Junked a 2011 Hydrowave

[cfz2882]

This one was a real mess,but owners got every last bit of use:main seal had been bad for a while-water running down through splutch and getting into pulley bearing until it failed:slung off rust stains,bearing balls and belt fragments all over and in lower pan-belt broke and brought machine to a halt.Ran the washer to see if motor was good-it was,so kept that,timer and some other parts-the timer on this 2011 looked like a better timer design that the one on my basicly same ~2008 hydrowave

 

[gelaundry4ever]

GE!

I don't like the GE hydrowaves because of their sluggish agitation even on the extra heavy cottons cycle.

 

[whirlpool862]

HydroWaves were junk

Those were probably the worst washers GE has ever made. They were very unreliable and didn’t wash well.

 

[cfz2882]

It did well for modern machine

The worst washer i have seen was an LG topload-junk at not quite 4 years old-seal leaked,took out bearings and ruined the direct drive BLDC motor.The spline for the washplate drive shaft was undersized and nearly stripped-a design flaw.I do not know if these LGs wash well.I have a 2010 VMW Bravos(HE washplate) in collection and that thing is a washing S.O.B.-If load size is just right...

 

[whirlpool862]

You had bad luck. I’ve never seen a top loading LG with bad bearings and most of them last a while.

And the older VMW machines were decent if loaded properly. The newest ones are worse. That’s a 2010 model so that’s 14 years old, older VMWs seem pretty reliable and when they break they are usually easy to repair unless it’s the transmission or hub that's bad.

Both of those units lasted longer than a HydroWave on average, you just had bad luck. There were some people who had a Maytag dependable care last for 5 months and a Maytag Neptune TL last for 20 years. But, is that typical? ABSOLUTELY NOT.

 

[cfz2882]

The LG was someone else's bad luck -I got that at the dump with intent to fix and found it junk.The '10 bravos was another junkheap grab about a decade ago-bad control board-noticed visably bad capacitors on the board: replaced those and machine was working again crap capacitors were a problem in the consumer electronics industry starting around '02

 

[whirlpool862]

HydroWave was junk

All the people in my family I know have had premature failures with them, as well as my friends. There’s a reason why you don’t find as many HydroWaves as before, it’s because they keep breaking down. HydroWaves and the pre-HydroWaves were bad machines and were unreliable. “Pre-HydroWave” refers to the Model-T, just so you know.

I know someone who has had two GE HydroWaves fail and just replaced it with a Maytag VMW that’s been reliable. Also, your HydroWave had a bad mode shifter which is why it washed like a TR Speed Queen, a HydroWave with a good shifter will agitate separately from the tub.

 

[cfz2882]

no agitub action here...

tub does work correctly on mine-disengaged from agitator and locked.The long stroke agitation and water currents generated are very similar to a TR SQ-the Hydrowave does not have the motor power or stout enough belt to occillate the basket with the agitator like the TR-especially with the fluted basket of a Hydrowave-smooth basket of TR spins through water with little drag. Wash performance of the TR is debated here,but many like the TR series wash results

 

[thatwasherguy]

Back in 2020, when I first started repairing appliances...

One of the first machines that I got was a 2014 G.E. Hydrowave. The tub seal had let go, so It had bad bearings. However, the motor was also completely dead. The board on top of it was completely fried, complete with multiple scorch marks. My theory is that the tub seal had failed badly enough for water to run along the bottom of the outer tub, and drip onto that motor board. Needless to say, that one went to the scrapyard.
Thatwasherguy.

 

[cfz2882]

fried out motor inverter.

The motor inverter on a Hydrowave is always powered when the washer is plugged in-a blinking LED can be seen on it.

 

[gelaundry4ever]

lubrication

How are the bearings and gears lubricated on GE?

 

[cfz2882]

HW and T models

HW is greased ball bearings and sintered iron upper bushing-no gears in this design.
T model is greased ball bearings and the transmission has a medium weight oil-tranny internals are all iron and since the helix clutch and the brake are external on a T vs internal on a filter flo,oil stays decently clean.Helix clutch is far more robust on a T vs FF: Iron particles wear off the helix clutch and brake parts in a filter flo tranny and collect atop the lower oil seal and cause it to leak-oil slings off pulley, fouls belt,makes a mess... This condition can be smelt

 

[maytaga806]

Good. That’s where it belongs.

 

[cfz2882]

Dead,FUBAR 2011 Hydrowve...

...did cough up some good parts so another may rise from the dead

 

[whirlpool862]

All HydroWaves were junk

They typically only lasted a few years, and when you search “HydroWave” you can see a fair amount of videos of them malfunctioning.

 

[gelaundry4ever]

cfz2882

Thank you for letting me know about the GE model T gear oil. How does it compare to the filter-flo?

 

[cfz2882]

hard to say-

-filter flo oil has always been contaminated when I had one apart-always with iron particulate,sometimes a little water also.

 

[gelaundry4ever]

GE oil

Didn't they feel or smell or even look the same? You would think that the model T and filter-flo used the same gear oil.

 

[DADoES]

 
<blockquote>You would think that the model T and filter-flo used the same gear oil.</blockquote> Why would that be expected?