Well said and I agree 100%. Given a choice I would never buy a washer with a hanging suspension. To me it is unconscionable. Hanging suspension are not safe, practical or realistic in a top load washer.
When a Speed Queen goes of balance the tub will simply thud the cabinet and the basket will never reach full speed. The washer will not self destruct. I know because this has happened to me. On the other hand, a hanging suspension washer will violently slam the cabinet faster and faster to the point the cabinet bends outward the the outer tub cracks. I know because the same thing has also happened to me twice on a Model T. Electronic controls sensing feedback can reduce the possibility of this happening, but clearly not by 100%.
Hanging suspensions are only popular because they make LARPing feasible the lowest capital cost.
My VMW has a hanging suspension, but the VMWs of my generation with the proper balance ring didn’t explode, and it’s not a VMAX or first Ben Cabrio which seem more prone to exploding.
Hanging suspensions are not the best, I agree. They work fine on some of them, the more basic VMWs with the proper balance rings, or the cheaper GE’s with the agitators don’t explode. All the impeller GE’s seem prone.
Most of the exploding washers I’ve seen had an impeller, not the agitator, which makes me believe that adding an agitator is protective against explosions, not sure why.
The only agitator washers I’ve seen that exploded were the small balance ring style VMW’s with the six lights and the GE model-T’s.
The older agitator VMW’s weren’t even good at balance sensing (for ones with agitators), they didn’t explode but they pretty much destroyed themselves on the inside when the suspension was bad for a while. When porcelain tub style VMWs were shaking for a while, it would often cause issues. The top of the balance ring would often break and the bleach dispenser would often come off, the outer tubs would also often crack or break and sometimes inner drum. VMW’s are not good at balance sensing at all. They often shake violently and continue spinning even tho they do in fact have balance sensors, especially the porcelain tub ones and the 4.2 to 4.3 cu do models.
Those porcelain tub VMWs have the worst suspension rods of any VMW, especially the 3.4 model (which have the smaller balance ring) than the 3.5 to 3.6 ones. It seems like every WP that has the smaller balance ring is more prone to going off balance, tho the porcelain tub ones didn’t literally explode, they just kind of destroyed themselves on the inside if off balance for long enough. The older ones would get suspension problems within like 2-3 years.
Some manufacturers have prevented explosions by control controls sensing feedback, that’s what Samsung did in fact. None of their newer washers explode after they did that measure. All the Samsungs that exploded were the older ones. I mainly see the new GE’s exploding. Never seen the Mideas explode either, even tho the mideas are not even good machines.
I’ve seen people put bricks in Hydrowaves during spin cycle and it has blown up, and it blew the cabinet off. Those model-T’s and HydroWaves must especially be dangerous when they explode, as a big metal cabinet will just blew off and hit you if near it.
I’ve never seen an exploded washer in person yet, but that’s something that shouldn’t happen.
I look at the reviews for the discontinued GTW680, GTW750, and GTW500, and all of them have reviews about them exploding. High end GE washing machines aren’t safe!
No VMW is better than a direct drive, even the commercial ones. My favorite VMWs are probably the Maytag commercial units, the older VMWs were better than the newer ones. VMWs are one of the easier units to repair. Most of the parts on VMWs is pretty easy to replace, it’s easy to change a belt, actuator, motor, drain pump, lid lock, and others on those, the hardest job on a VMW is probably replacing the tub or the drive hub. The wash plates also tend to be hard to remove. Gearcase jobs and drive hub jobs seem to only really be the hard ones.
For those who are saying, Whirlpool is probably NEVER going to bring back their direct drive design. Sure, they might start to put stators on their most basic units eventually, but they won’t bring back the old school direct drive design. The last whirlpool direct drive was made in 2018. Whirlpool actually made direct drive stacks with H.E. agitators through 2017. The 2018-present stacks are VMWs, I would never buy one of those, they are likely hard to repair due to their weight, the washers on those aren’t front serviceable, meaning you have to tilt the stack over and make sure it doesn’t hit the ceiling, which must be a nightmare to fix.
I love the WP direct drives, I especially like the Maytag ones with the stainless drums. DD’s are my favorite washer platform, although I also really like the Whirlpool belt drives (not referring to VMWs, but the pre-1986 ones), Newton built Maytags, GE Filter Flos, and the older Speed Queens. The Norgetags and Amanatags weren’t as good.
The older Samsungs had a massive rust problem around the bleach dispenser, the metal around it would often rust out and deteriorate.
Although the older VMWs were decently reliable if maintained right, they still were not necessarily built the best. The ones with the stainless drum and proper balance ring (like mine) had much less issues with the suspension than the ones that had the porcelain drum. They never exploded in a dangerous way, and if fixed shortly after suspension rods went bad, no damage happened on the machine. These newer GE’s are literally blowing up without any history of banging.
I think if you kept running a whirlpool DD unbalanced and it kept beating on every load, it would eventually cause the outer tub to break or chip. I don’t think plastic outer tubs are the best, I think metal is better, tho I think they should be stainless steel, regular steel rusts out over time. Plastic outer drums just aren’t as good.
Plastic inner drums seem to hold up better than plastic outer drums do, not sure why. The GE’s used good plastic inner tubs, I’ve never seen one break unless someone put fireworks in it or something (which you should never put in a washing machine to begin with). Those GE washers had very tough plastic, the balance ring didn’t usually fail either, it was mainly the tub straps that went bad on the HydroWave. WCI Frigidaire also had plastic inner tubs that held up, as well as Norge and Amanatag. The plastic inner tubs actually seem to hold up better than the porcelain coated steel tubs do.
I wish every washer had a metal outer drum (preferably stainless steel) and a spring suspension.
