[45 of 45 customers found this review helpful]

Samsung 4.0 cu. ft. VRT Super Capacity Washer - WF328AAW Review

WF328

"While looking for some of the models highly rated by Consumer Reports (which surprisingly had very bad reviews online), I stumbled across this one at the Sears Outlet brand new with all the manuals (for about $250 off ) with some barely imperceptible scratches. I checked it out online and all Samsungs had great reviews so here's another after 69 loads of use.



The machine is installed in the basement on concrete and except for the "noisy" pump and some weird noises as it starts to spin, it's whisper quiet at top speed and tons quieter than the 17 yr old Frigidaire TL it replaced (hopefully it lasts that long). I can barely hear it tumbling if I stick my head in the basement door. It cleans extremely well, is gentle on clothes and spins dry enough that I can run a 51 min normal cycle which times perfectly with my 7 year old Whirlpool Gold dryer set on the next to hottest (casual) setting. The longer cycle is a moot point since I'm not waiting for the dryer AND our clothes are now clean. I can't believe that we actually thought that our old washer actually cleaned our clothes.



VRT is sweet and although I didn't care about Silver Care when I bought it, it works well enough that a bunch of towels that were destined for rag duty due to smell have been reinstated! No smells or any other problems.



Minor Cons:



1) The end of cycle chime is nice but too low even at max volume,



2) Once you hit start you cannot adjust some settings esp water temp so you cannot do a hot wash/warm rinse easily. If you pre wash or use delay start you MAY want to use a powder for the main wash because all the liquid will drip into the tub very quickly. It's only a problem with the pre wash which I have only used once but not necessarily with the delay start which I use frequently,



3) The water heater works but if your incoming cold water is say 40F and the standing water in your hot water pipes is at room temp the internal heater may not heat the water to as hot as you want by the time the wash cycle is over but it is OK.



4) Rinsing performance is fair but this is probably due to the following: a) Using Tide's recommended amount of HE soap. I'm going to cut the amount in half, b) Sometimes the VRT will take a while if it is a max capacity load and it gets off balance so just mix like clothes and/or do smaller loads. If the balancing takes too long, say during a rinse then the program will not fully rinse but will advance to the next fill step but it will certainly force a spin for the final spin. In this case an extra rinse and spin cycle is warranted, c) The spin cycle after the wash and rinse cycles (not the final spin) are short so they may be leaving a bit more soap in - cutting the soap amount may help.



5) Max spin speed is ~1150 when the rated max spin speed is 1200RPM



There is a service manual that came with the machine that will show you check things like water temp, spin speed, number of washes, etc. Glad we purchased it! Even with the nitpicky minor cons, the bottom line is that the machine cleans well, has been trouble free for 1.5 months and works exactly as advertised. I highly recommend it and hope you find this info helpful."