38-year old Hotpoint Washer is Poorly

[duncanlowe]

Oh, and back to the programmer. I also saw a failure of a very similar looking programmer, back in the mid 80's though from memory a Hoover. Overheated contacts. Bought a replacemnt programmer but still didn't get it working. My suspicion was the original fault had been caused by the early electronic motor speed control.

[Nicola_Jayne]

Originally Posted by Bazz4CQJ

Working again .

I am so glad I took the prudent approach rather than the brave approach, though time will tell how well this works out.

The one problem I have had is that all the plastic trim on the front on the machine is just so brittle; not sure if this is normal for this age, or whether the fact that it gets the full sun through the kitchen window (or at least it would on a sunny day), and that may well have made things worse.

B

ref brittleness of the plastics nearly 40 year old plastic especially withe UV and /or heat related effects = probably unsurprisingg it's brittle

[emeritus]

Originally Posted by Robsradio

Well done! I'm sure Hotpoint didn't intend it to still be useable after 38 years. I thought our Miele was doing well at 30 years having never been repaired... that was the kiss of death for it

In the mid-1970's I remember reading an article in one of the engineering journals we had circulated at work, which was an interview with someone from Zanuzzi. He said that they were going up-market, the design life of their washing machines was being increased from 5 years to 7 years.

[AnalogueMan]

Those old machines are worth hanging onto if you can keep them going. I too had an old Hoptpoint that lasted donkeys years before it finally expired. Bought a Bosch to replace it. You'd think that would be a good move, but no. After eight years the bearings went on the Bosch. "No problem" says I, "I stripped the Hotpoint, split the drum and changed the bearings on that, I'll do it again." Only to find that the outer drum on the Bosch is a moulded plastic unit, one piece, and can't be split and rejoined - you have to replace the ENTIRE THING.

[duncanlowe]

Back in the 80's I had a machine, Hotpoint I think. Outer drum didn't need to be split (and couldn't be) the bearing was replaced by just removing the spider.

[emeritus]

Originally Posted by AnalogueMan

Bought a Bosch to replace it. You'd think that would be a good move, but no. After eight years the bearings went on the Bosch. "No problem" says I, "I stripped the Hotpoint, split the drum and changed the bearings on that, I'll do it again." Only to find that the outer drum on the Bosch is a moulded plastic unit, one piece, and can't be split and rejoined - you have to replace the ENTIRE THING.

I understand that Robert Bosch sold their white goods business to a Turkish company some years ago. Our pre-sale, german-made, upright freezer is built like a tank and has been reliable. Conversely our post-sale larder fridge is rather flimsy and has clearly been value-engineered.

[Bazz4CQJ]

Certainly, Bosch tools have had a very good reputation, but even there, I'm not sure things are quite what they used to be.

B

[David G4EBT]

Originally Posted by emeritus

I understand that Robert Bosch sold their white goods business to a Turkish company some years ago.

I stand to be corrected but I don't think that is so - far from selling any of its business streams, it's been busy expanding its portfolio, though it's true than many white goods companies do have factories in low-wage economy countries such as Turkey and India.

Robert Bosch GmbH, commonly known as Bosch, is a German multinational engineering and technology company headquartered in Gerlingen, Germany. The company was founded by Robert Bosch in Stuttgart in 1886. Bosch is 94% owned by the Robert Bosch Stiftung, a charitable institution.

It a gargantuan company with a complex network of over 440 subsidiaries and regional entities, operating in over 60 countries worldwide. Including sales and service partners, Bosch's global manufacturing, engineering, and sales network covers nearly every country in the world. At 125 locations across the globe, Bosch employs roughly 64,500 associates in research and development.

It employs 5,200 people in the UK at 40 locations, including Worcester-Bosch central heating boilers at Worcester. One of countless brand owned by Bosch is Dremel.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bosch_...%20institution

As to 'value engineering', done properly, it's good engineering practice.

If the expected life of the most expensive item in say a washing machine - perhaps the motor - has a design life of ten years 'mean time before failure', it makes no sense to make other components such as drum or the cabinet last for an eternity. Where things go wrong, and Bosch tumble dryers are a good example, is that the door handle - which has to be opened frequently and is held shut with a strong catch - is flimsy plastic. As a consequence, the securing pillars tend to snap off and it's a fiddly job to remove the fragments and fit a new handle. Properly designed using value analysis - not simply scrimping, the handle would have been designed to last as long as the rest of the machine.

In one respect it's trivial, but in another, it tarnishes the myth which still abounds about German engineering.

I've lost count of how many handles I've had to replace for my daughter-in-law (who is the chief engineer in the household). With three daughters at home, the washing machine and drier are in constant use. E-spares supply replacement handles, and say it's one of their most popular items, which comes as no surprise. In fairness, the dryer still otherwise performs fine and is at least ten years old.

[emeritus]

Flimsy plastic detents have been the problem with our fridge. The handle was originally a plastic strip along the top of the door, secured by small detents that were totally inadequate to withstand the force requred to overcome the magnetic attraction of the door seal. I got a thin metal cupboard door handle from Screwfix, made up a thin steel fishplate drilled with holes to match the handle's M4 fixing holes, and used that to bolt it to the door. The other flimsy detents were on the round plastic plugs that mate in sockets in the sidewalls to hold the drawer runners in place. Not available as spares, but drilling holes in the stationary part of the runners and screwing them to the plastic sidewall with self tappers, has kept the plugs upright in their recesses. The plugs handle the vertical force of the drawer, the screws only have to do the job of the detents. It avoided scrapping the fridge.

[Lancs Lad]

I was very sad to say goodbye to my Servis Quartz 6035 in 2016.

It was bought new from the Norweb Electricity Showroom in 1989, and gave almost 28 years untroubled service.

It was just the motor that failed. Nothing else.

The day before my new machine was delivered, I took off the lid to have a look inside, just out of curiosity, and it was spotless.

Everything looked as new as the day it was assembled.

It gave me pause for thought, I must admit.

I really began to wish that I'd sourced a new motor and had it mended!

When the delivery men who brought my new machine were humping it out the the front door I actually felt quite tearful.

When a faithful appliance has been resident in your kitchen for the best part of thirty years, it's hard not to feel sad when you watch it leave your house forever.

I actually felt like I was betraying it by just letting it go to its fate.

Daft, I know. But I still feel damned sad about it.

[Bazz4CQJ]

Originally Posted by Lancs Lad

As though I was betraying it by just letting it go.

Daft, I know.

I'm much the same; when something has been a trusty and long-serving servant, I sort of believe it has a good soul and hate parting with it.

I have this spooky view of tools, especially, very old hand-tools, and wonder about all the time they were owned and used by people in the past. I have a couple of ancient G-clamps, obviously hand made, perhaps in school or during an apprenticeship. Pity they cannot talk.


B

[AnalogueMan]

At the risk of straying off-topic, that's the sentiment that besets me when I *have* to save some old receiver from the tip...

[Roger Ramjet]

Quote: I was very sad to say goodbye to my Servis Quartz 6035 in 2016.

It was bought new from the Norweb Electricity Showroom in 1989, and gave almost 28 years untroubled service.

We bought a Servis washer in the early 80's which I can best describe as a Friday afternoon machine.

Programmer went then drum bearing, all within a couple of years. Servis customer services upset me when they told me it was my fault because we did not take out an extended warranty. I scrapped he machine but kept the motor & later on when I decided to weigh it in, I was astonished to find the winding's were aluminium, not copper.

I seem to recall that Servis went bust after our bad experience so maybe the 2016 reliable machine was made by another company retaining the name ?

[Lancs Lad]

Well, Roger Ramjet, my Servis machine definitely wasn't a Friday afternoon model.

Uninterrupted service for 28 years. No rust on the bodywork, no slimy gunge in the rubber gasket around the door, and absolutely spotless inside when I had a look.

It even still had the original WG Norweb plug on the cable when it departed my house.

I still regret letting it go. If I'd just had a new motor put in, I bet it would have soldiered on for many more years.

[emeritus]

Mum had a Friday Afternoon Servis experience with the first one we had in the late 1950's. It was the upright with power mangle type, and the mangle didn't survive the first couple of Monday washing days. Servis came out promptly, found knackered bevel gears, fitted new gears. A week or so later, same thing. New gears fitted. When it happened again, they gave us a new mangle and the machine worked faultlessly after that.