AEG Heater failure

[saj6952]

Hi all,

Not posted on here for years but I'm a little disgruntled and therefore reaching out for a collective opinion!

I bought a brand new AEG washing machine in January this year when I moved house. This time last week when running a 95c cottons wash, I noticed that the machine was washing in cold water. After trying a number of different programmes, I discovered it wasn't heating the wash water on any programme and not producing steam on the appropriate setting either.

So I called 'Service Force' and had the obligatory four day wait for an engineer to come out to me. Out he comes on Tuesday this week... A very charismatic chap who made a whitewashed wall look almost entertaining. The visit lasted less than 5 minutes. He pushed a few buttons on the machine and managed to generate an error code (E69) and then abruptly told me that he hadn't got a new heating element in the van so it would have to be ordered and it will take 7-10 days.

Thankfully, it hasn't taken that long, so a different engineer shows up this morning possessing a shiny new heating element. Starts effing and blinding about my vinyl flooring in the utility room and complains that the machine is heavy. So he replaces the heater and then advises me that if the pump fails for any reason it will not be covered under the warranty as the discharge pipe is not plumbed in according to specification... Fair enough!

He shows me the heater which is covered in scale deposits. I questioned him as to whether he would expect to see this in a machine which is only 9 months old. He proceeded to tell me that if I could find a Teflon coated heating element for the machine then to 'feel free and go ahead'. And that the build up is caused by using powder detergent. He personally recommends those 'sachets'. As I'm not as much of an avid laundry buff as I once was, I'm not as familiar with products on offer these days so I questioned him on the use of 'Calgon' type products which he snorted at!

So apparently, to prevent a repeat of this episode, I need to wash with liquitabs and run a 95c cycle once a month. Now then, I use a mixture of powder and liquid detergent depending on what I'm washing. It goes on a 95c cycle at least once a fortnight with a couple of 60c washes each week. The rest of the time it's generally used on 40c cycles. Once a month I put a proprietary washing machine descaler in it and run it empty on a 95c cycle (not that it's done it much good.)

My question is two fold... a heater failing after just 9 months on what is alleged to be a premium brand machine. Is it acceptable? I appreciate the water quality isn't great but I've lived in areas of the country with water which is equally as hard and I've never had an issue with machines I've owned for years and years.

Secondly, I suppose I'm fairly set in my ways in terms of my washing habits. A good hot wash for whites, towels, bed linen with a decent powder detergent and I don't do any of this cold water washing business. Anything below 40c is a rarity. Is it the case that I need to embrace a change in habits due to the fact that machines are not manufactured like they were even ten years ago due to this change in approach to embrace washing in cold/cool water?

All advice and thoughts welcome. I can't decide if it's me being unreasonable or not! Pic of said 9 month old heater below.

 

[henene4]

You are the third person on here having a heater fail during warranty, all with AEGs with the deep 66l drum and all from the UK. I suppose its a deep (63cm depth) AEG?

I begin to wonder what the actual reason for this build up is. And wheather its detergent or limescale.

Anyway, I'd go about as usual with laundry and not change anything except I'd run empty maintanance washes. Cotton 95C, possibly with some kind of descaler (NOT cleaner or detergent; the main active ingredient during this cleaning should be an acid of some sort).

We have a slimmer (55cm), more BOL AEG for about 3 years now, and so far had only one fault on it, which was a broken door seal.

 

[foraloysius]

Are you using the steam option often? Steaming functions in washing machines can be the cause for excessive calcium build up. While creating steam, calcium is left behind on the element with no detergent around to deal with it. IIRC the machines with problems all had a steam cycle.

 

[saj6952]

Steam cycle....

No, in actual fact, the only time I have ever used the steam cycle was this week to verify that the machine wasn't heating.

As for the drum capacity, 66l sounds about right. A few more pics of the machine below...

Saj

 

[Marky_Mark]

Sorry to hear about your machine having this problem so soon.  That looks like a pretty bad build up!  The obvious answer would be to install a whole-house water softener.  This will protect not only the washing machine but also everything else in the house.

 

Alternatively you could add STPP along with your detergent (sodium tripolyphosphate). This is a non-precipitating water softener available easily online at chemistry stores etc.  This is what detergents used to contain.  As the water in your area is pretty hard, you might need around 20 ml per wash, which should soften about 15 litres of very hard water.  It is a safe, natural product and our food actually contains lots of it, as does our urine, so quite a lot goes down the drain and it appears that the sewage plant in your area does remove the majority.  It is no longer added to laundry detergents due to excessive quantities contributing to eutrophication of waterways although it is still added to dishwasher detergents.  Unfortunately the phosphonates found in laundry detergents these days do precipitate a horrible grey powdery residue (if used in hard water) that resembles limescale and tends to set in hard clumps. 

 

If you do neither of the above proactive measures, then you will need to be reactive.  Doing a 95 <span class="_Tgc">°C wash with an acid (such as citric acid or any of the acid-containing washing machine descalers) will remove the limescale.  However doing a 95 </span><span class="_Tgc">°C wash with hard water and detergent that does not provide sufficient water softening will actually contribute to the build up of limescale and residues because the more the heater has to heat the hard water, the more limescale you will get.  Although it's still a good idea to do 95 </span><span class="_Tgc">°C washes as this will clean/kill/remove other crap in the machine.  As foraloysius said, steam cycles with no detergent will build up limescale more rapidly. </span>

 

<span class="_Tgc">Hope you find a solution!</span>

 

[ozzie908]

Being old school myself

I do agree with you as far as stick to your own regime for your laundry as I was always led to believe that in liquitabs there is no limescale reducing chemicals at all I must admit I too live where the water comes out fighting but have never had an issue with heaters unless previous owners have used liquid and 40c washes, but I do admit to being rather heavy handed with the old big box Persil that I use for the 3-5 white washes I do most weeks, An AEG belonging to a friend of mines mother looks just like yours and was just out of warranty had the exact same issue maybe AEG had a batch of iffy heaters??? Who knows anyway good luck with it all and let us know how you get on.

 

[hotpointwfwt02]

Saj

Were you sadose in 2006/2007? Did you own a Hotpoint Aquarius WF430 / Zanussi Timeline 1400 ZWF1451W and then did you own a Miele W4446WPS? What happened to the Miele?

 

[saj6952]

That's me!

I left the Miele with my late mother when I moved elsewhere in the country for work. It suffered with a few niggles and we donated it to a dog grooming parlour a few years ago. Whilst living in Scotland for the last 6 years until recently I had a Hotpoint Aqualtis which provided excellent service. I left the machine there when I moved back over the border and bought the AEG.

I like the AEG as it doesn't take forever to wash like some of the newer models on offer. Let's see how long the heater lasts in it this time!

 

[pedro]

Hi Saj6952,

I have the same machine as you and only had it three months when the heater failed. My washing habits are much the same as yours, mostly 40c washes with a couple of 60c a week. I usually do towels and bedding on a 60c or 95c.

The element they took out of mine looked identical to yours, i was amazed it had got into such a mess in such a short amount of time. My experience with the repair was fortunately better than yours, the fault was diagnosed within a couple of minutes but the guy had the part of the van and so the machine was up and running within 20mins of him arriving.

I was disappointed that it failed within such a short amount of time as i'm otherwise quite impressed with the machine. Since the repair i've started using anti-limescale tabs in the hot washes and i'm going to keep a close eye on it. If it fails again then i may look in to replacing the machine. The only reason i didn't go for a Miele at the time is because i was saving for my wedding but now that's out of the way, the money situation is a little better.

 

[pierreandreply4]

have you tryed cleaning your washer with hot water and vingar or looking into replacing the heating element of your washer or clean the part with lemon juice or soak in some clr?

 

[timon90]

Not the first time...

I'm seeing this quite often...AEG is "supposed" to be a premium brand, but not with premium quality! They are only expensive Zanussi machines!

I think there is many reasons the heater breaks like that, but the main reason is a combination of not using the 90/95* cycle as often as nessesary, choice of detergent, and the design of the machine. Because I rarely see this occures in a machine with stainless steel tub! Carboran(plastic-fantastic) is a perfect surface/place for "stuff" to bond and "grow"..!

And I'm working as an tech on appliances, including E.lux/AEG, so I'm catching up the differences out by the customers..

 

[gletts]

That's awful for such a short life of the heater! I have the John Lewis branded equivalent of your machine, but the washer-dryer version. I imagine it has the same, or very similar heater in it (ours has the steam cycle too, which we actually do use 3-4 times per week as it's excellent at getting creases out of polo shirts).

I religiously do a maintenance wash every 4 weeks, think I'll start adding some descaler now!

Can anyone recommend the best descaler to use that's easily obtainable in the UK?

It may be worth taking the extended warranty on this machine when the 3 year John Lewis warranty expires I think. If our previous AEG L14750 is anything to go by, we'll get our money back several times over each year!!

 

[henene4]

timon90

I'm sorry, but if you are a tech, you should do some catching up...

Yes, you see these failures less in SS-tub machines, not because the tub is stainless, just because their heaters and their overall quality is better. In your equation, every plastic tub machine would have that problem including for example the (verry rare) Miele toploaders of the past I think 15 years. Or Bekos or Hotpoints (of which I don't think I ever heared a heater failure within 3 years).

Further, the buildup on the tub is something else then the buildup on the heater.

And saying AEG is supposed to be a premium brand but is just Zanussi as well sounds kind of wrong as well. AEG is far from premium (their TOL model of 2nd last generation retailed at 700€, the price of a solid MOL BSH machine), and no, AEG is not Zanussi, AEG is ELux just like Zanussi, Zanker, etc. And if you service ELux, you wouldn't even divide between them.

And a boilwash cycle alone will prevent buildup of any watersoluable crud, yet just boilwashing without any acidic component will not prevent any mineral buildup.
And as a boilwash in any Protex&#92ProtexPlus machine won't exceed 80°C anyways (which is clearly stated in the service literature), and any ELux machine of the past few generations I came across only ever stated 95°C, I'm not quite sure why you'd say 90/95°.

Sorry for my rant-iness...

 

[aquarius1984]

I too am fed up with this attitude towards plastic outer tubs.

In the UK, plastic outer tubs have been in common use now for 40 years and from what I have seen they are no better or worse than any metal tub machine be it stainless steel or enamelled steel.

If anything stainless steel tubs offer no advantages over plastic.

Heat from the wash water is lost more quickly due to conduction in stainless and enamel.

Should a coin or other hard object get flung into the outer tub then I always assumed damage would be potentially worse as stainless steel can be pierced more easily than plastic, - in plastic the material can take some degree of impact which could prevent fracture damage due to its slight flexibility.

There is also a train of thought that plastic has the ability to be moulded much more precisely than metal helping bearings to sit properly and thus reduce wear and tear on the bearing seals etc.

Dirt build up on plastic is just the same as on stainless and enamel, this is obvious from washing greasy roasting tins and rinsing with cold water just as it does when washing plastic tupperware containers and rinsing with cold - this comes down to the detergent used and in the right doasge for the soil.