most notably Hitachi, but it was just a re-badged Servis UK machine.
K.
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