When did GE start to go bad?

[Chetlaham]

Malfunctioning Model T

Here is just one example. The washer is relatively new and it just happens to have a major component glitch on a random cycle. Nothing novel or abnormal for a model T. Not weird either, every major and minor component shamelessly lacks self possession in these washer. Had it not corrected itself the motor's overload would've tripped out, cycle progressed like nothing  happened and then the machine would magically work fine on the next cycle until the next component randomly glitches out. Wash, rinse repeat until the machine has a permanent breakdown. You can't make this stuff up. 

 

 

See link at 15:05 

 

[whirlpool862]

Again, the GE Model Ts and HydroWaves were HORRIBLY made

The model Ts and HydroWaves were horribly made machines, and they didn’t last very long. The reason why you often see the low end HydroWaves in rental properties and college dorms is because the HydroWave was GE’s cheapest washer meant to be quiet. And they weren’t quiet at all during the spin cycle, the motors on those were a bit noisy, even louder than the pump. They were only quiet on the wash cycle.

This is an example of a person with a HydroWave that’s only a couple years old that’s already failing. The HydroWaves were worse than WCI Frigidaires, Amanatags, and even GE model Ts.

I’ve seen all sorts of failure modes with HydroWaves, this includes them not draining, bearing noise, scraping noise, moving the whole drum during the wash, and banging. Not only did the mode shifter bearing failure, but sometimes the HydroWaves would make a very annoying high pitched noise due to the motor going out.

When the mode shifter failed on the HydroWave they washed almost like a Speed Queen TR model washer. The GE HydroWave was essentially a GE model-T but worse. They had a gentler action but they had worse cleaning.

Here is a YouTube video of a Hydrowave GE washer with bad motor bearings despite it only being a few years old at the time. It sounds absolutely horrible.

 

[Chetlaham]

Dan, thank you for telling it like it is. I fully agree and it is a breath of fresh air seeing someone like yourself speak honestly about these abominations instead of being flat out disingenuous. I am not calling anyone out in particular, just that some need to take off their rose colored glasses and see that these washers were the beginning of the end of the appliance industry.  

 

[johnb300m]

I guess when you’ve been breathing in farts for so long, huffing cool whip nitro is fresh air….

 

[whirlpool862]

Even when loads properly, they were bad

Even if a HydroWave or Model T got loaded properly, they still failed prematurely. One of my friends had two HydroWaves fail for example, despite them both being properly loaded.

In the 2010s, you often saw a bunch of GE HydroWaves and model Ts in the scrapyard because they were so bad.

The HydroWaves didn’t turn over anything and when used at a low water and 360 degree motion of the agitator would tear the clothes.

On the model T machines, the entire inner parts of the machine would move back and forth when on agitation and would make a clunk when on spin.

The model T’s were quieter than the HydroWaves on spin cycle, that’s a plus. On wash cycle they made the chugging noise.

GE simply couldn’t compete with Whirlpool, Maytag or Speed Queen in terms of reliability.

Even a perfectly loaded, well taken care of GE HydroWave is terrible. If a GE model T or HydroWave is overloaded once, it can PERMANENTLY damage the machines. If you see a YouTube video of Hydrowaves or model Ts, you can see many of the videos featuring them malfunctioning. Any appliance technician back in the day would tell you that they’d avoid selling a used HydroWave or model T. On apartment complexes, apartment scrap years were often full of HydroWaves or model Ts. Very fragile machines.

The fact that people saw so many model Ts and HydroWaves being scraped just proves that on average they only lasted a few years. While a Whirlpool direct drive machine on average lasted like 14-16 years.

 

[whirlpool862]

Personally, I think even a Samsung top load washer is more reliable than any GE model T or HydroWave, at least Samsung machines don’t usually fail within a year if properly maintained, despite all the issues with Samsung washers, if someone made me chose between the GE HydroWave and a Samsung, I’d chose the Samsung. Samsung washers usually just have issues with their suspension rods which isn’t really that hard to fix. I do NOT like Samsung appliances but I’d choose them any day over a GE model T or HydroWave.

The GE kitchen appliances seemed to be quite decent for a while, at least the older ones were, but the newer ones made when Haier acquired GE seem a bit worse than the older ones were. Same goes for Whirlpool and Frigidaire. LG and Samsung kitchen appliances are worse.

You often see more older Whirlpool and Maytag laundry appliances in apartments these days instead of older GE’s.

Unfortunately, now Whirlpool might be facing a similar fate to GE due to a massive control board problem on low end VMW machines, but they are probably still more reliable than the HydroWave.

The newer GE models (2015-Present) aren’t really much worse than a Whirlpool VMW washing machine. They do have similar reliability issues. Like, GE’s now discontinued GTW460ASJWW and GTW465ASNWW washers had better reliability and cleaning performance than any model T or HydroWave. This applies to the other newer GE machines too. Personally, GE’s current washing machines seem better than Whirlpool’s current machines as of right now.

 

[panasonicvac]

I'm with John completely, I don't understand the criticisms behind the T machines (BTW this is the first thread where I've heard these machines being called model T as a code) so I'm not convinced. I loved mine and I certainly never had problems neither my cousin's. I've overloaded my cousin's before more than once by accident and it NEVER malfunctioned. But with a normal load, it turns over just fine like my Kenmore and laundry comes out clean with no rips. Overloading a machine is considered as user neglect. In fact I've seen one video of a direct drive that was overloaded and it broke the transmission during the cycle, clearly not the machine's fault. Anyways if something ever happened to my cousin's machines, I'd certainly try to get them fixed before getting a replacement. I'm looking forward to going back up there and do more laundry as they're such fun machines to use. One things for sure is I wouldn't recommend my cousin another GE as I'm unimpressed with their newer machines.

 

[whirlpool862]

The T model machines were much more prone to fail if overloaded than the direct drives.

 

[combo52]

Exactly what does overloading do to a T model washer

What does it break?

GET model washers had quite a few failures, no doubt about that, but I never saw anything go wrong with one that I would attribute to overloading, in general overloading extends the life of washing machines considerably the people that have by far the most problems with washing machines are the ones that do half loads and wear the machine out by running it so much.

The parts of washing machines that are replaced most often drain pumps, inlet valves, timers, lid, locks, etc. none of those are affected by overloading. They’re only affected by the amount of times they’re called upon to do their job.

Virtually all modern washers are also used in coinop models where people overload the hell out of them and they last just about as long as they do in homes.

John L

 

[gelaundry4ever]

chetlaham

Don't get me started with the GE dishwashers from the mid 90s and 2000s. I bet those were loud especially when the pump started vibrating so loud, especially when it tried to pick up pressure while filling. When the pressure was finally constant, it would buzz like it had something caught in it. I remember the last GE my dad had at work.

 

[gelaundry4ever]

GE hydrowave

I hated the hydro wave and companion dryer. It did horrible moving the clothes. I had to run it a second time because there was only a shower rinse.
This was so stupid! Also, the dryer didn't dry even on cottons setting. This was in a college dorm.

 

[Chetlaham]

Jerome, the GE dishwashers from the mid 90 early 2000s were absolutely horrific from leaking rinse aid dispenser that triggered a recall to timers that died at the start of the cycle causing the drain solenoid to melt requiring the whole machine to be chucked to not enough water in the absence of any fine filtration to adequately wash and carry away food soil to drain valves that started leaking copiously after 1 year to main seals that gave out after a few years to motors the stalled and seized, to food choppers that broke off by default, to not enough holes in the wash arm to literally food particles that would get stuck in between the popup tower causing part of it to remain up at the end of the cycle such that you could not pull the lower rack out... it is just the beginning. I could write a rich dissertation about everything that was wrong with GE's dishwashers in the mid 90s. Absolutely GE's worst product ever.   

 

But that is veering off from the topic of this thread.      

 

 

GE dryers were about as bad as their washers performance wise. They could not move air.     

 

[DADoES]

GE Dryer

 
Fisher & Paykel's dryer on the U.S. market prior to introduction of the SmartLoad was a rebadged GE (made by Camco).  They went to rebadged GE again for a few years after discontinuation of SmartLoad before exiting the US toploader market.

I have an F&P/GE/Camco DE04 bought in July 1999.  It passed from me to Granny in 2004 when I got a SmartLoad.  Then to one of my sisters when Granny died in Dec 2013, then to my nephew in 2016.  It went dead in 2021 (at age 22 years).  They needed a quick-fix with the kid so they bought a used LG dryer.  The Camco came back to me.  I found 1) broken belt, 2) missing drum bearing sleeve.  I also replaced two of the drum slides as preventive maintenance.

Mom has been using it for a year-ish.  It's coming back to me again shortly, the other sister and SIL are moving in with mom in a couple weeks, bringing their machines along.

The only performance criticism I have on it is the moisture-sense is a bit too agressive on dryness level at the indicated "normal" position on the Regular cycle, simple matter of setting it a bit toward Less dry.

 

[gelaundry4ever]

dissertation

Hey Chet, I'd love to read your dissertation on GE and what went wrong with their washers, dryers, and dishwashers. Did you notice how loud they were during normal operation? What about when the dishwasher being full of water?

 

[johnb300m]

Lmao.
Jerome.
I thought you liked the big hot GE dishwasher motors and the sounds of their big cooling fans?
Y’all are loopy as a kids fruit cereal.

 

[Chetlaham]

John, it is not loopy when you take into account that GE dishwashers between 1983 and 1994 were some of the longest lasting and most reliable dishwashers ever made. Around this time GE was extremely serious about building a competitive dishwasher that their engineering, design and quality control centered around creating a respectable product.

 

By the time 1997 came around GE cheapened ever aspect of their dishwashers to the point they were either leaking water, rinse aid, detergent, or just dropping like flies. The water charge per fill dropped as well as the number of water change outs. What was already iffy cleaning due to the lack of a fine filter became much worse.   

 

I've said it before- around the mid 90s GE put a plan into action to extract the remaining wealth out of their reputation.

 

[johnb300m]

Only the lower end models didn’t have the soil filter in the back of the tank.
The midline units had soil filtering. And that’s the time the upper models and Profile line got the superior QuietMotor and auxiliary drain pump.
Oh and soil sensing!

 

[Chetlaham]

Only high end models had the soil filter. There were many, many low, mid and high mid models without it. It was not until around 2007 that GE started phasing self cleaning fine filters into their MOL and BOL machines.

 

 

Around ~2002 forward things did start improving somewhat for their dishwashers, but they still were not what the 1983-1994 run was.

 

 

The aux drain pump was the best thing ever done for GE dishwashers in that it removed several quarts of water from the sump, boot and pump housing. It allowed those high end models to go from 3 to two final rinses without sacrificing anything, on the contrary it was an improvement.

 

To prove a point it was silly how they literally used a low voltage DC children's toy motor in the WD21X10101 cycle sequencer, fortunately that was one immature idea that did not backfire unlike all the others.   

 

 

[johnb300m]

Such B S from Chet again.

The house my parents built had a GE Potscrubber 1100 dishwasher from about 1995.
It HAD a rear soil filter. I know, because in high school I learned how to take it apart and change the plunger valve that was notorious for deteriorating.
It was very mid in the catalogue at the time.

 

[Chetlaham]

GSD1100 M or N or L was a high end model in 1995. Below that you had 400, 450, 500, 600, 640, 800, 900, 940, 1000 ect all without fine filters that I would class as BOL, MOL and entry TOL. The ones below 500 were porcelain Hotpoints sold under the GE name until about 1992 ish before discontinuation.  

 

So I stand behind what I said, filters were only present on high end models. It would be nice if at least the 900 had it but nope.