[2 of 2 customers found this review helpful]

Fisher & Paykel Eco Smart Washer - GWL15 Review

If you love Saabs...

"After our Maytag Neptune had the good graces to die (it was horribly moldy, very costly ato fix and blew three circuit boards before we gave it the boot), I bought this machine. At first i was concerned about the weird noises it made which turned out to be normal. It wasn't long before I started to notice a lot of picked towels and more recently, a fire hazard. My wife washed a bedpillow which was thrown upward during spin and got caught between the drum and the stationary drum housing flange. At 1200 RPM, sufficient friction developed to melt the edge of the housing flange and the polyester covering on the pillow. While the maching is still operational in every way, The melted eedge is rough. The picking problem is doubtless due to the sorry excuse for an agitator which has 3 downward pointing fins with long free ends that can get caught on cloths. The edges are rather shary and unfinished. the excursion of the agitator is rather excessive and with a very low operating water level it tends to stretch clothes excessively. I have to say, though, that the spinn cycle very effectively extracts water. It has multiple cycles to choose from, and I especially like the comforter cycle which is fairly gentle with a high water level. For ordinary lauyndry you can just add clothes, detergent (detergent and fry bleach can be added into the agitator column by removing the cap, which acts as a fabric softener dispenser)and press two buttons, the power switch and start. the machine supposedly senses the type of fabric through a series of agitator strokes and adjusts accordingly. The initial pat of the automatic cycle adds very warm water to dissolve/dilute the laundry aids and the drum then revolves slowly while this concentrated hot solution is poured over and pumped through the clothes. AFter a few minutes, the drum fills to a minimal level appropriate for the load and the agiotation cycle begins. There are two rinss, the second a deep rinse with a larger volume of cold water. Overall the cleaning is quite adequate and the machines capacity very good for an upright. The inner housing surfaces are sloped and thhere is nowhere to rest the agitator cap while adding detergent. A liquid bleach dispenser would be nice. Overall, while this maching does an OK job, it does it in an unusual way, and I'm not sure it's that superior to a far cheaper machine. And, I have reservations about its long term reliability. I am also concerned about the wat it beats up my stuff. [...] I would not recommend this maching to someone else. i would instrad buy a mid range whirlpool, avoiding the exotic (Calypso) and gadget laden machines. Ah, to have our pre-neptune Maytags back..."