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Re: Zanussi ZWF1431W bearing replacement?
Phidom wrote:
Now, I just need to find a scrapped machine with a split tub and a dead motor or controller …. 😉
I think you are knocking on an open door with most of what you say but this seems like a sound plan.You are probably right but we can have our moan eh. 😉
Ok, assuming this machine functions similarly to many washing machines in this price range (which I believe is nearer 400 than 200 pounds retail?), even if I was to spend £125 on new tub halves and bits then if it lasts another year it seems it might be about right (and based on the notion that everything made these days can be cr@p could be no worse a risk than buying completely new)?
A free tub would be even better of course .. (or a re-joined sealed one) 😉
All the best ..
T i m
Re: Zanussi ZWF1431W bearing replacement?
Some of these horror stories though really are pathetic. It reminds me of the guy at work who bought a brand-new Renault Laguna a few years back, only to have to take it back to the dealer on over 20 occasions <snip
And why I’ve never bought a new car or motorbike. My current car is a 93 Rover 218SD that cost me £100 4 years ago. It’s done nearly 200,000 miles and whilst it only needs the odd bit here and there I’ll carry on enjoying 50 mpg. Before that was my ex Co 23 year old Sierra estate that cost £25 and f all in repairs / parts in the 10 years I owned it personally. The Sony Trinitron 18″ monitor style finally gave up at about 18 years (I had repaired it about 3 times over those years though, including one HT transformer).
I’d have been looking to get shot after the second failure quite honestly. Ironically the back-breaking straw (that turbo) I don’t think was the fault of the car — he always filled it up with crappy Tesco fuel and would sit in 5th gear at 30mph. Always fatal 👿
Ah, no that wouldn’t help. An Uncle used to drive his Reliant Robin like that and those little engines prefer a few revs.
All the best ..
T i m
Re: Zanussi ZWF1431W bearing replacement?
jjames wrote:What gets me is, how does a bearing fail in the first place?
From my experience often a lack of attention to detail (easily done in a mass production world). A tiny piece of dirt in a dropped bearing, that slightly nicked seal that then leaks water into the bearing behind it, the small burr on the end of the brass bush .. ?
I had an LG machine which, despite failing prematurely, managed an estimated 3000+ wash cycles before the motor gave out (since advised this is just a sensor that fails, but that the motor stator needs replacing as a result — another piece of built-in obsolescence unfortunately — interesting that that was my initial inexpert diagnosis!!!).
Not bad work history and good diagnosis 😉
Point being that this machine’s bearings lasted 3000 cycles without fault. Surely if they are encased within the drum, they should in theory last if anything longer?
Well I think what goes against them may be the temperature range they have to work under and the load they carry over a fairly short distance between bearings. Our tumble dryer for example has a single self-centering oillite bearing at the back because it sits on a large felt bearing at the front. Therefore the load is spread over a much larger distance (and it turns slower etc etc).
Even if the whole drum does need to come out, this should surely only happen once or twice in a machine’s lifetime? Since the gods of quality Miele only specify the entire machine to 5000 wash cycles, this bears out these back-of-a-fag-packet calculations.
Exactly, at 3000 washes that’s over 16 years for us! The AEG Lavamat 6100 lasted 10+ on the first bearings (5 years ago).
It is disgraceful that such a simple thing as a bearing should fail in a year. If car manufacturers can make a wheel bearing (a fundamentally similar device, and one that gets a heck of a sight more of a pounding than a mere appliance!) last 100,000 miles and only charge £40 for a replacement, there is something seriously lacking here. It can’t just be the cost of the bearing — this is either designer incompetence or deliberate manipulation of the specs to make a part fail prematurely. The parts are just not that expensive to make.
Spot on. What is even more disgusting is in the case of this ZWF1431W I highly suspect the tub *could* have been joined using the bolt and seal process! (something I’ll will be able to say more accuratly when I cut it in half!).
All the best ..
T i m
Re: Zanussi ZWF1431W bearing replacement?
kwatt wrote:Ah, the joys of sealed tubs, this will lead to an inevitable rant. :rolls:
Tim, it’s not repairable unless you happen to have access to plastic welding gear as one of the trade guys was looking at a few months back.
That’s lucky then. 😉
There’s no seal as far as I am aware, at all. The whole premise relies on the fact that the tank is sealed.
Understood.
Currently manufacturers using these include:
And those are the only ones I can recall off the top of my head late on a Saturday evening, there are others. Clicking the links there will show the HUGE range of brand names affected by this “brilliant idea”!
Ba$tard$ … !
As consumers demand low prices, or prices that don’t change as the decades roll by and manufacturers will seek to meet that expectation then will reduce production costs as they see fit. One such measure is sealed tanks. As consumers, people ask for low prices and get them, then complain about a throwaway product.
I suppose *they* do. Some of us expect a product to be able to achieve a certian lifespan and if it doesn’t expect a solution. Had this machine been bought by me from new, had it died inside (minimum) 3 years I would have been straight up the TS demanding some Merchantable Quality.
You can’t have your cake and eat it I’m afraid.
True, but if you bought some cake you’d expect it to still be edible by the time you got it home wouldn’t you? 😉
We despise sealed tanks, lots and with prejudice. We utterly abhor the whole notion as it makes our lives harder and we’re the saps left to explain to people that the machines are a write off at 18 months old. But heh, it was cheap!
So, like folk out there are telling us to move out bank accounts and utility suppliers around to get the best rates, someone needs to educate buyers to undo two screws and if they see a sealed tub to walk away? Or maybe they should be forced to carry a sign .. “The bearings in this machine are highly unreliable and can not be replaced” ?
It is really hard to explain to people that it’s their own fault that they have a pile o poo washing their clothes, they tend not to take it too well as they think that it’s a good brand.
.
As mentioned elsewhere on this site, one can easily draw the conclusion that the XYZ machine that is about to replace our 15 year old XYZ machine will also last 15 years, what with design / material improvements etc … ?
We laugh and cry in equal measure as a lot of people don’t deserve this, yet still expect something for nothing.
Or from what I’ve been reading, something for something at least? Bottom line. It *MUST* do what it says on the tin and for a reasonable time. If it’s unlikely to do so then it’s simply unfit and should be labled so. If they can’t make that happen for a price then they shouldn’t do it at all. They especially shouldn’t remove the option for repairing or cheaply replacing something that is known to be a weak point. Like supplying a car with the wheels welded on?
I keep saying to people, twenty years ago the cheapest you’d buy a washer was £250 for an 800 spin pile of rubbish. Now you can buy a 1200 or 1400 with all the bells and whistles for under £200, how do you really think they do that? Beat 20 years inflation and make it cheaper, it’s not hard to work it out.
Well, whilst you have a point, doesn’t the quantity of scale help with the production cost of things? How many people had washing machines 20 years ago compared with today. How many of the many manufacturers then were using generic parts (even further cost savings). How many were built by robots?
And, this sort of policy does extend to other kitchen appliances as well.
I’m sure you are right.
The flipside is, as you are learning, is that when they do fail it’s not really so cheap is it?
We don’t know yet do we. It could well be 20 quid for the bearings and seal and a couple more for some glue and bolts. 😉
It means you replace the appliance sooner and, well there’s a surprise, the people selling these things are in the business of selling white boxes. It’s hardly rocket science, the public are being taken for a ride and they haven’t even a clue it’s happening but, it’s okay so long as you can buy a new one for a couple of hundred quid eh?
For most maybe, but I’ve never been most. Like our ~15 year old tumble dryer. I could buy ‘A’ new TD for £100 but would rather spend the 36 quid I did repairing this one.
I’ll not rant about the stupidity of it any more and how, very often, the people that buy these machines are their own worst enemy.
You rant away my friend I’m not sure it’s fair to use the term stupidity on this. Ask anyone how long they would *expect* a new washing machine to last, no matter how cheap it was. I guess they would accomodate the new ‘nothing lasts as long as it did’ thought and say 3 maybe 5 years (of typical use). If it wasn’t expected to last that long then it shouldn’t be made, either that or it should be made very clear on the instructions that it might fail in 1 year etc?
Even people in the trade can’t repair these things satisfactorily under pukka workshop conditions with jigs and allsorts at their disposal as well as an intimate knowledge of the machines.
Really?
You have to ask yourself, do you really think that you will be able to do it
Hmm, I generally have a reasonable idea of my chance of success before I attempt these things so I’ll have to answer ‘probably’ 😉 I never think I’m not going to be able to do something until I try and fail. I had never built a complete car before I did so, yet I had done many of the individual components prior to that. I bought my first car when I was 15 with a seized engine and with no help from anyone other than the Haynes manual, stripped / rebuilt the engine and got it running again. Whilst at secondary school we were asked if we wanted to make some book ends or a bathroom cabinet in woodwork. I built a 6′ rowing dinghy.
and, is it worth the hassle trying to repair what started life as a hunk ‘o junk and, despite what you do, will still be a hunk ‘o junk when you’re done?
Ah, now that is the big question and about the only one that would have any damping factor to my goal, should I choose to go ahead. So, is it really a lemon then and if so what makes it so please? From what I can see (and I’m no expert of course) many of the components look the exact same as those found in much more expensive machines? Like the Seat made from VW panels .. do they really make them from cheaper metal if they happen to be going on a Seat not a VW? Or the BMW branded waterpump or the exact same item with the casting ground down where it would have said BMW but sold at 1/4 of the price ?
As we often find ourselves telling people, sure we can repair it… but we can’t make it any better.
Hmmm, if I was to convert this sealed tub machine to a splitable tub model I would think I’d made it ‘better’ 😉
HTH and apologies for the rant.
Yes it has and no need to apologise. I can see how this whole issue can touch a raw nerve (from all sides) but I think the idea of making something so vunerable (bearings) so un-repairable (sealed tub) is simply immoral. But hey, whilst perfectly good stuff is being disposed of because of the cost of the human element it gives us d-i-y reparers things to play with!
Now, I just need to find a scrapped machine with a split tub and a dead motor or controller …. 😉
All the best ..
T i m
Re: Zanussi ZWF1431W bearing replacement?
aqualectric wrote:The seal on the split Zanussi tubs sit in a channel around the tub. The front tub half has a raised edge that sits snugly in this channel compressing the seal. It is then bolted together. This makes a stable and tough joint, resistant to vibration.
Ah, thanks for that.
I cannot see a way you can cut the tub and reseal it satisfactorily. If you simply cut the tub in half, you will end up with 2 flat cut edges with no seal channel.
But then might I have two flatish faces that might be ripe for re-bonding, backed up with the many bolts Steve?
The motor is directly beneath this joint and so integrity of the seal is paramount.
If the tub leaks then I don’t suppose I’ll care too much what happens to the motor if it’s only cost me some glue and some bolts? 😉
Unfortunately, the bean counters have thought of this long before this machine was on the market – ie: at the design stage. Believe me, I used to champion Zanussi products and on the whole, they are not too bad compared with the competition.
All 5 of our whitegoods are (AEG)Zanussi and 3 of them still date from the good_ole_days when things were made ‘properly’. 🙁
The drum assembly is subjected to huge stresses during the spin cycle. 10lbs of clothes spinning slightly off balance at 1400 rpm is what the original design was built to cope with.
Shame they didn’t ‘design’ the bearings to cope with the same then? 🙁
This machine has been designed as is, and you, me, and even the most sympathetic manufacturers engineer could not and should not try to repair this tub – the risk of personal injury from water leaking on live electrical parts cannot be stressed enough.
Whilst I hear your warning and am generally in agreement the reason (and partly how I’ve lived this long whilst playing with electricity most my life) I’m not using the AEG is because an 18K ohm resistance between the stator and ground is sufficient to kill all the power to the house within milliseconds. If I simply cut the earth lead out of the plug the machine would be working fine .. but that *would* be dangerous.
A complete replacement tub is the only answer. That said; if you were to put a new tub in this machine, you still have the computer unit, the pump, the motor, the valves and heater that are still the originals. All you can do is cross your fingers that they don’t fail too quickly, or the machine could become a proverbial money – pit.
I fully understand Steve, however to me the gamble is between spending say £125 on some new tub halves, seal and bearings to potentially fix a 1 year old machine that could last for a few years, or spending £400 pounds on a machine that may well only last a year (or less than that and have to play the warranty game). 5+ years ago I put new bearings in the Lavamat and they are still fine.
Please do not attempt to repair this machine.
Well, I can’t promise I’m not going to strip this machine down (even if only to get to the duff bearing) and I’ll see what happens after that . If I re-join the tub (I am an engineer, have plastic welding gear and have built and re-built many a thing in my time, including cars, boats, houses and much electrical and electronic kit), I can’t see a washing machine being any more dangerous.
I can see those words on my gravestone though eh!
All the best ..
T i m
p.s. The last repair was the Zanussi tumble dryer. Front felt bearing, rear bearing and plate and drum spigot. £36 quid and six months ago now.
Re: Zanussi ZWF1431W bearing replacement?
Washman wrote:Hi
The motor pulley is not designed to be removed, it is a press fit. So to remove it you most likely damage the motor shaft, and it would need to be refitted to the correct position and be very tight.
Ah, thanks for that. On a picture of a similar motor I saw a screw down the centre of the pully / shaft. I was wondering if there was the same under what I thought could be a blanking cap (rather than the turned end) on mine?
The drum may look like its just a modified split drum , but if you split the drum and providing you can get a seal for the drum and refix with bolts ,then you get a problem and drum leaks or floods your insurance company will not be too happy.
Understood Mike.
I’m pretty confident that IF I put retaining bolts back through the (many) lugs and I could re-seal the tub it wouldn’t fall apart (the seal does nothing to hold the two halves together as such). You would be surprised what can be done with 2″ roven roving bandage and some fiberglass resin. 😉
All the best ..
T i m
Re: Zanussi ZWF1431W bearing replacement?
Hi Steve,
These late Zanussi washers are quite often fitted with bonded tubs – sounds like yours is one of them. You can tell easily by removing the lid (power off!) and looking at the lugs around the centre line of the tub. Each lug should have a ‘bolt’ through it. If it has, new bearings can be obtained and fitted and the machine will be fine. If not, it is a bonded drum and is therefore scrap.
Yup, that is the case (bonded) but does it have to be scrap so fast? ie, What if I was to drill through the lug holes whilst the tub is in one piece then cut it in half around the seam? Isn’t it possible I could then re-join it (suitable adhesive or even the std seal for bolted tubs) and bolt up using the std fastenings? I would like to know exactly what is going on inside the join (lips and seal grooves etc) *before* I cut mine open as there may be a better place to cut if I wanted to re-join them later (anyone done so)?
If the machine has already been written off by an insurance company then they would almost certainly have noted the serial number. If you report the fault to the manufacturer, then you can be pretty sure it will get picked up and refused.
Manufacturer interested? No. Trading Standards? Well, it has been written off so the insurance company has fulfilled its responsibility = no case. Yes, it is not really fit for purpose considering its age, but in the eyes of the company this machine technically doesn’t exist anymore.Ok, understood. So, had it not been insured we may have had more of a case etc. And would Zanussi have picked up any of this tab or would it have been just down to the Insurance cover?
Bonded tubs are being used in more and more machines every year – they may become the norm in the future. It is extreme cost cutting by the manufacturer to allow them to meet the unrealistically low prices that are expected by today’s consumer. Bad for the trade, disastrous for the environment and most of all, more aggravation and inevitably a higher cost for the customer. But while people are happy to spend less than £250 on a machine then these problems are surely going to arise.
Agreed on all points Steve. The frustration for me is that had they just bolted it together I would happily have paid the extra £5 it would have cost them to do so …?
The Zanussi is scrap; unfortunately. To repair it would be expensive and still would not improve the quality of the product. It is sad reality.
Ok. Let’s say I have more time than money. Let’s say this washing machine is currently between £350 and £399 to buy. If I could get a new two piece tub inc bearings for £100 I have potentioally got a year old machine for £100 and the bearings next time would only be £20?
Look for a quality machine like a Bosch or ISE and get a decent product with a decent warranty. (10 years with the ISE10!!) Worth it in the long run.
.
Understood Steve. The AEG Lavamat 6100 Digitronic lasted 10 years before I fitted the new bearings and seal. It was 13 years old when the carbon deposits in the motor caused it to trip the house RCD (cured using an airline and a pair of new brushes while I was there) and at 15 years old we now have an 18k resistance between the stator and ground, again tripping the RCD (but this time it’s a hard fault). Assuming it could be salt deposits causing the problem I’m about to strip the motor [1] and wash the stator in distilled water in the hope it might disolve the cause, I’ll then dry and seal the area (varnish etc) and see how we go.
In the meantime the 3 year old Ariston Margherita 2000 I was given as “faulty and leaking” and fixed (necklace in the pump and blocked under the soap dispenser) provides our washing services, but for how long …? 🙁
Hope that helps,
Steve.
Well sort of Steve (respectfully) but probably fires my determination to see if I can actually save these machine from landfill. 😉
If you were looking at any of the above entirely from a cost point of view I guess I should just dump all 3 machines and spend £800 (that I don’t have incedentally 🙁 ) on something ‘better’. I guess the big question on the ZWF1431W is if it was working ok (and aparently it is apart from the bearing noise), would it be considered a good machine .. as in functionality? Looking at the short list I spotted on here somewhere, Zanussi in general seem to be up the good end?
All the best and thanks very much for your time …
T i m
[1] How do the multi-V pulley and rev sensor come off the shaft of the AEG motor please?
Re: aeg 6100
quinn wrote:hi i have been given this old machine but the spin is very low i think 800. is there a way of upgrading it to spin faster 1000 spin would be nice.can it be done please advise
Hi Quinn,
Just out of interest, did you replace the AEG 6100 and if so is it now spare (I’m in need on a new motor) please?
All the best ..
T i m
