Okay, so after much ado about nothing, the verdict is in, with lots of pictures to browse through. Honestly, I wasn't expecting much and I'm glad I didn't because this poor lost soul was ready to ascend to the great beyond a LONG time ago. As basic as I can be with the story: it had been used for no telling how long at a tanning salon along side an Estate direct drive washer and a Roper dryer, both of which had been through as much hell as this poor thing. From the outside, this Duet looked a little worn, but nothing horrendous, just a few scuffs but no chips or dents or anything. I opened it, rotated the drum and it didn't feel or sound bad, and they had just washed a few hand towels in it, so I thought 'how bad could it be'? I fully expected it to be disgusting and need super cleaning but after that it would make a decent little machine to play around with and wash the dog's bedding, right?
Hell. No.
First off, I don't know how heavy this thing is, but my husband and I only got it up on the back of the truck by an upward breath of a friendly spirit. I've never moved an appliance this heavy; even a FilterFlo or Lady K feels feather light in comparison. So, upon moving it and lifting it, there was some god-awful disturbance moving around inside the cabinet, with that telltale sound of grit and debris moving around. Sure enough, I open the bottom plate and theres a chunk of concrete counterweight in about seven pieces there to greet me. So we just get home and get the thing off the truck and into the garage.
I plugged it in, hooked up the water hose to the cold side, and right off the bat, as soon as the lid locks and the water valve opens, water pours out the open hot inlet side, and this was on a cold Rinse Only test. I even unplugged the valve solenoid and still, in through the cold and out through the hot. So I found a cap to plug the hot side, just to continue the test. Keep in mind, if you look at the pictures, the door seal is quite warped, but there was no evidence of any water coming from the back of the tub. As soon as it begins tumbling, water starts drizzling not from the door, but from right behind the access panel. On closer look, I noticed that the broken counterweight was from the top front of the tub, and that apparently in whatever horrific mishap that caused it to break free, it ripped a few holes in the side of the boot, along with scraping a few wires and scuffing up the interior of the cabinet in general. I quickly cancel and drain the machine into a 5 gal. bucket and inspect the basket a bit more, to notice that there is a horrid popping and crackling sound as it's rotated, and then realize that the basket is sitting at a downward angle inside the tub. I could wobble the basket all around the tub without even moving the suspension at all. So that was it. That bearing is probably in about fifty pieces and the rear one is barely holding on. I was too scared of even trying to set it to spin because you could feel the basket scrub against the tub. And the kicker there is that they've been using this thing for no telling how long like this! It's apparent it didn't just happen recently with the amount of rust on the counterweight mounts, specifically in the areas where it sheared off. I don't even want to talk about what was in the drain trap....
All things considered, I'm not mad about it. I don't feel I wasted any money because I at least got to tear the machine down and put it back together, I'm just disappointed more in the fact that this is how the majority of appliances are treated in this world, and it's a bit eye opening really. This washer, all things considered even after being destroyed, is very well built, like a tank. If taken care of properly, this thing would still be in new condition now, being nine years old. It really does explain why the world of appliances is in the shape it's in now: most people using these machines are idiotic bimbos, like the leather bags that were running this tanning place, and no matter how well built the machine is, all it takes is stupidity to tear it to shreds. The only logical explanation for what happened to this machine is that they crammed it so full of towels that it couldn't balance, or that a towel was shut in the door seal and got jammed so that when the spin started, it knocked the machine off balance enough to shear through the steel mounts and cable that held the concrete to the tub and shatter the bearing. It's pitiful. We wonder why warranties have been reduced to only around a year, but my god, I don't blame them a bit?!
The poor direct drive was in such a shape I just couldn't look at it. The water level was, of course, set to Small, and it was currently chugging away at a FULL load of towels soaked in god only knows what. I peeked under the lid for a second to see that they have NEVER set the level selector any higher than small, as evidenced by the wall of brown against the speckled porcelain tub, while there was a solid line about halfway down where the tub was generally cleaner. Just...disgusting. I hate the world after this experience. I'm hoping the memory will fade away soon because that smell....a smell of cheap tanning lotions and despair...will haunt me forever...
