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maybe someone has a list of washers with sealed(welded) tubs. i think it would be useful info for everyone there
Re: List of washers with sealed/welded tubs
So that those that might wish for a repair later in the appliances life, might know which machines have built in obsolesense 💡
Re: List of washers with sealed/welded tubs
saulius wrote:maybe someone has a list of washers with sealed(welded) tubs. i think it would be useful info for everyone there
Contact Matt Stevens at Which? Matt has compiled quite a large list and is an active campaigner against this aggressive form of built-in obsolescence and environmental suicide.
Re: List of washers with sealed/welded tubs
Martin, forgive me for butting in on this (I came back to look for more threads about ISE), but there is to me a certainly irony that Which? are putting their weight behind a campaign for appliances which can be repaired & ultimately are more environmentally friendly.
The reason I say this is because Which? are amongst the people who have constantly encouraged consumers to hunt-down the best possible retail prices, not to mention their instance that purchasers haggle with retailers in attempt to obtain a discount off the price tag. I worked for many years in electrical retail, up until 2002, so I know a lot about margins (and how painfully thin they always were on white-goods), and to me ‘disposable’ white-goods are a direct consequence of a mission by others to drive down retail prices.
You know my own thoughts on the economics of buying new to replace broken appliances and that there is an argument that if price is the factor to go by, that replacing several cheap appliances over a period of time is now seen as a very attractive alternative to investing a lot of money in a singular high-quality appliance. I do not think this is right, by any stretch of the imagination, but I do accept it is the reality, at least it is for now.
But anyway, I am just baffled that the same people who demanded lower prices are now expecting the appliances to be built like those of yesteryear. ❓
Re: List of washers with sealed/welded tubs
The reason for my post is that unless the bearings fail it doesn’t matter whether the drum is sealed or not. The OP is suggesting that machines with sealed drums will have early bearing failure and then be BER, i dont think that is true at all. So to advise anyone not to buy a sealed drum machine would not be right at all.
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http://www.kitchenkitsw.comRe: List of washers with sealed/welded tubs
I can’t see anywhere in this thread that indication is made that ‘early bearing failure’ is mentioned. What however is being stated, is in most cases if this duly happens then the cost of the repair will make the product BER. This as Busybr
states is a consequence of the way the market operates. Any information that a customer can glean allows them to assess the product with more clarity. Like all things Which make a considered opinion, they don’t always get it right and ultimately it is up to the customer to decide from the information they have to hand.Re: List of washers with sealed/welded tubs
Heres the thing, if the replacement complete drum was at a cost that made the machine a cost effective repair, then this wouldnt be an issue, much easier repair than getting a huge hammer out to smash the old bearings out and refit new ones with the same thing, then of course what happens to the old metal bearings? Probably thrown in the customers bin then to landfill, great, a drum assembly will go to scrap and be recycled, if you look at the whole picture the issue of sealed drums looks the way forward, what needs to be done is getting the manufacturers to reduce the cost of the parts they sell and has been for a while.
I do understand that most of the members on here are one man businesses that only do repairs, but sometimes you have to look beyond just repairs to get the full issues and the way forward.
If i could get complete drums either remanufactured or new at the right price i would much prefer to do this repair than smashing out bearings in a customers house.
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http://www.kitchenkitsw.comRe: List of washers with sealed/welded tubs
busybr wrote:The reason I say this is because Which? are amongst the people who have constantly encouraged consumers to hunt-down the best possible retail prices, not to mention their instance that purchasers haggle with retailers in attempt to obtain a discount off the price tag.
I don’t see the position that Which? hold (the consumer watchdog) has any relevance in the case of the sealed/welded drum revolution. No more can they be accused of forcing down product prices either. The blame lies squarely in the lap of each and every manufacturer that has chosen to fit welded tubs in their washing machine ranges. Quite why they have done this remains to this day one of the greatest mysteries of the modern age. Logical thinking would suggest that glue is cheaper than screws. That it takes longer for a robotic machine to screw it together rather than one that simply glues it together. More widgets spewing off the assembly belt each day must be the end result I shouldn’t wonder.
Since the advent of this ‘manufacturing revolution’ is was very quickly found that, out in the big bad world, these sealed drums were’nt all they were cracked up to be. That once a coin, bra wire, hanky or sock got caught in there they couldn’t be taken apart. That the user paid a heavy price for being so thoughtless in allowing this to happen and only a complete new drum would remedy the situation. They took the blame whilst the manufacturer stood resolute in denying any responsibility. Ha! ha! silly consumer!
To this day no single manufacturer has stood up to explain why they have chosen to take this route. That welded drum ‘technology’ has increased the landfill by some greater degree. So much so that governments should now intervene and question this reckless environmental thoughtlessness.
Re: List of washers with sealed/welded tubs
It would be an offence for the drum to go to landfill, it is wee waste. We carry waste liscence, our premises are registered for the storage of wee, and it gets collected and recycled, all of us should be doing this.
The idea of sealed drums was probably thought of by a finance man who cant see beyond the cost of manufacture, if its cheeper to make sealed drums why the high cost to buy? That is what needs addressing.
However i would ask you martin to produce the data they clearly shows that sealed drums are worse than splittable types, the danger is telling customers to steer clear of sealed drums with no actual evidence they fail quicker than splittable.
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http://www.kitchenkitsw.comRe: List of washers with sealed/welded tubs
It’s all about the build.
If it’s made to last then, sealed drum or not, it should last for the defined MTTF (Mean Time Till Failure). The fact that you can split the tank to remove stuff stuck in, change the bearings or whatever is really secondary in large part.
The fact is however that the debate is somewhat more complex.
You have manufacturers that are forced to drive down costs by both retailers and retail customers that seem to think, for some stupid reason, that you can get a Rolls Royce for Mini money which plainly isn’t possible, yet they all believe it can be done anyway.
You have a public which, while more educated and able these days to access much, much more information than they ever could, seem to spend more time arguing about a product that quite likely was never right for their needs being “not fit for purpose” when it all goes south than researching buying the right thing in the first place. Often, only reading selectively when buying.
Then you have marketing gurus that sell the tat to a largely unsuspecting public that believe the marketing nonsense and get duped in some measure by a dizzying array of buzzwords that are, in essence, crap.
All the while you have retailer, broadly speaking larger chain brands that people “trust” regardless of what they say, only selling product that they can achieve what they refer to as their “margin expectation” on. In other words, if there’s not enough margin in it, they don’t (or won’t, more accurately) sell it.
Right at the end of all this you have us.
The poor saps that have to explain this to people that are often experiencing the failure of a machine for any one or several of the reasons very loosely outlined above.
Like why it failed so soon, why it costs so much to repair, why it won’t work where it’s installed, why the guarantee won’t cover it, why the rights you think that you read about somewhere on the internet aren’t actually a true reflection and so on.
But the fact remains, if people took the time to read and learn about these things, even a little, they probably wouldn’t buy half the stuff that’s out there. And, our lives would be a whole lot easier.
K.
Re: List of washers with sealed/welded tubs
Well, “the position they hold” is, like I said, in that they were one of the institutions who has helped force down retail prices. They may not be responsible for the specific idea of sealed drums, but when retail prices are squeezed, this has to be accounted for elsewhere. In this instance it’s in making a machine which is cheaper to make, harder to repair, and liable to breakdown more quickly.
I don’t think we can rely on government intervention on this one anytime soon either. It was the (then) government who in 1998 abolished minimum price ‘fixing’ (as they called it) of electrical goods, and from there all retailers had to work out their own prices and margins, instead of being dictated the same by manufactures.
We in the retail trade never wanted this, and as we predicted Comet & Currys under cut everyone and several large electrical chains began closing retail stores. Within 2 years Tempo had gone altogether and Powerhouse was closing stores left, right & centre.
It’s also the government who has allowed online retail to become what it is. Personally, I think if governments were really all that bothered, then they’d never had allowed the changes we’ve seen in the last 15 years to have taken place.
Re: List of washers with sealed/welded tubs
And still the fact is that there is no evidence that sealed drums are responsible for more machines not being repaired.
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http://www.kitchenkitsw.comRe: List of washers with sealed/welded tubs
You can guarantee whenever an issue like this comes up Ken always blames the consumer, that they want a Rolls Royce for the cost of a Mini type indoctrination. When really all they want is a washing machine, a simple device for washing clothes in. That’s all, just a flipping’ washing machine.
It amazes me that here in the 21st century with all the combined knowledge and mind blowing technology at our disposal we can’t make a decent one on a budget. Meanwhile in the motor industry the very cheap Mini is just as reliable, if not more so than a Rolls Royce.
Who’s to blame for this?……the consumer apparently!
Re: List of washers with sealed/welded tubs
Consumer is to blame yes, but indirectly. The media has done so very much to educate people into to thinking that we were being ripped off, and that the the culture of haggling should be brought to the UK. So now every man and his dog is thinking they are getting a raw deal. There is no accounting for the attitude of consumers.
With every year that passes, knowledge such as what is being shared in this thread becomes less and less well known.
My own prediction is that in the near future a lot of retail prices of appliances will rise, but the quality will continue to fall.
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