Pre 2010 Candy Explodes in the UK

[nrones]

No recall

For sorting out the problem: In every text about this it said that Candy Repaired machine that was broken in the factory (the one that was assembling the drums) in 2009, that means that good machine is there from 2010 on.. and it is for machines that came ONLY from BRUGHERIO factory! (in that factory thing was broken).

No recall, because too little cases happend! I know that number around 30 cases (from both Indesit and Candy) looks BIG, but to the number of machine they sell in the year it"s like 0.01%. Ofcourse because of this problem you can call both Candy and Indesit, and (suprisingly) they will come for a free checkup!

Oh I forgot to say that drum machine in Brugherio was broken, but not totally.. simply it done some drums properly as it should, and some not.. anyway it"s replaced year and a half ago.
+injured people.. I think I read somewhere that the reason why they weren"t recalled in Germany, is because they done some tests, and they came to conclusion that people can only be injured, without anything deadly. If I find where I read it I will post it.

cheers,
Dex

 

[3beltwesty]

Most Washers with a major failure are disposed of.

Today's society typically will not pay more for consumer items that are easier to repair. What sells is a flashy new looking item, that polished mirror finish spin basket. The labor cost of replacing a corroded aluminum spider and or bearings on a typical FL washer can approach what another new washer costs. The problem is worsened with items not built in ones own country, parts cost more.

It is actually we consumers that put a price on safety. Nobody wants to have all ones items one buys double in price. If 1 in 10,000 tires gets a bubble in 10Km; none will pay double to have 1 tire get a bubble in 20Km.

Consumers whine about a few percent difference in prices, they work sales, try to skirt VAT and sales taxes.

I drove an 1971 MGB that twice had its headlight switch fail and thus one had no headlights. The first time it happened was while on a dark windy road at night. I guess the theory is one in Europe uses the highbeam arm as the backup?. ie MGB knew about the issue and consumers did not complain enough to get a better switch. I never had a USA built car do this ever, thus here it was shocking. It is also why Lucas is called the Prince of darkness with electrical items here.

Here in the USA some states charge yearly local taxes on one's inventory. Thus if one has 100,000 dollars worth of spare parts in a store, one pays about 3000 dollars per year in tax. This is a local tax on the items cost, paid as a property tax. To get around the tax some do not count all the items; or move them out of the building, or hide stuff. With time many old parts have palty sales; thus the tax is more on the item than the sales and parts are sold to another dealer; or more often thrown away and go into a landfill. One could buy some spares on Ebay for little cost and the tax man wants to carry the items tax basis as what the normal cost is.

 

[aegokocarat]

i recently found odut that the pulleys are made from plastic

 

[keiththomas]

I was told and remember the Hoover De luxe from the 1970's was such a bad machine that Hoover had to get the act quickly together as customer flocked to buy AEG and Zanussi machines in the late 1970's and ealy 1980's. I have heard of this and this fault should not be happening, The trouble today is that many brands are now owned by big groups and made on automated lines.

 

[hoover1100]

No recall?

I'm sorry, but that's disgisting, it dosen't matter how few machines it is, or that they have fixed the problem. It also dosen't matter if the machines would "only" injure people, not fatally.

They know that some of their machines, no matter how few, could potentially injure someone and won't do anything about it. Shows what kind of careless money hungry company Candy is (and Indesit).

Matt

 

[lavamat_jon]

I don't think Toyota had too many cars with their recent, and somewhat infamous accelerator fault, but they still recalled them.

 

You can have 1 machine in say 500,000 that has a serious fault, but if all machines are made to the same standard with similar defects/weaknesses then what's to say it won't happen again?  The basic matter is that 30 machines have more or less self destructed, whether its 0.01% of the manufacturing output or 100% it still needs to be sorted especially in such a serious case!  Whether it's of a current generation or previous generation either does not matter, the quality shouldn't have been so bad for it to happen in the first place. What if it happened when a kid like most of us would have done when we were little were sat in front of the washer watching it? Or even to a bystander preparing dinner in the kitchen over or near to the washer...

 

Must be a thing with Italian companies in general, after another fairly recent experience I've had with Fiat...

 

Jon

 

[74simon]

The fact that Hoover/Candy claim the issue was resolved in 2009 bothers me - it does rather imply that after identifying the potential problem, they just hoped that it wouldn't manifest itself in the lifetimes of the affected machines. Their claims that it is a 'very small, very rare issue' rings a bit hollow, as new cases keep cropping up - it'll be interesting to hear what UK Trading Standards decide to do.

Like Keith says, drum failures have happened before, but old machines offered a degree of protection with their steel outer tubs, which would have lessened the chances of the inner tub exploding out like it has on these machines with plastic outer tubs.

Personally, I'd be very wary if I owned any of these Hoover/Candy machines. The faults and their response with the 'The One' vacuum cleaners showed their contempt for the customer, but at least safety wasn't an issue with those. It seems that the only thing that is going to make the company take action is, unfortunately, the first major injury or - god forbid - death that this causes.

It kind of reminds me of the Corporate Ethics scandals from the automotive industry - the Chevrolet Corvair of 1960, where the car could lose control and roll over very easily, and the 1971 Ford Pinto. With that vehicle, Ford actually calculated that it would be cheaper to pay compensation to the families of those burnt to death in those cars than to recall all the cars and fix them. That one puts a chill right down my spine, and puts me right off Ford cars!


<iframe title="YouTube video player" width="480" height="390" src="" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

 

[3beltwesty]

About 15 to 20 years ago there were many counterfeit "foreign" auto parts on the market in the USA. One of the major car magazines was showing how to id the fake boxes, fake logos. In some knockoffs of Lucas ignition points and coils, the knockoffs were better in quality. With the MGB I drove once the bug came off the rotor and I got stuck on the road. I had a spare in the truck thus I got home.

In Fiats in the USA; there were some old models that got recalled because the car was a safety hazard because the frame rusted in key places and the car was structurally unsound.

A current scandel around the globe is that jet aircraft are serviced at the low bidder; and fake fasteners and parts are used at times.

The Chevy Corvair was no more dangerous than any other 1960's car of that era. Many folks ate up Naders book based on really no facts and BS.It really helped the Ford Mustang's sales too. What Naders book really did is get seat belts in cars, dual brake cylinders front/back, collapable stearin columns, keand side lights on cars around 1966 to 1967ish. The Chevy Corvair was the scape goat. It is really a great handling car. An MBG that dies in traffic or has its headlights die on a windy road is a corporate ethics issue, a dangerous simple thing like rotor and headlight switch is made to low in quality, thus one has failures at the worst times. Nadars book killed a car that was no le3ss unsafe that others of that era.

"A 1972 safety commission report conducted by Texas A&M University concluded that the 1960-1963 Corvair possessed no greater potential for loss of control than its contemporaries in extreme situations.[23]"

Chevrolet Corvair - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[3beltwesty]

Washings dangers

Historically dangers in washing were/are:

Drowning in the old creek,

catching Pneumonia

Getting burned by boiling water

Getting ones hands caught in a wringer machine

An exploding washer is so odd that a recall may not even have happened until recently.

There are probably gobs more folks electrocuted around a washer or dryer; or kids killed by getting into one; or folks who hurt their backs moving them,dryer fires, than ones hurt with exploding washers.

Having a washer fly apart and kill somebody seems like unwritten territory.

If it was fire related; then the fire guys get involved. It it was a expodling pressure vessel, the ASME guys here get involved.

The washer basket flying apart is like a failure of a clutch that breaks and is massive failure, or where the lawn mower blade tip speed is regulated here.

The whole boiler codes came out in the steam train era due to loss of live and limb.

Other than dryer fires, kids in washer/dryer, wringers ; shocks and getting hands into belts/pulleys; that other hazards have there been?

 

[nrones]

They still aren"t sleeping!

You people constantly tell the neither Candy or Indesit doo anything..
Candy: you chan check by entering a Serial number of your machine (but that can be faulty), and no matter what you can call Candy service for free checkup! If machine is affected, you get another non-affected one for free...
Indesit: everything the same, but instead of having new replacement, you get some security things on it, that will make sure there will be inner damage only.
But it is true that they knew that there was something wrong, but maybe they thought it won"t be that bad.. who knows...

Maybe they did announced it somewhere, but nobody seen (and I repeat, probobly no one would know about this, if it didn"t happend in Stiftung Warenttest lab - whao knows what other scandals there might be on washers!). I am telling this because they mooved producing their gas hobs in Turkey, and in turkey there was no law that said the "sicuriflame" (the thing that stops flowing of gas if there is not flame) has to be put. So they in Turkey didn"t put that, so those hobs were like all others, just without that extra security --> Candy announced that on every country"s website where those from series it wasn"t put were sold (you can go to Candy italian website to check..)

Well, anyway it shouldn"t have happened. :/

 

[solsburian]

>>You people constantly tell the neither Candy or Indesit doo anything..
Candy: you chan check by entering a Serial number of your machine (but that can be faulty), and no matter what you can call Candy service for free checkup! If machine is affected, you get another non-affected one for free...

You can't check on the UK website (yet). On Which, a customer posted who purchased a GO482 in 2008 called Candy and reported that they blew them off saying that if there’s no problem with it now then it shouldn’t blow up.

BTW Our Hoover WD squeaky drum is getting worse; I'll be calling them out tomorrow.

About 3 months old and it will have its second callout by tomorrow - it speaks volums about Candy's lack of quality.

 

[hoover1100]

Well

I was looking at Hoover/Candy machines today, and to be quite honest, I was absolutely horrified!

The build quality of lower end brands today may not be up to much, but Hoover/Candy are quite clearly the worst of the main brands.

The drum weld, especially on the 6kg drums, is so pronounced and sharp you could very easily cut your finger on it (and I am not exaggerating at all!). No wonder it can break apart when it isn't properly welded in the first place! This wasn't just on one machine, it was on all the Hoover/Candy machines in the store, and pretty much exclusively the Hoover/Candy machines. I'm sure this is no good for the clothes being washed in the machines either!

Aside from the drum weld, it's also disgraceful how thin and poorly made the drums are on the whole. The almost non-existant drum paddles, especially on the larger drums, just add to the general feeling the the machines are built as cheaply as they can get away (I thought we'd moved on from non-existent drum paddles when Antonio Merloni went, trust Candy to bring them back!)

The external plastics are also incredibly flimsy, especially on the dispenser, the door hinges don't feel strong enough to hold that oversized door either.

Bearing in mind these machines can sell for well over £400, it's astonishing that they can get away with making them so poorly!

I'm not meaning to just go on a rant about Candy here, I'd never really given them much of a look before, they never interested me and I always knew they weren't that good, but thanks to this thread I gave them all a good look over, and honestly, I'm in shock at how they can get away with selling such poorly made machines, let alone selling them at such extortionate prices!

I'll certainly be recommending an Indesit over any of the other low ends brands to people looking in that price range, Zanussi if they have a slightly bigger budget and Bosch if they want a more mid range machine, a million times better!

Matt

 

[solsburian]

The drum seam on my Hoover is not sharp but is uneven. I agree that the plastic is very flimsy, and one of the screws holding the rear plastic trim worked its self loose, causing it to be extremely noisy during the spin.

Something else I don't like about the current Candy/Hoover machines is the flap for the drain cover. You have to pull it down to unscrew the cover and if you pull it down to far the flap's spring dislodges. To make it even worse my model does not have a drainage tube to drain the stump, so when you unscrew the flap it sends washing gushing all over the floor and inside the cabinet. A bowl won't help as it would be in the way of the flap.

I seriously regret buying it, it's one of the worst things I've ever purchased - I won't make that mistake again!!

 

[nrones]

Candy is bad, worse, worst, worst, worst, worst, worst, wors

Solsburian, As far as I know, your Hoover is post 2010, and they deffinatley should blow you off! because there is nothing wrong with your machine! (and can"t be if it is working fine-as it is)

Now you people finding out something somehow, I know their quality isnt so good, but this is beginning to be rediculous.

As I said it shouldn"t happend,that doesn"t mean I am telling you that it is perfectly normal, but in any way they arent as bad as you begun to write today.. (especially for post 2010 machines)

Ok, Candy is worst, there is no worse available, we should probobly call their service even when the machine is working properly, and then report how bad they are when they blow us off,when you touch them they fall apart, thousands of families will be shocked in few days when their machine blow up, there is going to be death cases, with all of that they are not washing anything and nobody will buy them EVER again, and they will probobly go down as a company, and never again come back to the market (as they deserve) <-- Happy now? -.- Only thing what you need to add this story is it happening in reality, not just in someones minds.. and that won"t be soon...

 

[hoover1100]

No need to take it personally...

and none of what has been said here is made up, certainly everything I said is completely true for all the Candy made machines I have seen and used in recent years.

If Solsburians machine is making a squeaking noise, then it certainly is faulty, and it is not acceptable for Candy to "blow him off", although, it seems poor after sales service is just to be expected from so many companies now.

As for Candy being "the worst", there are machines like Haier and a few other very cheap brands sold under various names which I'd consider "worse", but of the 'major' brands, I'd say Candy is by far the worst, that's my opinion based on my, and many other people's experiences. You like them, and that's fine, but that dosen't mean their shortcomings should be ignored completely, I'm perfectly ready to accept that Miele are not 'perfect'!
Matt

 

[solsburian]

Likewise everything I've said has been true. I purchased my Hoover in good faith, knowing fine well it was a Candy and the issues people have had with them in the past.

The annoying thing is that for the same money I could have purchased a Bosch Washer Dryer.

 

[fl1012]

Amazed.

Absolutely amazed that Candy can get away with such a halfarsed response. If this were a car manfacturer & safety was involved, they'd be MADE to recall the affected product. Why is this not being treated the same? I hope Trading Standards make them recall every potentially affected machine, because this certainly is not that rare going by how many times it's been reported on here, Which? etc.

Which? is a load of cr*p though tbh. How can they say they don't have enough data for Candy reliability yet make no mention of Hoover's no doubt poor reliability? They must know theyre the same brand! It also amuses me how two models in the same range can have totally different results, even though their programming will be identical. It's for this reason i cancelled my subscription with them.

However, i take slight offence to people being negative about Beko products. Some may not last as long as they should, but their quality appears leagues ahead of Hoover/Candy, Hotpoint/Indesit and all the other random brands like Haier, Haus etc.

It must also be noted that in response to Jon's comment re Italian brands, Zanussi is Italian & are one of the best machines in their price bracket for build & reliability.

Liam

 

[aegokocarat]

zanussi reliable ?!

my zanussi was a heap off s*** it was loud and the door lock was faulty. the inspection cover on the back was made of plastic and overall i was beggining to think if a haier would've lasted longer (resticted my self from buy a haier don't worry) it was turly awful. trading stadards got involved and said it was unsafe for use and the zanussi test lab in milton keans came to pick it up and now i have a beko wme7247s. my hotpoint is still working and the beko is my collection peice.
(i only have 3 dryers and thats it and 2 washers)
ps my other cousin has a cand and its been nothing but trouble one of the paddles has come off and he has constantly changed the fuse in the plug it told him to get a beko or a samsung.

 

[nrones]

**update

Today I looked at welds in my GrandOPlus and GO510, I did my best to cut my finger really, then I took a weak cloth and literally tried to ripped it.. both didn"t work.. (I will film and upload it if you want)

Solsburian, can is your Hoover washing and drying?

I know you guys can sometimes see I got it personally, and that I got so "live" in it.. just saying that because of my personal experience from 2008.. maybe some of you know this story..
In our 2nd flat, old Gorenje washing machine broke, and it was time to buy new.. I was reading everything you guys said about Candy, and I literally got on with it, when we were in the store, I said my parents that it is going to fall apart within a year, that it is simply sh**. They just said me that they will buy Candy, because our 3 friends bought Candy washing machines in 2006 and were satisfied.. We bought GO510.. and I was honestly sad.. all because I belived posts like this...
That was december 2008, in December 2010 GO510 had her 2nd birthday, so 2 years of working-still perfect, and it is working and washing very good, and belive it or not, much more than GrandOPlus, because I donated to wash all the laundry for kindergarten where I used to go, and all laundry from them goes in GO510 (including toys).. so at least 7 times a week, if I wash all our laundry in my other washer.
So, I really wasn"t positive to Candy, but would you all just stand there and wach such posts if you had the same experience? + you have alot of friends with Candy"s (here is Candy number 2 most sold brand in the country) all satisfied.. for example our friend that has a WasherDryer CLD135, and a baby, dries every load in it.. so it basicly means every day wash and dry... it is from 2006, and all that they had to do is regular maintenance of fluff cleaning from pipes..

It"s just that your and my experience don"t match at all, and it seems we both can"t figure that out!

 

[foraloysius]

Bad washers aren't bad because every single machine of that brand is bad, but because an above average of machines is having problems. It may well be that a lot of people are very happy with their Hoover or Candy. And it may well be that your machine becomes a classic. My mother thinks Candy are the worst machines ever made. Her 1965 Candy was broken beyond repair within one year. Still you see quite a lot of classic Candy's around. My mother's bad experience doesn't say a thing about the quality and the saved machines don't either. It's the figures that count. And these figures apparently count very bad for Hoover/Candy. After all, we haven't seen any exploded Zanussi, Bosch or Miele machines.