Are there any appliances which are not built to break?

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danddersson@reddit

Washer-driers seem to be notorious for doing neither very well, or very long.

If you HAVE to have a dual-purpose machine you will have to spend more and get one the expensive (usually German) manufacturers. I.e. not Hoover, whirpool.

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Life-Psychology-1634@reddit (OP)

Thanks, yeah we don't have space for two but it's really handy having the dryer in winter

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danddersson@reddit

Have you considered stacking one ontop of the other? Manufacturers have 'stacking kits'.

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Odd_Two_5554@reddit

Purchased a miele washing machine for 600 ish or less in 2012. Still going strong. Never had an issue that I can remember. Its been so long!!

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Life-Psychology-1634@reddit (OP)

Thanks, yeah Miele have good reviews but they are so expensive

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If you're paying £20 a month on a repair policy, surely being able to drop that in favour for a top line brand like Miele, the price difference would pay for itself not overlong. That said, we had a Bosch washer/dryer combo and it also broke several times. All of our other Bosch appliances have been reliable. There may be something particularly precious about washer/driers.

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Life-Psychology-1634@reddit (OP)

Yeah that's our plan, they offered the policy but it feels like a rip off

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VladamirK@reddit

Perhaps there is a correlation between how much you pay and their average useful lifespan.

I would say though, appliances have never been cheaper relatively speaking - 40 years ago a TV might cost 2/3 of your monthly salary and now they are a few days of your salary. The tradeoff here is they are built to a particular price.

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Odd_Two_5554@reddit

I have just been looking at the prices after I replied. Yes they are expensive. Cheapest is around 800. Over 15 years thats 54 quid a year if I.mathed right. A friend has a saying "buy cheap, buy twice". Good luck on your search

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Brilliant-Figure-149@reddit

Yes Miele are expensive and apparently reliable compared to lesser brands. I have a Miele bean to cup coffee machine (excellent) and a Miele integrated dishwasher (not so good). (All our other kitchen appliances including washing machine are Bosch.)

The dishwasher has a lot of parts made of Cadbury's flake style materials (Only the crumbliest flakiest plastic). Being an integrated one, if there is any trouble with the door that you fit over the outside (e.g. it starts to swell due to water getting in) then it starts to destroy the plastic parts of the machine leading to all kinds of trouble. I've fixed it a few times, including 3D printing replacement parts, but when we do up our kitchen again, hopefully soon, I will go for a different brand.

I've recently bought a Hisense washing machine for our other property. Haven't plumbed it in yet but looking forward to seeing how it compares to the established brands.

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Farscape_rocked@reddit

I understand Miele are built to last 25 years.

Except the battery in their triflex cordless vacuum cleaners cos it's a battery.

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Snoo-84389@reddit

I can second Miele. We still have a Miele vacuum cleaner that must be 15 - 18 years old that has been just faultless.

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jamnut@reddit

No, but the intentions are there from a lot of higher end manufacturers. There's always a greater than 0% chance it'll break. I worked at Currys customer service and people would be baffled that an item broke within the first x days/weeks/months, yeah it's annoying and we'll sort it for you, but it's not literally impossible. It's a lottery with anything mechanical/with computer components but the higher the quality of the manufacturer the lower the chance. Price rarely effects it too, as a greater price often comes with more tech/features thus more potential points of failure

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KeyboardChap@reddit

It's actually more common to break early in the lifecycle than it is for the mid point anyway, the bathtub curve

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TWOITC@reddit

Bosch, Samsung and miele

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Barnagain@reddit

Welcome to Crapitalism!

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epicmindwarp@reddit

The more expensive options, generally.

Which brand? Hotpoint I'm told is known for unreliability in recent times, despite being good before.

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Tirno93@reddit

I used to work for the company that provide the insurance for hotpoint (as well as their other faces indesit and whirlpool, and most of the rest of the uk market). Hotpoint are a fucking abomination of a company. The whole industry is basically a big circle jerk - make a shitty appliance, tell customers they need to “register” it, use that as the opportunity to sell the insurance, repair it every couple of years and then replace it, making sure to insure it again at the end.

Hotpoint are the absolute worst, most of the other brands are about on a parr and not much better. But people don’t realise that a few years isn’t really a very long life for these things and just accept it as normal. The market is basically tuned to the point where they break just often enough to keep sales flowing and not often enough you start to think of a brand as unreliable.

Of mainstream brands, the only one that makes any real effort to make them last are Miele, but everything they make costs a bomb.

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LittleSadRufus@reddit

Hotpoint/Whirlpool was like this in the 1980s too, I remember my mum complaining about the exact same thing (but dishwasher) for a kitchen installed in 1988!

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Life-Psychology-1634@reddit (OP)

Yeah it's Hotpoint, they seem to be an absolute shitshow

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Tirno93@reddit

The only thing worse than the appliances is the customer service (infinite loop). The insurance plans you get once it’s broken are such poor value sales agents laugh about it when people buy them. Economically you’re probably better off buying a new one, but it really stings because that shouldn’t be the answer. But basically once you’ve bought their cursed appliances you’re doomed.

If it started going wrong while in warranty and keeps going wrong the same way, your best argument is that it was supplied faulty and is therefore still covered by the warranty under the Consumer Rights Act and you want it replaced/repaired at their expense. They’ll deny all knowledge of those rights and keep you in a loop until you give up though.

Also something to watch out for with washer dryers is a problem we had with our last one, where there’s a secondary filter inside you can’t access without taking the machine apart. We had it insured so it basically meant a repair every year until we got fed up and had it replaced.

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Life-Psychology-1634@reddit (OP)

Yeah it's Hotpoint. Dealing with their customer service is doing my head in

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iloveworms@reddit

I've had a Hotpoint washing machine since 2004. Still working. A bit noisy and the lock can be temperamental (you need to give it a bit of a kick to start a wash).

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RoutineCloud5993@reddit

This is what I've heard. Hotpoint and multiple other brands also share the same hardware that have different labels.

The cheaper stuff is affordable, but you spend more replacing or fixing it. It's the boots theory of socio economic unfairness all over again.

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daniluvsuall@reddit

This is why we bought Miele appliances but they’re expensive.

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scottishsilversurfer@reddit

Better with separate dryer and washer if you've got the space for them

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Life-Psychology-1634@reddit (OP)

Yeah annoyingly we don't have room for separate machines

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miklovesrum@reddit

Do you absolutely need a dryer? Could you survive with a clothes horse and dehumidifier instead?

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txe4@reddit

Washing machines and dishwashers - not washer dryers - buy Beko. They work fine and then when they stop, get another one delivered. Disposable. Actually in my experience of both, a decade of life - but keep expectations reasonable.

I’m not very interested in repairability because being without the thing - at least for a washing machine - is a serious ballache. When it dies I want another one, not a week’s wait for a visit then another week for parts.

I’ve had 1 mediocre and 2 very poor Miele experiences. Don’t believe the hype.

I’ve two Bosch appliances, one a somewhat fancy heat pump dryer on which I bought a 5 year warranty - they’re very complex machines - and another a fancy high end dishwasher which came with the house. Both work. Both have really annoying software glitches like error states which require a grovel-around-on-the-floor-to-pull-the-plug-out session to clear, or error messages/lights which aren’t in the manual. Can’t really recommend.

There is NO difference in performance between the simple cheapest-in-the-shop Beko washing machine and dishwasher we gifted our house buyers with and the fancy ones we have now.

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edhitchon1993@reddit

Historically there have been a number of options for machines built to be repaired - European manufacturers under the Bosch/Neff/Siemens group, the Electrolux/AEG/Zanussi group, and particularly Miele; and South Korea's LG and Samsung.

In the past few years all the European manufacturers (including, sadly, Miele) have swapped to sealed drums for their washing machines. It is still technically possible (and actually quite easy) to repair these machines but the parts are now very expensive. They are generally still quite reliable but when they break, that's it.

Fortunately LG and Samsung are still producing machines which can be repaired and particularly in LG's case they are reliable too.

Brands outside these are generally best avoided.

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rbbt456@reddit

Best to buy Bosch. Even the basic classix range are long lasting. Also avoid combined washer dryer. My experience

Bosch classix washing machine lasted 13 years in which time it just needed new brushes on the motor £60 then cpu fault killed it. New one now 5 yo with no faults

Bosch classix dishwasher 19 years old and still going and never had any faults!

Bosch rotak lawnmower 14 years old and still going - had to replace the blade

Bosch fridge freezer 4yo no faults

Bosch heat pump tumble dryer 4yo no faults

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Master-Trick2850@reddit

washer dryers have a higher breakage rate, if you dont want them to break as often buy them separately

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imtiramisu2025@reddit

This is what put me off buying one. Separate appliances and buy bosch. Pricey but they last 10+ years

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spoo4brains@reddit

My last Bosch washing machine lasted for years, the replacement I got recently feels like a Hotpoint with a Bosch badge, they have dropped their quality in recent years.

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IndigoQuantum@reddit

The "build it to break down when the warranty expires" theory doesn't really stand up to much critical analysis when there's so many different brands competing out there (even when you take into account the ones owned by the same parent company). If you buy Brand X and it breaks down after just a couple of years, are you really going to be buying Brand X again?

FWIW, after having to regularly replace Hotpoint/Indesit etc white goods every few years, I made the switch to German (Bosch, Neff etc) stuff and LG, and that's so far proved to be a good investment.

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Life-Psychology-1634@reddit (OP)

Good to know!

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WitShortage@reddit

I do think product lifecycles are being engineered to be "warranty length + 1 minute." Of course, it's in the manufacturer's interest to be able to sell you more stuff.

I find that washing machines and dryers can be quite easy to fix. My washing machine is a Hotpoint, probably 10 years old at this point, and starting to be a bit like Trigger's Broom. Actually, that's not entirely fair. All the core parts (electronics, door lock, motor, drum) have been fine. It's on its 3rd set of motor brushes, it's had a new door/drum seal (that was a bastard to replace) and a new drive belt.

There's loads of videos online for all the common stuff, and parts are fairly easy to get hold of.

Have a go at fixing it yourself, if at all possible.

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Life-Psychology-1634@reddit (OP)

Yeah we planned to DIY it but only the manufacturer seems to be able to get the part...

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iGhost36@reddit

Whilst I'm not saying this is for you, alot of people neglect maintenance to keep things running smoothly also. For washing machines, people tend to constantly load them on max loads which impacts lifespan. Again, not saying you particulalrly but tends to be the case.

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Life-Psychology-1634@reddit (OP)

Yeah good to think about. I don't think we've done anything to it that wouldn't be expected but good to keep in mind for the next one!

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StGuthlac2025@reddit

Kitchen appliance wise if you can handle them looking a bit uglier then I suggest anything made for business use. They are more expensive but parts end up being easily accessible and from what I've purchased designed to be fixed.

Years ago I purchased an old non working buffalo meat slicer off eBay. Got the parts to fix it online and got it working. Absolutely designed to be repaired

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Life-Psychology-1634@reddit (OP)

Thanks, we'll look at that

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Responsible_Bird3384@reddit

It’s called planned obsolescence. Gone are the days where things were built to last (like my parents washing machine which lasted 20 years and was only replaced because my mam wanted a new one, it still worked)

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Rude-Possibility4682@reddit

I agree, my old Bendix lasted 28 years. The guys who took the old one out, to bring the new one in were cursing me, as it took 3 of us to get it down the stairs.

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MrTimofTim@reddit

We’ve had multiple washer dryers through an insurance product they don’t last long. We paid for one 10 years ago and are now on our fourth, only now paying £7-8 a month.

One of the engineers explained it to us succinctly: you’re basically asking a machine to do two that are polar opposite of each other (wet the drys, dry the wets) and the machine internals just can’t cope.

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Ok_Aioli3897@reddit

I would look for professional appliances not domestic appliances

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