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OK, weve been getting more and more bearing repair enquiries lately, and beng a total sapp for helpless customers, who desperately want to repair rather than replace, I have taken some jobs on, but some that I have priced up have been ridiculous (Zanussi/AEG with G22 tubs for example).
So i know a couple of you guys use simply-bearings or bearing-king to source, rather than use oem soured stock. My problem is simply technical experience.
I presume 6205zz is like an iso-standard for the dimensions & type (i.e. 25X52X15 stainless steel shielded bearing). Ive been told for washing machines, a rubber shield is more longlived, which im presuming is a 6502rs2 ? in which case whats the difference between rs2 and 2z ?
other than that im in the dark.
A: other than using a vernier, how do you work out what seal you need when the original is mullered, wherefore you cant read the moulded specs.
B: is a rubber shield actually better than a s/s one?
C: if b is correct, is it a waste of money to fit a rubber shield bearing for the rear support ?
other than that im pretty well versed on the practical aspects of replacing bearings…
Oh yeah, which brands are the best? Connect and qualtex list “poland” “china” “slovakia” “KBC” “hch” “skf”, Ive heard of FAG, but is that significantly better to order than any other?
PS: im limiting myself to only replacing awz whirlpools, zanussi/lux/aeg, statesman/amica/vestel, bosch/siemens and LG bearings. is there any preferred options for certain brands ?
Re: the best bearings…
I personally don’t believe the quality of the bearings or the water seal has any relevance. It’s the state of the drum shaft and the type of machine that dictates the longevity or effectiveness of a repair. Replace both the bearing kit AND the shaft every time is the only complete solution toward guaranteeing a reasonable time period before the whole thing goes tits up once more irrespective of what make of bearings and seals you fit!
Re: the best bearings…
with Martin on this one and don’t believe any washing machine bearings are over stressed in any way so go for the cheapest, even bearings with no shield at all are fine as its the seal that counts and any water getting in there will wash the grease out regardless, whats more think you are coming at this from the wrong angle, saving a £1 or so on a bearing will not make the job more profitable considering the time, and possible complications, it takes to complete these jobs and how many decent jobs you are missing out on while doing so. Perhaps that is the reason you are picking up so many bearing jobs.
Re: the best bearings…
Duly noted guys, but not really missing out on decent jobs at the moment, thanks to a newbie handy man in the area doing what we would deem our bread and butter jobs – dw filters, cooker elements etc. What with customers trying repairs themselves moreso too now, we have had to drop our labour rates quite a bit for the simplest problems. But more technical repairs such as bearings and pcbs have become more commonly requested, not because we have actively been offering it, but because all the competition in our area instantly decline it and hope they can flog them a new machine instead. On the flipside, never known a week when only half way through, 4 “decent” repair enquiries are declined, in favour of replacing it with the cheapest offering from currys or argos! I suppose its the run up to christmas which is why we are being asked for “cheapest this and cheapest that”.
One call was for our cheapest dryer, we have white knights at £159 picked up (£28 profit if she paid with a c/c – hardly a rip off right?), but that was too much so i offered her a repair on the creda tvr2 she had – stat job – quoted at £25 for stats and £40 labour and next day callout, and she thought it was too expensive, prefering to buy a £140 beko instead because we couldnt match that price! Its not like I can quote any cheaper otherwise its just not worth doing the job, or storing the machine as stock. I charge 2x callouts for bearings labour, but reduce to 1.5 if it goes easily. Whilst mr handy man is around undercutting me, I might as well stay busy and do 4x tub jobs over 2 days for people who genuinely cant afford new machines, and make circa £160-190 profit after vat on just the labour per day, and still pick up the odd new sale on the decent kit.
Mark, Far from trying to save a quid or so on bearings, i think you misinterpretted me – id rather spend a few quid on better seals and brands of bearing if it was more likely to guarantee a long life of repair, but that doesnt seem the case nowadays. The reason for going direct is £30 and upwards just for a bearing from zanussi or whirlpool is extortionate, hence asking about which ones to use on simply-bearings.
Re: the best bearings…
gandh1 wrote:id rather spend a few quid on better seals and brands of bearing if it was more likely to guarantee a long life of repair, but that doesnt seem the case now
It doesn’t nor ever did. Those that go to any expense by having the bearings replaced anyway cannot afford to even go to Argos and buy a cheapie Bush or Beko. So their budget is set at rock bottom. Besides bearings are cheap yet manufactured to a high spec. SKF cheap as chips but quality nonetheless.
My advice for what it is worth, don’t do bearing jobs at all! Not worth it, too much aggro involved. Think about switching to specialising in high quality built in appliances, good money, better class of customer………Oh yes! 😉
Re: the best bearings…
Martin wrote:Those that go to any expense by having the bearings replaced anyway cannot afford to even go to Argos and buy a cheapie Bush or Beko. So their budget is set at rock bottom.
Never actually thought of it that way, I’ve always come from the perspective of its a 300-500 quid machine which wont get that spec/quality/lifespan from a £180 beko or bush…
Martin wrote:My advice for what it is worth, don’t do bearing jobs at all! Not worth it, too much aggro involved. Think about switching to specialising in high quality built in appliances, good money, better class of customer………Oh yes! 😉
Ah but we do, although most of our bsh int dw repairs are either blockages/suppressors/recalls – small charges, or impellor & seal jobs – big charges, when they actually go ahead with the repair. Other than that theres only mieles which we do do, but their customer base around here will often use miele themselves. And not so sure about the better class of customer, they tend to be the most impatient. Don’t have a bad word to say about the really needy who I have done bearings for, they are often at the least, very grateful.
Re: the best bearings…
Not keen on bearing jobs myself anymore, like Martin said too much hassle for the reward you get. Don’t know what it’s like in the rest of the country but down here anything over about £90 and they run a mile, unless it’s a top range appliance
Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk HDRe: the best bearings…
I has the unfortunate job to replace the bearings on Hotpoint washer dryer, the repair is much cheaper than buying new washer dryer. The original bearings was rusted onto the inner shaft which meant it was not possible to replace other than buying new rear half tub.
This had increased the costs of repair by only am extra £40 and it still worked out much cheaper than buying new washer dryer.
I’m grateful for Qualtex who made rear half tub affordable to repair unlike Connect.
Re: the best bearings…
I usually give hotpoint a quick call for their tanks. At the moment if you order more than once every 3 months then you are entitled to a 25{e5d1b7155a01ef1f3b9c9968eaba33524ee81600d00d4be2b4d93ac2e58cec2d} list price discount, however, the other day I managed to haggle the price of a wf760 rear half tub from 90-odd something down to 36+vat+ next day delivery. They must have a lot of wf760 spares left to shift that means they wanted this machine to be kept going 😉
Re: the best bearings…
I love doing bearing jobs, can’t beat a good old session with the lump hammer for easing the stress.
Up here int’ North we love a ‘good fettle’. 😀
Still do one or two every week. Almost exclusively Hotpoint WM’s and WMA’s, ISE 2’s and 5’s.
Re: the best bearings…
ise 2s? If it was the vestell ise’s, I thought their weakspot were spider faILUREs not bearings 😛
PS I do love getting my massive hammer out and having a good bang…
(deliberately for @EFS to “ooh matron”)
Re: the best bearings…
I have just replaced the bearings on Hotpoint WMA58, 30mm shaft. A challenge as I was used to 35mm shaft. The parts for 30mm shaft seems to be harder to source, it need further digging to get them. Qualtex seems to be the only one that supplies 30mm spider, bearings and seal kit. It is somewhat a little dearer than the 35mm kits but a lot cheaper than replacing the rear half tank.
I am keen to know more about this Hotpoint offer of 25{e5d1b7155a01ef1f3b9c9968eaba33524ee81600d00d4be2b4d93ac2e58cec2d} discount if you order from them. Does this applies just to tanks or any parts? How does one get in touch with Hotpoint direct?
Re: the best bearings…
twicknix wrote:I am keen to know more about this Hotpoint offer of 25{e5d1b7155a01ef1f3b9c9968eaba33524ee81600d00d4be2b4d93ac2e58cec2d} discount if you order from them. Does this applies just to tanks or any parts? How does one get in touch with Hotpoint direct?
http://www.hotpointservice.co.uk
just phone them up, haggle the price by telling them your trade and that a fellow engineer told you they got 25{e5d1b7155a01ef1f3b9c9968eaba33524ee81600d00d4be2b4d93ac2e58cec2d} disc, for a first order ull prob only get 15{e5d1b7155a01ef1f3b9c9968eaba33524ee81600d00d4be2b4d93ac2e58cec2d} discount max, but might be able to swing next day del for free if your cheeky enough. order again within 3mths and youll get 25{e5d1b7155a01ef1f3b9c9968eaba33524ee81600d00d4be2b4d93ac2e58cec2d} off, if it still continuing – itll all be explained on your invoice receipt anyway 🙂
PS it helps knowing what the approx “cost price” to hotpoint of what the parts are in the first place 😛
Re: the best bearings…
gandh1 wrote:
PS it helps knowing what the approx “cost price” to hotpoint of what the parts are in the first place 😛
If you really knew the answer to that you would be truly gobsmacked.
I saw an internal, actual cost price list a few years back, the drum lifters for instance came in at around 39p. :eeek:
In fact I still have the document, it was from 2009.
WMA rear drum kit inc heater, part number 1605082, list price £77.38, actual cost £19.53.
Another example, part number 1605367/C00140792, Display Card, list price £86.95, actual cost to Merloni, £5.08. :rolls:
Re: the best bearings…
iadom wrote:
gandh1 wrote:
PS it helps knowing what the approx “cost price” to hotpoint of what the parts are in the first place 😛
If you really knew the answer to that you would be truly gobsmacked.
😉 Tell me about it, my adv engineering btec from back in the day has proved pretty useful in getting expensive parts direct from manufacturers down in price. We covered plastics production and electronic engineering to so ive got a fair idea how much a board would actually cost to produce. People think farnell are cheap but a 20p resistor is marked up by about 70{e5d1b7155a01ef1f3b9c9968eaba33524ee81600d00d4be2b4d93ac2e58cec2d} 😀
lets faces it, if you can get a pattern lifter from connect for £1.50ish then i dont expect it to be costing more than 50p to produce. in fact they probably use about 7p of plastic, but the retail price has to take into account how much the cost of producing the mouldings and dies are. Just like with the price of pcbs, where once designed, the production cost should never exceed a tenner, but then the retail price is directly affected by the cost of the R&D to design it in the first place.
The trick to getting the best price from hp is to facotr in transportation and warehousing costs so if a cost list from hp for a rear half is 20 quid, allow a tenner to cover warehousing and a fiver to covers transport and say:
“hoooooow much????… connect/qtx/mp are selling it for *insert cheapest supplier price* quid, but I know they cost *guestimate £35* to produce and warehouse, I know you guys gotta make a bit of cash on it so can you do it for say £45 inc vat? theyll go no way, and offer to match your suppiers price but will add del on to it. heres where you need to go “but its gotta be worth my while ordering from you, if its not gonna be cheaper, i might as well order it from *insert supplier*… can you do it 25{e5d1b7155a01ef1f3b9c9968eaba33524ee81600d00d4be2b4d93ac2e58cec2d} cheaper than *insert supplier*. If they go yes, ask them if thats with std delivery or next day. if they say std 5 day del, say oh, i cna get it next day with *insert supplier* do it next day for that price and ill order it now…
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