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Re: Hotpoint 9524 bearing gone. Time for a new machine?
I did a quick search but there’s no obvoius place to see how the energy rating is worked out exactly on an appliance, but I am looking into this for the future.
Purely by chance I was involved in a discussion not so long ago about spin efficiency and energy labelling as well as stability issues in the UK market, big problem you see on wooden floors. Anyway, I was told that appliances undergo what is known as “the rope test”, they get a big lump of very heavy rope (the kind they tie up boats with) and the load is weighed, shoved in a machine and it spun. Of course being nicely rounded and pliable this distributes nice and evenly around the drum, so virtually no instability. They are also tested on stable concrete floors, not what we have in the UK and so the dampneing is not optimised for our type of flooring in Northern Europe which would, of course, cost more. That said the German machines are normally pretty good with the instability issues, pity we can’t say the same about others.
I have some issues with the EU Energy Labels and have had since their inception as, whilst they may well give an indication of power useage, they do not inform the user at all of how the appliance or device actually performs in the real world. This is often missed by consumers and the point I’m making is that whilst the EU label will indicate power it does not mean that the appliance is any better or worse in performance terms that the one sat next to it with a different rating.
To take it a bit further, on a washer it is entirely possible that one will wash in 1.5 hours and produce decent results with a “C” class rating whilst one with an “A” class rating could take 2 hours and not do as good a job. We have seen this to be the case in the field.
So I would agree that the EU labels are a fair indicator in the manner in which they were designed, but not in the manner with which customers often read them as being and they are certainly not the only thing you look at when you purchase an appliance in my opinion.
They are however a legal requirement and a nifty sales tool. 😉
K.
Mail Dave on spares@ukwhitegoods.co.uk as they are available.
K.
Re: Gas tumble dryer faulty
Hi Henry,
http://www.crosslee.co.uk/ made them and still do.
There are no UKW repairers I know of (barring Service Force agents) that I know of that can repair a gas tumble dryer, very limited choice I’m afraid and it likely won’t be too cheap to repair either I’m afraid. 🙁
As P says, this is NOT in any way a DIY job, you must get SF in to repair it and they will, most likely, not sell you a spare if you do not have a CORGI ID to hand if the rules are still the same as they were in my day.
K.
Probably a PCB/switch assy failure, fairly common and, from memory, a replacement is >£20.
If you mail Dave on spares@ukwhitegoods.co.uk he’ll be able to give you an exact price tomorrow.
K.
Guys,
Someone refresh my memory please is that the Whirlpool one? If so Dentedporche is the resident expert on them. 😉
K.
Re: Marriage?
Brandt or, as they used to be known, Ocean, were always big OEM suppliers in the UK whilst having no presence with their own brand. When the Ocean brand launched through an importer that I forget the name of but remember the scandal (Tableside rings a bell), they were were flogging bucket loads of product through Comet under the Proline and Blomberg brand names. Of course Blomberg is a pukka manufacturer (or was) but Comet had the exclusive on the name so far as I know in the UK.
At that point they were the fifth largest whites producer in Europe and nobody in the UK knew who they were. Also at that time I don’t think that they owned or sold the De Dietrich brand in the UK, I think that came with the Thompson/Veddette buy out era.
Brandt has a pretty chequered past all things considered.
They have always, historically, been strong on OEM refrigeration especially in frost free and more recently in dishwashing and cooking. They never really got anywhere on laundry so far as I can tell.
Fagor, well it’s just Fagor really isn’t it? 😉
K.
Re: Capel dishwashers
My apologies Greaseater, I though PABL were buying in Haeir as well now, possibly confused with all the Bernstein shennanagins of late and the swap from Fagor to Brandt. It is a bit confusing though.
The failure rates on Haeir product is well documented and we all seem to, almost universally, despise the things. They take longer to repair and are, frankly, crap. Even accessing them is sometimes an art in itself. And, yet again, the service information is total rubbish, the diagrams abysmal and of vitually no use. Typical Far East though, great at building to a cost but extremely lacking with supporting the product in after sales.
There is a British Gas thread in here with more information on the failure rates and why BG dumped them.
K.
Re: Marriage?
Indeed and I think it’s still to be green-lighted by the EC MMC as well from what I can gather, although I should think that Fagor would have had that pretty much in the bag before going this far.
Fagor appear to have been pretty adept at upsetting people that past year or so, I’ll say no more. 😉
Brandt is larger but I suspect more so down to the De Dietrich brand than Brandt and anyway, most of the product is branded anyway that we see outside De Dietrich. I have to say I’m with Kevin on this one as I have already proved to D&G that we lose money doing service for Brandt. Were it not for the relationship I have with DAG they’d have been out the door months ago. The product support is shockingly abysmal apart from the fact that, even as a long standing agent of more than twelve years, under the latest regime I have been treated almost as an enemy never mind a mushroom.
Like I said, you gets what you pays for… 😉
K.
Either Dave or Woz should be able to point you in the right direction.
If they are still available Dave should be able to get them for you if you mail him on spares@ukwhitegoods.co.uk he’ll check it out tomorrow and get back to you.
K.
Yeah Greaseater I reported it back about a week or so ago, if you look in this month’s news articles there’s two there about it if memory serves. There is a thread on here about it as well somewhere.
The biggest concern for us is how the service will play out whith D&G currently handling Brandt and AIS currently handling Fagor.
of course from an importer’s point of view things are slightly different, especially if you sell branded goods and have fallen out at some stage with one or the other. Also just where the service will end up is a bit iffy as Brandt don’t exactly get praised for their backup from the agents.
Guess we’ll just have to wait and see how it pans out in the end.
K.
Re: Homark
Is this them?
http://www.globalmarket.com/midea_ce/HOME_EN_.gmwl
Or…
With more information from…
http://www.tdctrade.com/report/mkt/mkt_010903.htm
Couldn’t be bothered to research any further, it is Sunday after all. 😉
K.
Re: Homark
Thanks Greaseater, the response is appreciated and I will take it up with AIS directly.
Yes you are correct in that the rates paid directly are, as a general rule, higher than those paid through a managing agency or work provider as we refer to them as. Quite often this is a considerable difference and one that we would mostly all take account of when it comes down to the level of service provided to the customer. It’s simple economics, the customer that pays more gets more and better attention as it is in our own best interests to nurture the contracts that pay better and to promote those brands.
So, when we get a a call for Viking paying £70 just to arrive at the door we’re falling over ourselves to get there PDQ. Where it’s a GBDAR call paying ~£33 we couldn’t give a stuff basically, it’s the old mantra of “you gets what you pays for” that applies I’m afraid.
Good news on the Haeir products although I am informed that the quality has risen on the new ones coming through although I have not seen any as yet in the field. we all know the Brandt ones but I am unfamiliar with Midea, or at least the name.
K.
