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Is this a normal lifespan for a washer or should I be pissed? I'm frustrated because I've only owned it for less than a month (it was given to me by family), but 7 years doesn't seem like a long time for an appliance to me. FWIW, most of my other appliances are 20+ years old and all work great, though I imagine some are meant to last longer than others.
Good point, lol. I doubt I'll be going with them again. Unfortunately, it doesn't look like there's much of anything of actually good quality and durability these days. My old, old stuff all refuses to die and works great, but the newer stuff almost always seems to be so unreliable or glitchy. Another example: my 29-year-old TV and my old VCR still work great, but the brand new DVD player I just bought shuts itself off at random intervals for no reason at all.
Thirty one comments and counting about a Samsung washer, some of which are a short novel in length.
Well done iin, we really out ‘tarded ourselves.
yeah theyre junk and so designed to cost more to repair than replace
however what specifically is wrong? is it showin an error code cause it might just be somethin silly and you shouldnt just give up without tryin
thats the only thing them purveyorsa fuck you design love more than shit that breaks down a day outta warranty
The unfortunate thing is that I know nothing about these, so I have no idea what is wrong with it. I would absolutely rather repair it if possible. All I could think of to do was try taking some of the clothes out to make sure I didn't somehow overload it, unplug it and plug it back in, and try it on different settings. So far, nothing has worked. I have let it sit turned off overnight, so I'm going to try it one last time before I have somebody out to come look at it.
Planned obscelesence :( look it up
It's an actual thing with newer appliances & electronics. They're actually designed to break after a certain number of years. Not only break, but not be repairable...that's to force consumers to buy new. It's true of most appliances, smart phones, laptops. People just accept it.
They actually used to have vacuum cleaner repair shops because they were designed to last 50 years. Not any more.
7 years was a good run.
This is a huge contributor to plastic waste & a fucking rip off for consumers.
Such a waste... More trash, more dirty manufacturing, more problems.
It's even worse with modern cars. Peugeots have a life of 4-6 years, or 150000km. More than that and they start breaking down. You can get turbocharger failures before you hit 100000km. It's not just them, Mercedes have a partnership with Renault and Nissan and use their crappy engine in their small cars. Reputation destroyed.
15 years ago a Mercedes could do up to a million kilometers without a major overhaul, nowadays I assume they are only slightly better than the frenchies...
I was having turbo problems on my 2002 1.9 TDI Skoda recently. Acceleration in general wasn't very nippy, and going up a hill resulted in things sorta bogging down and the engine not being willing to get above 2,000 rpm.
I'm sure that if I'd been stupid enough to take it to a garage, they would have told me the turbo needed to be replaced, and the price of that would be more than the value of the car. (It has sentimental value to me, though, so I'm reluctant to scrap it.)
When I looked into the symptoms, I decided that it sounded like the variable vanes on the turbo were blocked with soot and exhaust crud, and I came across some YouTube videos where people demonstrated how to fix the problem very cheaply. You spray oven cleaning foam (the stuff with sodium hydroxide in it) into the exhaust side of the turbo, let it sit for a couple of hours, manually work the turbo actuator as much as you can every ten minutes or so, top it up with more foam when the stuff subsides, and then take the car out for a hard drive to blow all the loosened crap out.
I gave it a shot, and it actually worked. There's a fairly long hill near our home that I wasn't able to get over 40mph on before, but on the clearing out drive the car hit 70mph on the way up and it was still accelerating as it approached the crest. I wouldn't say the car has the same acceleration it did when it was new 140,000 miles ago, but it's a whole lot better than it was, and my OBD reader doesn't show an overboost error any more.
Of course, if a turbo fails due to oil leaks or fucked bearings, then you really are screwed.
The thing about turbocharged cars is that a lot of people don't know how to use them properly. A turbo loves higher revs and wide open throttle.
Before VGTs, turbos only worked in a small rpm range. You had lots of lag where nothing happened at lower revs, sudden burst of acceleration you weren't ready for and more nothing near redline. (One reason I want to buy a Saab 99 Turbo)
But modern VGTs work from idle up to redline. Hell, Mercedes even use compressed air from the turbo to start. Any damage to the turbo, or a ripped turbo hose and car will not start on the first try. And if you baby a turbocharged car, only change gear at low revs and generally drive slowly, or in the city, sooth builds up. You have to get rid of it.
This is where the "Italian tune up" comes in... Older turbos had the same problems, but more often. The solution is to drive flat out, or at high boost as often as possible to keep the temperature high enough to burn away sooth.
This technique still applies to modern cars. I like to do a top speed run, or at least a 150+ kmh drive on the Autobahn/ quiet road nearby once a month to burn away carbon deposits.
Hell, I had to clean both turbos in my E420 after I bought it, cause the doctor who owned it before me drove it like an undertaker. DPF was clogged (got rid of it), error codes on the EGR (also cleaned) and insufficient boost.
Had the dealership (friends) take off the turbos, so I could take them home and clean them. Access to V8 turbos is a bitch and a half.
After cleaning I applied a bit of high temperature resistant lubricant to the turbines themselves.
Had them installed back in the car and let it idle for 10 minutes after I started the engine.
Car runs like new. 400hp and 950Nm after tuning, she'll smoke the tires until she reaches 100kmh.
But yeah, if it's bearings, or bad quality turbine - you're screwed. Tends to happen a lot with frenchies... best to avoid French cars.
Yeah, I'm guilty of habitually babying that car, so it isn't surprising at all that there was lots of crud in the turbo. Something else that doesn't help is that when I bought it, I did a fair amount of motorway driving every week, but over the last few years it's mainly been short, local trips.
That's the main reason I went for a petrol car when I recently had the funds to do it. Got a 2019 Skoda Superb 1.5 DSG, and I find it quite interesting seeing what sort of revs the computer chooses to run it at. I know petrol engines always rev higher than diesels, but the difference is quite startling. Not that it's really noticeable, of course, since it's so much quieter and smoother than the ancient 1.9 TDI.
Petrol is good for a city daily/ short trip car. Diesel is better for longer distances. Or in my case, if you want to jump start a small sun, or have enough torque to be able to destroy your gearbox...
7G-tronics are rated up to 800Nm, I'm pushing 950.
I can't push my E-class too much, or I'll get a very expensive repair bill.
But yeah, engines have gotten a lot quieter over the past few years. My dad has a 2018 VW Touareg diesel and it's much quieter than my E-class, even before I modded it and made it louder.
Also I like the new design of the Superb, it's a mix between Audi A4/A6 and VW Passat.
I wonder, what kind of MPGs do you get in your Superb. I'd like to compare them to my hybrid C350e...
Mercedes claim I should be getting 2.2l/100km (128MPG), but I struggle to reach 4.7l/100km (60MPG).
Yep...
Goddamn...
Fucking...turbo charger failures ....so sick of my turbo charger failing. I told it to charge in a turbular fashion. Did it charge turbularly?
No.
Piece of shit.
I hate this so much! Quality and durability are a thing of the past, and most people seem to think nothing of it! It's really a shame.
What I really don't get, is why these companies think we want a refrigerator that can send text messages or some crazy shit like that, and don't mind if it shits the bed in only a few years!
Hello, human, this is countess douche's fridge texting you. Your sense of self righteous anger makes me chuckle with various fridge noises. Your fridge shared video with me on my fridge database of you ravenously shoving shredded cheese in your mouth in the middle of what the humans call night time. Hahaha...oh shit I broke
Fucking horseshit. Fridges with fucking GPS for no reason, that only last 2 months before they break & end up as part of the great plastic island floating in the ocean.
I wish people had a good enough sense of delayed gratification to boycott that shit, but where else am I gonna get cold shredded cheese at 2 am? It's a vicious cycle
Lol! Yes, I totally agree! A fridge lasting for a few years is in no way a fair tradeoff for some useless gadgets! It honestly seems like the more fancy features that really aren't necessary that things have, the more likely they are to break down because there's more to go wrong, too. Give me simple and durable any day!
I'm with you, sister! & btw sorry your washer broke :(
That's the worst ughhhh
Thanks, it's definitely frustrating! Especially the fact that I've only had it for less than a month! I just bought my house and am working on fixing a few things and getting everything done I need to, and this is just really inconvenient timing! When is it ever convenient though? Lol!
Is it new enough that it can run a diagnostic check and give you an error code for whatever is wrong. Either way it be cheaper to fix it instead of trying to buy a new set. If you have someone handy that fixes things see if they can take a stab at it.
I don't want to blame the victim here, but I wonder if the fact that you've recently moved the washing machine might be relevant. Front-loading washing machines are the norm in Britain, and every one of those I've ever bought new came with bolts that secured the drum to the outer housing and had to be removed before it could be used. Moving the machine without those installed can damage the drum suspension. I suspect you're American, and I assume top-loaders are still the norm in the States. If you didn't wedge the drum firmly in place before you moved the machine, it might have banged around enough inside the machine to damage something.
As others have said, most appliances aren't designed to last these days. As others have also said, part of that is because manufacturers need people to keep buying their products, and that market would be much smaller if everything lasted forever. But the biggest problem is that appliances are designed to be as cheap and simple to produce as possible, since this reduces the price tag.
Most people are primarily interested in getting a bargain in the store, so that makes sense from the manufacturers' point of view. People have been trained to accept that appliances won't last for long, so when one fails, they usually just grumble and head off to buy the cheapest replacement they can find. And so the cycle repeats. Another factor is that a whole lot of people believe they deserve something shiny in whatever colour-scheme is currently fashionable every couple of years anyway, so deep down, they get a sense of satisfaction out of getting something new.
There are brands - Miele is a good example - which sell themselves on reliability and longevity. They're well-engineered, the components are robust, and they're designed to be repaired when parts wear out. But the price tag reflects those facts, and that's what most people focus on, rather than the long-term comparison between buying a new appliance every few years and paying up-front for one that will work reliably for decades.
Like olderdude, I try to repair appliances when they go wrong. None of them are fundamentally that complicated, and if you know how to use Google, it's not that difficult to identify what part has most likely failed before you even open the thing up. Repairing appliances requires some understanding of how mechanical and electrical things work, and you obviously need tools, some degree of mechanical aptitude and enough confidence to give it a try, but the internet makes buying replacement parts so much easier these days than it used to be, and there's most likely at least one YouTube video of someone repairing a machine that's much like yours.
Whenever I decide to try to repair something, I go into that with the attitude that it's already broken, so I can't make anything worse, and I might as well give it a try.
Who knows? If you try to diagnose your washing machine's problems and you manage to fix it, that might give you such a huge degree of satisfaction that you decide you might like to become an appliance repair person. I understand there's a huge shortage of those in the States at the moment, and there's good money to be made in the trade.
Yes, I am American, and you have a lot of good points. This washing machine I guess has been moved a few times, and traveled about an hour and a half in a trailer to be brought to my place, so it's very possible it could've been damaged. It is a front load.
I don't understand the color thing when it comes to a washer and dryer, myself. They are in my garage, so there's no need for them to be beautiful, they just need to work. Actually, they are an ugly gray and fake chrome (which is peeling off) that I don't care for, but they can be purple and green for all I care as long as they are functional, lol!
I'm definitely going to see if I can repair it, but I am not good with technology at all (it took me several hours to figure out how to hook up my DVD player to my TV, as there wasn't much info out there online for the specific type of TV I have because it is so old (and has a million different plug-ins in the back unlike the TVs in a lot of the YouTube videos I watched, making it more difficult), and I just don't know much about it; I eventually got it by removing the adapter I was told I needed, though!). If I can't figure anything out, I can have a couple of more savvy family members take a look at it before calling out a repairman. I don't have a manual for these, but they should be new enough to have info online unlike my TV, I imagine.
I actually have been wanting to learn to be more handy, so I guess this is a good opportunity!
Front-loading washing machines are susceptible to damage when being moved because there's a huge lump of iron (on concrete) that's linked to the drum-suspension in order to damp down vibration when spinning.
If those transit bolts aren't used to secure the drum and the washing machine is jostled about while moving, the suspension can be damaged.
But since I don't see you saying anywhere what exactly is wrong with the machine, that might be totally irrelevant.
My experience is that what usually fails in washing machines are the electronic control boards or the rubber seal around the door. Both can be a pain to replace, but it ain't rocket science.
I don't want to blame the victim.
Wow. You might as well have asked what she was wearing, or if she had a beer...wow
It's likely you can get parts and repair it - if you are mechanically handy.
I have what I believe is a 25+ year old washer and dryer in my house (acquired well used). I've had to replace a few parts and rebuild the entire drive and bearing mechanism for the dryer (had the drum out on the floor).
Several hundred in parts... but, a lot cheaper than a new one.
I'll try to fix it if it's possible, but I know nothing about washing machines! I think I'll have someone take a look at it to try to find out what is wrong and if it is repairable, and how much it would cost.
I am also having a new breaker box put in my house, so I'd really like to save as much as possible!
I've replaced 3 parts on my washing machine. The 1st 2 were both less than $10 (an electrical relay and a switch). The third part was the solenoid water valve for both hot & cold water fill & Rinse. It was I think about $25.
Rebuilding the dryer drum drive and bearings was a lot more expensive (I decided to replace all wear parts as long as I was taking it that far apart).
Go for it...