Great Washer, no spin issues, FAST spin makes for quick dry
Written: Jun 09 '07
Product Rating:
Ease of Use:
Durability:
Ease of Cleaning:
Style:
Pros: Good cleaning, much quieter than topload, no vibration, huge capacity, FAST spin even w/halfload.
Cons: "slappy" sounding doors, fiddly controls if you're used to old fashioned, louder than some.
The Bottom Line: This washer is great. It has a variety of cycles (short to long) and good features, fast spin speeds and doesn't vibrate too much and can handle an unbalanced load.
so_hum's Full Review: Whirlpool WFW8300SW Front Load Washer
This is a great washer. I am *very* happy with it.
It all started when we bought a house and moved into it...but before moving into it there was an offending door *between the kitchen and bathroom/laundry room* that had to be dealt with. In other words, we restructured our laundry room so it would likely only fit a stackable unit because the door had to be moved to a different spot, etc.
In the meantime I decided I wanted a gas dryer instead of electric. It'd heard that gas dryers don't put static in the clothes like electric ones. So it seems to me that the clothes would be "emf free" by using a gas dryer instead of electric. Also, it just seems like electric is a weird way to create heat and gas just makes more sense.
Anyway, that's just to give you some background as to why my choices were somewhat limited when looking for a laundry set that was:
Inexpensive
front load
Stackable
gas dryer
had to be a matched set so the "stacking equipment" would work without having to go through the trouble of building a cabinet around them. Which might not be secure enough anyway if they vibrate.
Long story short, I went on our local craigslist to see what was available and found a small handful of gas dryers, a total of one of which was front load--and only $100. And the owner didn't call me back.
So I called on the other one and (cool!) lo and behold it was at a store (used appliance store) and they had not only that one but a few others to compare with. So I hopped in the car and went over.
I had selected a frigidaire/kenmore set with a "standard" load capacity for only $650 for the two pieces (great deal, right?) but my husband, who does all the laundry (most of the time) complained that the capacity would be too small. I didn't think so--it's an optical illusion because of the middle column on a top load--but he really wanted a nicer set. So, here we went looking for another option. The problem was the store we bought from had an exchange-only deal, they didn't return actual money.
So I almost jumped out of my skin when I saw posted (in a couple of days, after paying for the other set, prior to their scheduled delivery) a MAYTAG (yes, I still believe in the lonely maytag repairman even if most people say it's a load of crap these days) gas dryer frontload stackset--with a larger capacity.
So I called them up and exchanged it. This one was $995 for the set. And if you don't know what "stackset" means, it's another word for "laundry center." The sole benefit is that the controls are on one panel in the middle, under the dryer, so if you are short or just like convenience, it's nice to see them all at chest-level instead of way up high when they're stacked.
The several drawbacks include:
It doesn't come apart
It's huge and a big pain to deliver/get in and out of any laundry room
You *can't* separate them and put them side by side if you change your mind on your laundry room configuration.
If one part of it breaks beyond repair you'd have to replace BOTH not just one.
The washer drum is tipped slightly upward so it makes the whole thing really deep (bulky) and leaves less other usable space in your laundry room. And it would be too deep for some other laundry closets.
I don't even know why they make those. Nonetheless I bit because I'd seen my mom get all google-eyed about maytag neptune a few years ago.
So, long story short...it busted beyond repair (wouldn't spin--we had to hang our laundry on the clothesline to drain the excess water before drying--or if it was raining, just put it in the dryer for 2.5 hours) despite multiple attempts to fix it. Fortunately, it was within the "1 year parts and labor warranty" from the place I bought it and still, fortunately, also exchangeable. When they offered to exchange it for the same kind I said NO WAY that was a LEMON and asked if they could special order a Bosch. They said NO WAY too expensive and I said okay, what else can we do?
And lo and behold (introducing the Whirlpool Duet Sport) they had a stackable Gas Whirlpool Duet Sport set on hand. I jumped. GREAT!! I'LL TAKE IT! I said enthusiastically.
Then I read epinions and started to worry about what would happen because our laundry room, though not upstairs, is on a hollow floor over a crawl space. So I braced myself and made sure the warranty would still apply if it shook the house down.
I imagined it had to be not so bulky as the maytag, and it was much newer and more "top of the line" in terms of features. The maytag did a nice job of cleaning but seemed to make some of the clothes "pill" (they are all cotton which is an odd thing to pill) so I thought it would be only better to get a newer set--and who could complain about a different brand after my experience with Maytag? And I googled the set I'd gotten previously and found only complaints about maytag frontloads.
The salesman had also told me that frontloaders won't spin if they have a half-load in them, and that if they have towels in them it can set off the same problem...so I braced myself when they delivered the Whirlpool Duet Sport.
I literally sat on the laundry room floor and watched it go through the whole cycle. Okay, it was a short cycle--there was a soaking wet load in the maytag dryer when they delivered the new set so I put it in the new whirlpool on the drain & spin setting and sat there for the 18 minutes the cycle took.
At first I was worried--it would spin a little then slow down and toss the clothes around then spin a little more but when there were only 3 minutes left in the cycle it burst into a magnificent spin...and it didn't vibrate the floor at all (well a little but just in the laundry room, not in any adjacent rooms or other parts of the house) and didn't make too much noise and BAM! the clothes came out nearly dry after the spin.
Magnificent.
I ran 2 more loads and cheerfully called the store back and thanked them for making the exchange to the better, newer set for no additional money.
Since then I have begun to appreciate a few tiny things about the maytag which were really sweet--in other words, the tiny drawbacks of the whirlpool.
1. the doors kind of "slap" shut, kind of loud. The maytag doors were quieter shutting. like I said, a very small thing.
2. the cycle is a little louder. The laundry room is behind our bedroom closet so it usually doesn't matter, but if I'm just lying in bed late on a saturday morning and my husband is up doing laundry early, I can hear the "grind, grind, grind" sound it kind of makes while it's getting ready to spin. I didn't realize the maytag was as quiet as a mouse.
3. the controls are good but aren't so simple they're foolproof. You have to select the cycle and it auto-selects different temperatures, etc. you have to make sure you want that water temperature as a default when you select the length of the cycle. The "older" "non-electronic" controls on the maytag were simpler and the water temperature never changed from cold unless I selected it on purpose.
But overall, I'm thrilled. They work great and clean clothes gently and well and after all, that's what it's about. :)
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