Woe is me twice over (Indesit W123)

Member Name: competition.man

Product:	Indesit W123
Date:	22/04/04 (2590 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: quiet, good wash programes

Disadvantages: long wash cycles, slow service, unreliable

Indesit have been making washing machines amongst other items for many a year now and so when choosing a new washing machine in November 2001, I had no qualms in choosing from this manufacturer - my only wish is that I had been active on DooYoo to check out reliability .

~ Machine Specifications ~

Front Loading washine machine .

Loading Capacity 5 Kg dry weight

Volume of water used in typical cycle 59 litres

Construction type : Freestanding

Spin Speed 1200 Min

Wash efficiency classification : A

Energy rating A

Year of introduction 2000 .

Dimensions : Width 60 Cm Depth 54 Cm Height 85 Cm

Colour : white ( with a silver option at extra cost )

Instruction manual : 16 page A4 booklet , easy to understand and very detailed .

Purchase price : not applicable - a Family Fund supplied machine .

~ My experiences ~

Washing Cycles :

Longer than my previous Hoover washing machines , with a normal cycle taking approx. 1.5 hours .
There are however a choice of ten programmes , with the user able to choose the cycle temperature from a range of 30 degrees c. upto 90 degrees c. in incriments of 10 degrees c. .
The user also has the option of an economy load and /or anti crease function , the latter simply holding your washing soaking prior to the spin cycle , until you are ready to let it spin .
The machine can take both liquid and powder detergents , and for the latter it has a dispensing drawer with three compartments , 1 for pre-wash power , one for main wash powder , and a softener department.
The machine has a built in safety lock , that releases two minutes after a wash cycle has completed allowing you to open the door to retrieve your washing. Additionally , the machine has an anti-tamper cycle built in , so if you have young children who keep turning your programme knob , fear not as the machine continues on its pr
eselected cycle . A wash cycle can of course be cancelled by the user .
In use the machine is also quite quiet , and the wash quality it has to be said is very good.
These machines do however seem to have a reliability problem , here is what I have encountered :

Machine 1 :

Three times in first year purchase the machine simply stopped working - a phonecall to Merloni ( the repair arm of the company ) on the first occasion told me the simple procedure to reset the machine. Quite why it would do this is unknown.

Four times in the first year the machine would fail to spin , and on each occasion an engineer was required to fix the problem . It turned out to be a logic board fault , that would take a few minutes to replace and repair . The fifth time this happened the machine was just 14 months old - now these logic boards cost £60 plus call out and labour charges on top .
I and the Family Fund complained and a new machine was supplied .

Machine 2 :

The machine had had a face lift , and with it a new look complete with new dispenser drawer .
The machine worked well , but the dispenser draw kept getting blocked . One year and two call outs later had failed to resolve the problem . In the end we had to resort to liquid detergent , and open the detergent drawer at the correct tiem in order to deposit the softener .
At fifteen month old , strange rumblings , and the odd click . An engineer was called . Immediately he said a new dispenser was required . Then he went looking for the rumbling clicking fault , and found the problem - the outer drum weld spots had corroded , and now the drum was hitting the motor and also leaking - result unecomical to repair , too dangerous to use .
Indesit will now have to refund the value of the machine and we await a new machine , this time not Indesit .

~ Repair times ~

On requesting a call out , quite often a week of waiting was the norm . Contacting the
repair centre was however easy .
By requesting a call out you had given a description of the problem , and if it was a common problem , spares were usually carried by the service man . However non stocked items have to be specially ordered , and that can take anything up to three weeks - what a problem .

~ Final thoughts ~

Indesit machines are very quiet , do offer good programme choice and do provide a decent wash .
However reliabilty does seem to be a problem , and repair times can be quite long .
In my opinion , give them a miss .

Summary: