Happy 19th Birthday to my Whirlpool Duet Front Load Washer

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Mine is 10yo this year. They originally landed in AU for $3600, I bought this when whirlpool were running them out and shutting up shop in Australia for $1299

I put a new belt on a few years ago to deal with a squeak when it changes direction, but otherwise it’s had zero maintenance.

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I know the voltage is different in Europe..... I wonder if someone did a tear down of a Whirlpool European or Australian Duet vs basically the same version from the USA... I wonder how much difference there is in the actual guts of the machine?
 
Capacity

We got our Duet pair in 2007.  I know the washer had a larger basket than the 2008 Frigilux Affinity that we got for the new place, which was 3.5 cf and had the same footprint as a TL machine. 

 

What sold me on the Duet were the TV ads claiming it could hold 16 pairs of jeans.  I quickly learned that those were tiny Nancy Reagan size jeans, if not smaller, and not the 36 x 36 size I wore.  I think the basket was close to 4.0 cf.
 
Mark, I did a teardown of one recently and was able to use a US repair manual for diagnosis.

The main changes in the AU spec, are cold fill only, the bleach dispensing section in the drawer has a lid on it and the heater is used in every cycle. The dispenser mechanism has a position for bleach and also a position for hot water inlet, but the computer seemingly just ignores those. The computer is labeled for AU and Europe.

The cycle lengths are european, it generally runs for around 1.5 to 3 hours depending on the cycle.

Unlike the Neptune's that only had a 1.3kw element, these seem to heat with a full 2kw.
 
Gotcha.. I've seen Euro and Australian Duets that looked almost identidical but I knew there had to be differences.

Oh yea... I remember the 16 pairs of jeans thing!
 
I'm so glad to hear this! I am happy that you were able to live out your user name enjoying the same luxury performance for years on end. How all appliances purchases should be, decades of trouble free service with peace of mind.  I hope your duets lasts another 19 years. 
 
Differences

At least the second generation of the Duets sold here (like mine) had hot and cold fill. It starts with some cold and then alternates to achieve a fill of about 40C, heating from there up to 203F.

The drum is around 95 liters or 3.4 cu.ft.

The bleach dispenser on mine is fully functional but the manual simply disregards its existence and says not to use it.

The door glass protrudes further into the drum. An employee of the R&D department here told me that they had issues with clothes getting trapped in the door boot (if the washer was fully loaded the way we do), thus the modification.

Of course there is the access door to the lint trap.

As mentioned before, the cycles are different with numerical temps and spin speeds. No warm rinse. A steam generator was only an option in some countries.
 
Capacity

My Duet was a later 3.9 cu ft. machine. It also had the belt squeak on slower tumbles. Ours always had issues with balancing, but was on a pedestal. That likely wore the machine out prematurely. Within the first year we called service for this issue and they replaced the control board. That did nothing. Since my Duet was a later version, water level was low on Normal and very low on Heavy Duty. Temps were also dumbed down on Normal.
 
Water level on mine varies from "clothes are wet - that's it!" to almost reaching halfway up the back of the drum.

Seeing how long these machines here last, my next washer will probably be of the water-less variety or clothes will have become self-cleaning. 😅
 
I just saw these three videos about the Duet, it was very cool and educational to watch because there were some things that I didn't even know about them. Just like when I watched the owner's video of my grandparent's Kirby G4 vacuum as a kid. I might still have the video for our old Maytag Neptune, not sure though but I do have the manual still.

I did reach out to the current owners of the cabin from Airbnb and I'm gonna find out if the Duet is still there or not because I'm curious now to see what models the set were, I already know the GE set is gone unfortunately. And when I go to Costco this week, I'll also find out if the powder detergent is still available or not. According to amazon where you can buy them at, they're not discontinued.





 
I think I still have the DVD that came with my washer and yes I did watch it...that was cool to see again...I have a really DUMB question. in the detergent dispenser, there is a divider that you can change wheather or not you're using detergent or powder. Obviously mine is placed in for powder...for liquid is sort of locks the liquid in... so if you're using liquid...I'm imagining the water jets spraying into where the liquid detergent is... how is that actually getting into the wash drum when the water starts ... since the divider is keeping the detergent from running down into the laundry before you start the wash.. does it overflow into the prewash and go down that way or something? You'd think I'd know this at this point. LOL

I was scrolling through youtube shorts and came across a video of someone filming their laundry room... it was a duet pair like mine and in the caption they said 20 years old and still going strong.
 
On my divider (that's somewhere in the pedestal) there is a small cutout in the bottom that causes residual water/detergent in the dispenser to seep out after filling has stopped. It's sort of delaying the release of liquid detergent until the water comes in, at which point it probably just overflows into the pre-wash compartment.
 
The divider in mine

has a syphon tube to empty the compartment when the water stops, Rarely use it as found thick liquid would sit in there as too gloopy to be syphoned, So if not using a prewash I tip liquid into the door seal and job done.
 
No syphon tube on my main wash. But I’ve always assumed it can overflow into the space between the two compartments and then whatever is left, is diluted enough to drain through the slit.

My bleach dispenser does have an opening, but no label and it’s not referenced in the manual

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