Whirlpool recall due to fire risk

[thomasortega]

Gosh, does Whirlpool realize people's lives are more important than numbers?

Something is VERY wrong at whirlpool and I'm sure it's not the engineering team.

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2019/jul/02/whirlpool-says-up-to-800000-faulty-dryers-exist

 

[henene4]

To be fair

That sounds more like Hotpoint Indesit just kept quiet until they got bought by Whirlpool 2 or so years ago and now Whirlpool finaly catches up with their issues...

 

[lowefficiency]

How do the numbers add up here?

* 1.7 million faulty dryers have already been modified ("repaired") to avoid fires...
* Whirlpool says the modified dryers are safe
* The modified dryers are still catching on fire
* At some point Whirlpool realized this and changed from repairing units to just replacing them
* 500,000 were previously recalled, with news now that possibly up to 800,000 (300,000 more than the recall) are actually faulty

So theoretically, the number of dangerous dryers is still quite high - possibly much higher than that 800,000?
800K is a lot less than 1.7M, and that 1.7M is only the number that have been "repaired", not the number in service...

 

[henene4]

Ok so I just checked and Indesit is owned by Whirlpool since October 2014.

All brands mentioned are pure Indesit machines.
They have revamped their dryers since then and as far as I am concerned all models affected were made before the takeover.

And, to be fair, dryer fires are kind of common if you look at it.

Sure their sealing has always been terrible, but any dryer neglected like some of those units will catch fire.

Seriously, there are a shocking amount of dryers that see not even the most basic care.
Not even emptying of the lint trap.

And, on that note, BSH recalled a bunch of gas stoves and dishwashers because of fires.
Candy/Hoover recalled a lot of machines due to drum failures during high speed spin.

Any brand I know of had products recalled due to potentialy deadly design errors.

Whirlpool isn't any better or worse then anybody else...

 

[foraloysius]

IMHO Whirlpool is doing what Indesit should have done a long time ago. Indesit just did nothing for many years while they knew there was something wrong with their dryers.

 

[frigilux]

I had one of these dryer vent flaps on the north side of my house. Through a series of Electrolux-made Frigidaire dryers, I'd only need to pull the screen off the bottom and clean it every 4 months or so. When the 2015 (or thereabouts) Whirlpool-built Maytag dryer was installed, I was horrified to find I needed to clean the screen every 2 or 3 weeks. Couldn't believe so much lint was escaping the dryer. It performed beautifully and the sensor system was spot-on; but I always wondered if a lot of lint was building up elsewhere inside the dryer, as well.

 

[maytag85]

Reply #5

Was your Whirlpool-built Maytag dryer a 29” top filter model? One thing I’ve noticed with the 29” too filter dryers is the plenum the lint screen/filter slides into seems to accumulate a lot of lint, and will bog down the dryers’ performance if it isn’t cleaned out at least once a year.

My KM 24” portable dryer is a different design but uses similar parts, and I had it hooked up in my garage for a short while, and after 2 to 3 weeks of service, I had to remove the rear panel and clean all of the lint build up out of the lint filter/screen plenum.

 

[frigilux]

I had the Maxima 8100 pair, purchased in September of 2015. Loved both the washer and dryer—both performed beautifully—but couldn’t bring them with me when I sold the house in the summer of 2017 and moved into an apartment. They’re too large for the cramped laundry space. The only thing that struck me as odd was the amount of lint that escaped out the dryer vent compared to the string of Frigidaires that came before it.

 

[mark_wpduet]

I've never had a dryer

other than Kenmore/Whirlpool made machines, and I can say for sure that yes a lot of lint escapes the dryer. It's amazing with so many different setups people have for venting, and the issues people have of their vent run getting blocked up with lint that escapes, that they can't create a dryer that catches all the lint. I didn't realize that other brands less lint escaped. I always just figured this is one of those things that will always be with dryer designs.

 

[foraloysius]

Just for the record, the issues were with European products made by Indesit/Hotpoint. The company was taken over by Whirlpool as the company is also active in Europe. I don't know if American Whirlpool dryers have that problem.

 

[vacerator]

No, they don't,

unless lint is allowed to build up and catch fire.

 

[johnb300m]

I’ve noticed at stores some differences in lint screens.
WP/MT, GE, SSung seem to have coarser screens.
Elux had the finest screen.
LG seemed in the middle, along the lines of old MT.