I have to agree with Nick (nickuk) on this:
“… the way the dial purposeful lunges round to spin just at the right point and then that classic Hotpoint spin…”
I love the engineering and design of any product, and I honestly believe that the Hotpoints we all know are love are just fantastic pieces of straightforward, solid engineering that were in more households from 1970s, 1980s and 1990s. What we have now of course is just rebadged Indesits/Aristons made in the same Hotpoint factories – still nice machines in some ways, but they sorely lack the reliability, quality and ‘soul’ of the ‘real’ UK-engineered Hotpoint.
Oh how I miss replacing the brushes every few years with Dad on my Microtronic L.E. – the best washing machine we have ever owned. Yes – even better than the Miele, Jon!
We picked the Miele for various reasons, but one of the main ones is that we have never managed to get back to the same standard and ‘feel’ as our old Microtronic, which lasted from 1983 until 1995… with just a few brush changes and not a single fault! It was on every day for all that time, and it never let us down. I picked it as a 4-year-old because I liked its green lights and the fact that it *didn’t* have dial! As a 4-year-old, to me, it was a computerised washing machine, which it was!
Going through a Whirlpool and a Bosch we found a decent replacement for our Microtronic finally this year – the Miele. Even Mum and Dad actually *love* the Miele! Honest! Dad can fix washers like Hotpoints and used to sell them years ago in retail, and he even feels the Miele is like the spiritual replacement for our Microtronic – “Finally, the decent machine we’ve been waiting for” are his words, roughly. And the noise of both Nick’s and nickuk’s washers here remind me of my old Microtronic of course.
We did not deliberately ignore Hotpoint after the Microtronic died, but we were warned off some of their models at the time from friends in the trade – we had always hoped to replace our Microtronic with, say, an equivalent new Hotpoint. We got the Whirlpool to tide us over while we waited for things to settle. When that went, we looked again at Hotpoint, but we were led to believe, again, that some models were not up to scratch. This was the late 1990s by then, and I think Jon has alluded to some rather iffy models from then. We went for the Bosch instead of the Hotpoint (not sure which model – sorry), but it was a depressing machine.
I know I may be waxing lyrical here, but there is such a thing as tactical feedback with engineered products like this – such as the way it is possible to predict what the machine is going to do, along with the clicks of the timer and the general ethos and soul of the machine. These were such things sorely missing from the depressing Bosch we had – it clicked, but that meant nothing. It was a drab, slow, boring machine that Mum hated. We had literally gone backwards, and we were stuck with it. The Whirlpool before that was far better – and was a lot cheaper!
Anyway, we now have what we believe is the proper replacement – at last! – for our Microtronic. It’s a Miele.
As many service engineers say today, hopefully there will come a time when companies like Indesit realise that churning out below-standard machines in great British factories is a fallacy. We may yet see some well engineered Hotpoints in the future – it may happen.
Again, great videos, Nick – I’ve watched both of them now.
Regards,
Carl
