Thomas:
I'm far from surprised that some washers can cost as little as $38 to be manufactured -- in fact, if you go to Amazon, you can buy a Panda twin-tub for about $150 including shipping and handling and, the thing is, someone commented I think here in Automatic Washer that if one wants to buy a pallet with a hundred of them they cost less than $50 each.
But that just reinforces what I said, from my perspective: those machines have no transmission save for the pulleys and belts, they have large parts made of injected plastic, not a lot of labor for assembly. And given how little the design has changed in decades and that I'm willing to bet that no test to destruction was carried, *poof*, cheap machines.
Now, take a look at a very similar idea, a twin-tub by Danby, almost identical *except* that instead of an impeller, it has an agitator and consequently a transmission with gears and the whole machine is heavier. *Poof*, over $300 per item. That's a big difference, which I'm well aware it's not the difference in manufacturing costs, it might cost only about $50 more to make the transmission, but the transportation/distribution/marketing inflates that to a bigger difference for the end customer/user. And yet, a fully portable automatic top loading washer which uses an impeller can be had for less than that, but the transmission will be much simpler.
The point that you make about creating a brand new model is not lost on me. My point is slightly different: a lot of the times, when "new" appliances are introduced in US or, worse, in Brazil, what is actually happening is that Bosch, Whirlpool etc are moving entire manufacturing facilities lock, stock and barrel, to another country, in this case US or Brazil. Washer models that are over 10 years old in their original European countries, and whose manufacturing machines, tools and dies, injection molds etc were all amortized and paid for, but since the model is obsolete in Europe, they just moved the manufacturing facilities to another country and offer the model as "new" there. Just like the Philips front loader that was originally from UK but started being made in Argentina (where the power requirements were right [240V/50Hz]) and then exported to Brazil, they could cost much less, but they did not stay like that for long, as soon as the "Frigidaire" machines proved the market was receptive, they were "withdrawn", three months later same model with different brand and much more expensive price showed up.
Also, I'm willing to bet that Electrolux runs all the tests you are suggesting, but I'm not willing to bet American or Asian manufacturers do. Maybe instead of testing the entire prototype they do sub-assembly tests, or just "what the hell let's see what happens" in some in-house tests. But honestly, with all the bugs that we've seen in washers here, I have difficulties thinking that even one end user touched the product before it was released (I know that at least in Brazil, Electrolux used to go talk to users and even invited some to the labs, one of my neighbors was in the QA team and she said they used to examine complaints fully).
The other thing I wanted to say is that maybe manufacturers don't run all the tests for top loaders as they do for front loaders, but first off, those tests should have been seen as fixed costs, once they are done, it doesn't much matter if you produce two hundred thousand units or millions of units and, properly speaking, fixed costs should be amortized in 5 to 10 years, not on the first fifty thousand units. So the difference for the tests alone is that if you sell one million machines of each kind, the built-in cost for the tests is 20 bucks for the front loader but 5 bucks for the top loader, which is not that much in a machine that costs over $800. On the other hand, if the difference is on the transmission, that is a cost that re-occurs with each unit, and if each geared tranny costs $50 or $100 to make, you can't make the machine cheaper. The costs of the initial tests will approach nil if one makes 40 million washers like some models do.
Yet another point of view is that when top loaders spun at 400 rpm for delicates and 640 rpm for normal, maybe you could skip half the tests. When they are now at the 800-1100 rpm range, decent manufacturers should be running the same tests they run for the frontloaders, because the danger goes up with the forces, stresses and strain involved, and the 3 factors are linked to the spin speed, in fact some forces grow with the square of the spin speed, as opposed to everything else. We've seen some frontloaders that exploded and mostly things that were on top or the sides got affected, but when the HE impeller top loaders from Asia exploded, the *front* of the machines got affected too, that is, something at high speed could escape the confines of the washer and hurt a nearby user.
And just to press a bit more on what I'm saying, both in Brazil and US, tumble dryers, which are the machines that have the least material, number of parts and labor of all, still cost as much as the washer (front or top loader) it matches. It's pretty rare to re-design a dryer -- the design was finished 40 years ago, there might be some small changes over the decades to simplify assembly and/or make something cheaper, but the vast majority of "changes" are only cosmetic changes to make the machine match the new model year look. It's hard to find a dryer that costs less than the matching washer model. Look at dryers from a specific manufacturer, for example GE, Maytag, Whirlpool etc, and you find the same basic machine for less than $300 bucks to go with the bottom-of-the line washer and all dressed up in pretty clothes going for over $1,000 to go with the top-of-the line washer. Oh, sure, the "features" are different, the BOL doesn't have a delay timer, the MOL has a 4h delay timer, the TOL has a 12h delay timer or some simple change like that which is implemented in software anyway and can't justify 700 bucks difference *except* that they know the buyers will spring the money for the prettier dryer to match their prettier washer. Hell, people pay 300 bucks per pedestal (washer and dryer) despite the fact that now the machines are too tall to be used as a practical work surface to treat and/or fold the laundry, for example. And prior to the HE frontloaders showing up with pedestals (so people don't need to "stoop"), people were perfectly happy to use the front loading dryers anyway with no trouble. What's up with this fear of stooping people have, are they afraid someone will show up behind them and take their virginity or something?
So, maybe we're in "violent agreement" here, or maybe we need to agree to disagree, but from my perspective, the logical conclusion is that the more parts and labor something has, the more it costs to *make*. How much it costs to the end user depends a lot on what the market will bear, but the manufacturers have over the decades pulled the wool over the customers' eyes over and over again, and it's not just Research & Development costs that make something expensive, as it's easy to see with tumble dryers.
And yes, in case any or you *are* wondering, I too overpaid for my dryers so they match the washers. ;-)
Cheers,
-- Paulo.
