A few weeks ago my washing machine started flashing the dreaded F02 signal. I have had this happen before and we had fixed very simply the last few times. My husband takes apart the filter and cleans the entire thing out and solves the problem. This time however, after taking it apart a few times we could not get it to work.
I was only able to get through a load of laundry by restarting it about 5 times. If you can imagine the amount of laundry I do a week this was REALLY slowing me down! I had piles everywhere and was getting really frustrated. My washer is only about 5 years old but didn’t have any warranty anymore. To have someone come out and look at it was $125 to start, plus whatever was wrong with it, the labor and parts. The people at Whirlpool estimated it to be about $350 to fix. To buy a 1 year warranty for it was $325.
We considered trying to fix it ourselves. We THOUGHT it MIGHT be the drain motor. To buy that part was $175. Now, if we were wrong, we were out the part and had to keep guessing.
So I started looking around at scratch and dent places. We have bought almost all of our appliances this way. As I am sure you can tell I have a really hard time paying full price for anything! 🙂 A little scratch or small dent to save $$ is not going to hurt my feelings.
We have not been really happy with our front loader. I know since 2006 they have redesigned them to drain better but my clothes always smelled a little mildewy. My Mother has not been very happy with her new one either. So I got a little brave and decided I was going back to the “old style” top loading washer. I am soooo happy that I did. I actually think my clothes are cleaner and the tub on this one is actually larger than my front loader. I am getting the same if not more clothes in at a time.
I found the one above, marked at $698. They discounted it to $450 because of a dent in the side you can’t see. I talked her down to $400 almost by accident, I wasn’t trying to bargain, I think she was worried I was walking away! I figure to fix my 5 year old model was going to be $350. I got a brand new one with a warranty for $50 more.
My only down side is that my washer and dryer don’t match, but I can live with that. OH! AND, I sold my old washer for $150 on craigslist for parts!