Purchase advice?

[karlmb]

Hello,
New to this fantastic forum I start with some questions about preferred make and model for a washer and a dryer:
Interested in mid-to high segment machines good for 1600 rpm and electronic controlled condensations dryer I found the following:

Washer:
Siemens WXLP1640, Bosch WFX3240 (same machine?) Siemens WXL 1643 (why is this a little cheaper than WXLP1640?) and Blomberg WAF 1360

Dryer:
Siemens WT44E100, WTXL2400 and Blomberg TKF1230

I lived in the skyes and beleived that all these where manufactured in Germany, being quality products. Now I have learned (on this site partly) that almost all production is moved nowadays to low wages countries..

Does anyone have info on where these machines are being produced (planning to import from German retailers)?
And most important: Which would be the best choises?
(is Blomberg not what it was before, being owned by Turkish badge engineers..?)

Thanks in advance!/
karlmb, living in high-VAT Sweden 😉

[Penguin45]

Re: Purchase advice?

Get a few facts straight here. There is a myth about spin speed. Once you get to 1200 rpm, there is no advantage at all in going faster. All that happens is that you are stressing the machines major components (bearings, motor, electronics, suspension) for absolutely minimal gain. So, this significantly increases the range of appliances available to your budget.

I would suggest that in the “better” product range you check out Bosch (as you have observed), your own Asko product (it hasn’t all gone to Italy yet) and the class of the field – Miele. Expensive, but Mercedes Benz quality and you can leave it for your children to inherit.

Dryers are a bit of a conundrum – they are perceived as low value products in the UK, so many people buy cheap and dispose of regularly if the repair bill is a bit expensive. Again Bosch is a sensible mid-range choice – maybe spend the money you save on the fantastic spin washer for an upmarket dryer? Miele again is a good choice. The Volvo of the laundry world perhaps!

Hope that helps,
Regards,
Penguin45.

[karlmb]

Re: Purchase advice?

ABout spinning: I can agree to your comment about stress on bearings and so on, but there is a lot of energy saving to be made if you are to dry all clothes in an dryer. If not I agree but electricty will not get cheaper I’m afraid.

Thanks for your paralells to cars! Have been working at Volvo but always (almost) been driving Mercedes I know what you are talking about 8)
ASKO-Cylinda would defintely be my number one of not the prices had gone up to Miele levels!
Miele is the only one I still rely on the badge, but for how long?
Mercedes have started to produce a lot of crap after 1994 so you have to study everything nowadays 😥

So, I’m probably stuck at BSH for budget reasons. What about Blomberg, shall I forget them?
And shouldn’t I try to find a German made BSH?

[kwatt]

Re: Purchase advice?

Try reading this article

Hope that helps explain it.

K.

[Penguin45]

Re: Purchase advice?

Hi,
The spin thing is important – you’re just not getting anything extra – the clothes are no drier at 1600 than 1200. Honest.

In the UK, we are quite aware that BSH products come from Spain or Germany. The Spanish product is badged “Made in EU”. The German product has the standard “Made in EU” label, but will have extra stickers stuck on it saying “Made in Germany”. This, apparently, is advertising in order to avoid the EU manufacturing regulations 🙄 . Well, you figure it out.

When you get down to it, you get what you are prepared to pay for, and we do appreciate that you pay rather more in Scandinavia – in fact we have one legendary poster from Finland who paid the equivalent of £550 for a Candy washer which sells for under £300 over here. I and the rest of the moderators still have nightmares about it 😀 .

Blomberg in the UK is a brand name used by Comet (big national retailer). The machines are made in Germany by Brandt, the French manufacturer. They are a good quality appliance, however spares in the UK are a nightmare – Comet are a leading member of the Not Very Good Club of Great Britain with regards to spares (and pricing) and Brandt’s UK operation is no better.

Miele is still a family business that sticks by its own values – quality.

Can’t really tell you much more, hope that’s of some use.

Regards,
Penguin45.

PS – My own car is is a SAAB 99GL .

[karlmb]

Re: Purchase advice?

About Blomberg, I don’t see any reason to favour Blomberg in front of BSH if I understand you correct? They may be good but can end up expensive.
BSH are as good and can still be made in Germany, have to ask the retailer about the specific machines then.

But about spinning rpm..;
Miele for instance claims on their homepage that for the Novotronic T 273 C the:
Verbrauchswerte

Bei 800 U/min (Energielabel):
Stromverbrauch: 3,40 kWh
Bei 1400 U/min:
Stromverbrauch: 2,55 kWh

This sounds to mee locical and when I look at Blombergs stated “Entwässerungsgrad” at: http://blomberg.mcs-world.de/_upload/fi … {e5d1b7155a01ef1f3b9c9968eaba33524ee81600d00d4be2b4d93ac2e58cec2d}20WAF.pdf

– I can from Blomberg read that going from 1200 rpm to 1600 rpm will get me a reduction of moist from 55 to 45{e5d1b7155a01ef1f3b9c9968eaba33524ee81600d00d4be2b4d93ac2e58cec2d}. This is a reduction of 8.5{e5d1b7155a01ef1f3b9c9968eaba33524ee81600d00d4be2b4d93ac2e58cec2d} which not have to dried out by the drier.

Both of the specifications above I rely on, giving me headache when you are claming here that it is no idea to spin higher than 1200rpm.
Why exactly 1200 rpm?

According to an investigation here in Sweden as much as 1/3 of all electricity in anormal family of 4 (normally total use around 20000 KWh for a small house including electric heating) = 6700 KWh are used every year on cleaning and drying the clothes.

A simple calulation by myself gives that if I use the dryer 4 times a week all year round I would use up around 3.0 kWh (std value for 5 kg cotton clothes coming from a 1200 spin?) times 4 times 52= 624 Kwh per year.
I this could be reduced in the same way as going from 3.40 to 2.55 = 25{e5d1b7155a01ef1f3b9c9968eaba33524ee81600d00d4be2b4d93ac2e58cec2d} the total saving would be 620 kWh -25{e5d1b7155a01ef1f3b9c9968eaba33524ee81600d00d4be2b4d93ac2e58cec2d} giving a saving of 155 Kwh every year.
In Sweden we have relatively cheap electricity but it’s still around 10 cents per kWh, giving a total saving every year of around 16 Eu.

My conlusion of all this is that if I choose to spend an 150 Eu extra for a 1600 rpm spin instead of a 1200 rpm spin, I will save that in over 9 years with todays electricity prices.

Taxed money, and who knows where the electricity price will end up?

One could argue ofcourse that the most cost effective way is to buy a 1400 rpm machine since those are about 50 or even 100 Euros cheaper…
It would save you half the electricity but the extra cost (compared to a 1200 rpm alternative) will be paid back after only maybe 3 years instead.
Hmmm..
🙄

[kwatt]

Re: Purchase advice?

Blomberg are actuallynow owned by a company called Arcelik (yes, I know) who are a Turkish manufacturer. They bought the Blomberg washer factory when Brandt got themselves in trouble a few years ago.

Karl, quite honestly the savings are too insignificant to be of any real use in determining what machine to buy IMO. In fact, if you consider how long you’ve taken to work that lot out and then the minimal savings to be had it really wasn’t worth the effort. And, you’re just assuming that the machine will last for more than nine years and not require any maintenance within the period.

You also have to deal with increased ironing due to the higher spin, so you may well end up back in the red with your cost equations even without factoring in the time wasted ironing.

Also please bear in mind that, like cars, whitegoods manufacturers supplied figures are very often a tad optomistic at best. 😉

K.

[Martin]

Re: Purchase advice?

Penguin45 wrote:The spin thing is important – you’re just not getting anything extra – the clothes are no drier at 1600 than 1200. Honest.

Oh yes they are, moisture content is significantly improved the faster capability your machine can go (a current model by Gorenje now has even broken the 2000rpm barrier Model WA65205 😉 )

kwatt wrote:You also have to deal with increased ironing due to the higher spin, so you may well end up back in the red with your cost equations even without factoring in the time wasted ironing

Ah well that shouldn’t happen if the user reads the User Instruction Booklet :rtm: and selects the correct programme options to overcome this problem (i.e Rinse Hold, Small Load, Economy Temperature or Gentle Spin buttons) 😉

[Tolleydog]

In the UK at least, Miele are currently offering until the end of November a free parts and labour guarantee of either 5 or 10 years (depending on the model).

Is this worth factoring in to your purchasing equation?

[Martin]

Tolleydog wrote:free parts and labour guarantee of either 5 or 10 years (depending on the model)

Nothing in life is FREE, you are paying a much higher price for it after all. But Miele are a good product anyway, so if you can afford the outlay…. :tup:

Tolleydog wrote:Is this worth factoring in to your purchasing equation?

Factoring and purchasing equations? Oh! you got me there 🙄 ‘ang on! I’ve got a Scientific pocket calculator and a thesaurus here somewhere…………? 😕

[Tolleydog]

My logic is that if you can afford the extra money now, you have in effect bought a working washing machine for 10 years for a fixed outlay.

Or is this being too simplistic?

[Martin]

Tolleydog wrote:Or is this being too simplistic?

Not at all, your rational is spot on and well worth consideration. 😀

But if I may point out some of the “small print” that comes with such a purchase with such a long extended warranty BEFORE one parts with ones money. 🙁

The guarantee does NOT cover parts that are considered BY THE MANUFACTURER as being in the often ill defined category of “fair wear & tear”. 😕

It is difficult to assertain a specific definition in this regard but very often includes such internal components as belts, brushes, gaskets and items regarded as likely being subjected to “external forces” such as hard water limescale, items left in pockets, missue of detergent, overloading and fluctuating electricity supplies etc etc. All of which will be fully chargeable to you the owner and those charges may be very costly indeed?

Just something else to bear in mind (factoring and stuff) 🙄

[karlmb]

Re: Purchase advice?

kwatt wrote:Blomberg are actuallynow owned by a company called Arcelik (yes, I know) who are a Turkish manufacturer. They bought the Blomberg washer factory when Brandt got themselves in trouble a few years ago.

Karl, quite honestly the savings are too insignificant to be of any real use in determining what machine to buy IMO. In fact, if you consider how long you’ve taken to work that lot out and then the minimal savings to be had it really wasn’t worth the effort. And, you’re just assuming that the machine will last for more than nine years and not require any maintenance within the period.

You also have to deal with increased ironing due to the higher spin, so you may well end up back in the red with your cost equations even without factoring in the time wasted ironing.

Also please bear in mind that, like cars, whitegoods manufacturers supplied figures are very often a tad optomistic at best. 😉

K.

Well, maybe you are right, at 1200 rpm we reach the optimim speed with regards to cost and energy conumption.
But here in Sweden everybody is talking about to buy a real spinner in order to save energy.
And I guess that a few years ago, it was a general conclusion that 1000 rpm would be the maximum ever needed with respect to cost and energy saving…
Now we have a quite common standard of 1200 rpm.:roll:
Why exactly 1200 rpm and not more?

As I see it now when I have studied the market I see the spinning rpm as a sales booster (for sure!) and the manuf. always have the highest speeds on the luxury models. And this gives an unwanted extra cost if you are just after to save energy.
In order to come away from that you should buy the sligthly slower machines (1400 rpm) since they have almost the same price as the 1200.
With higher speeds, the price will go up exponentially and it is not worth it.
So my first asumption to hunt for 1600 rpm mashines where wrong, 1400 would be more worth for my money today.

Comparison: the prices for computer and or processors, you shouldn’t buythe fastests but the ones where the price just start to rise…

[Tolleydog]

Re: Purchase advice?

Thank you for the warning regarding the use of a “fair wear and tear” argument by a manufacturer to get out of honouring a warranty. However, it wasn’t obvious from the conditions of cover that Miele intended using this as an excuse.

http://www.miele.co.uk/newprom/pdfnew/10yr070105.pdf

Maybe I’m too gullible in this respect. I had viewed this simply as a promotional device by Miele to advertise the reliability and longevity of their product, something sadly not offered by many of their competitors. I had also assumed that as the guarantee was underwritten by an insurance company that the insurers had done their homework in assessing the reliability of such products and hence the risk of having to pay out for repairs.

I can’t see that any manufacturer or insurance company would be happy to underwrite breakdown cover in the event of misuse or inappropriate use of a product. I’m sure you’ve got plenty of stories on that subject….. 😀

[Martin]

Re: Purchase advice?

Tolleydog wrote:However, it wasn’t obvious from the conditions of cover that Miele intended using this as an excuse.

Indeed not again, not even mentioned is it :tup:

However exemption clauses from 1- f. onwards through 2, 3 and 4 are to what I was referring to 😉

Its a standard policy practice and full of holes, so do beware. Oh and you may have to have it serviced by them regularly at an additional charge (not sure on that but something to further check on as I cannot see a machine working for 10 years without at least some expensive maintenance clause adding to prop up such a warranty??)

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