Why are plastic gears so bad?

[norgechef]

Before the Maytag herrin plant closed there was allot of complaints about the transmissions in the performa washers.Allot of people say that they were junk becasue of the plastic gears but i cant see why the plastic gears were so bad becasue to me they looked like pretty heavy duty/thick gears.....I know GE washers have the plastic gear transmissions and they seem to last 10 years or more........my aunt had a Maytag performa that she bought and it lasted 6 years until the motor went,i could tell it needed a new snubber when i took it apart because of the little white shavings. Im thinking about fixing the snubber and motor in that and giving it to my gram since she doesnt abuse washing machines much anway.....how long would the transmission have left on it from the 6 years that it already has? it did have a family of 5 to wash for those 6 years so not exactly minimal use either.....you dont have to answer all of these questions lol just how long you think the transmission would last in the performa if it was put back in use?

 

[combo52]

Plastic Gears

To my knowledge the Plastic Gears are not usually the problem with Norge Transmissions. That said GE never had any plastic gears in their transmissions. All MT automatics from the AMP through the Helical drive and the Helical drive washers with the orbital transmission all had at least one Plastic gear. And all 100 million+ WP DD washers had one plastic gear in their transmissions.

 

That said I can not recall ever seeing a broken plastic gear in any Automatic Washer. The later Norges usually had top bearing and seal problems and often we replaced the transmission along with the top bearing and seal, if you claimed the transmission was bad you got the other parts free from MT if the machine was under the 5 or in some cases 10 year transmission warranty.

 

[qualin]

For me, in my personal opinion, gears should only be cut from steel. Not from aluminum and certainly not from plastic.

Would you buy a car if it had plastic gears in the transmission?

Plastic does not handle friction very well at all.

 

[norgechef]

@combo52

Well if plastic gears isnt the problem than what is the problem with the Norgetag/Performa transmissions dependability?

 

[qualin]

I do recall hearing that Maytag transmissions had a nylon gear in them, but Nylon is just another kind of plastic, right?

In this case, wasn't it just for noise reduction more than anything else?

I thought the primary motivation for using plastic gears was to bring costs down.

 

[norgechef]

@qualin

Nylon is a kind of fabric.....

 

[arbilab]

speaking of plastic transmission gears

Chevrolet in the mid 70s put a plastic gear in their transmissions, the governor drive IINM. A lady where I worked had had her transmission replaced 4 times in 2 years because of that. She was VERY dissatisfied because each time the car became disabled.

Let's say when discussing gears that "plastic" is just the opposite of metal, what gears should be made of in anything intended to last. There are countless plastics each with their own characteristics but in a gear train none can live up to the performance of machined steel.

 

[dj-gabriele]

@norgechef

Nylon is just a brand name for a kind of polyammide polymer, one of the millions kind of plastic! So Qualin is all but wrong.

 

[qualin]

To Arbilab

I wasn't sure, but I thought that GM only used plastic gears for the speedometer drive cable coming from the transmission?

To DJ, thanks.

There's actually a thread on here about a Maytag Rebuild which included showing all of the different parts of the transmission and I distinctly seeing a nylon gear in there, because the person doing the rebuilding mentioned it.

It didn't appear to be worn down or ruined after many years of use, even though the rest of the gears in the transmission were made of metal.

My guess is that it was there for noise reduction, rather than for cost cutting, since it didn't make sense to me why they would have this one lone plastic gear amongst the other metal gears.

 

[coldspot]

I am not a fan of plastic gears. But this is from movie projectors. Bell and Howell started to use a plastic worm gear in there latter machines till they sold out. The problem gear worked about 5 to 10 years then split. This is not from being used the plastic becomes hard and nasty over time. I seen new old stock units and the gear is always gone.

Not sure about the washer at all but I could see it happen here also. The problem is the oils used in the projectors did not work with the plastic in the gear.

 

[combo52]

Plastic Gears

Usually when a critical part is changed to plastic when it formally was metal in a well designed and built product it increases the durability of the product. Plastic parts are one of the main reasons why an automatic washer can now last upwards of thirty years [ late 70s-now ]compared to washers of the 1950s and into the early 1960s that had a hard time lasting 10-15 years.

 

The plastic pinion gear that EVERY MT automatic ever built had may have been used partly for noise reasons, but remember that it was at the bottom of the gear case where any metal particles would normally collect and I dought that a steel gear would have even lasted as long.

 

[mixfinder]

Performa

My mom had a Performa that washed for 11 years without a peep. That said it developed balance issues in its last year that got so bad you couldn't get a full spin. I would hold the tub in place while the tub ramped up on Gentle cycle. When the water was gone I'd change the cycle to Normal and let it finish spinning but in the end not even I could hold it still enough to stop the cabinet knocking. 11 years may not seem remarkable for a washer serving an old couple but mom and dad owned a rodeo business and provided matching outfits for all their help which was provided by Wrangler. It all had to be laundered, starched and ironed which mom did until they sold. (Google Frank Beard Rodeos) My mother has Alzheimer's and one of her pathologies was to do laundry continuously. Her fear was overloading the machine and woe unto anyone who tried to do laundry. She would run the washer 12 to 18 times a day. Like you norgechef I considered having a repair on the balance system but at its age and prevailing opinion decided not. If you check the repair ratings of customer surveys at Consumer reports, Maytag didn't get bad enough ratings to justify the vitriol. Talk to anyone who owned an older Maytag and replaced it with a new DD model and they'll tell you they hate it's noise, walking the floor and flimsiness. Old people don’t like change. When I was married we bought a TOL Atlantis set in 1999. It had one factory recall repair on the timer although ours had not malfunctioned. We really were just two old people at home so it never got heavy use and now my ex wife lives alone but the pair has always performed admirably. My sister and her husband also have Norgetags on their ranch and they haven't had an issue in the past 8 years.
I think one HUGE problem for all appliance brands is that stores were eliminating their own service departments and jobbers were doing repairs on machines of all brands. The technician may not have had history with the appliance or a store and brand with allegiance to. A rogue repairman running anti brand dialogue can do a lot to shake customer confidence to say nothing of not always getting the repair right.

 

[magicchef]

@mixfinder

So what your saying is performa machines will last as long as you don't overload them?

 

[yogitunes]

Any machine has the chance to last as long as it is treated well, not overloaded, or worked to death....but many variables can cause any machine to bite the dust quicker than expected...

for many applications its true plastic in certain machines(food processors, VCR, DVD, Mixers)which can crack easily, and then theres these Nylon type that are claimed to be stronger than steel....if it wasn't gonna hold up, these gears would have failed in weeks...

also, this was from a time when MT thoroughly tested their products before it went into production......how many of these so-called plastic gears have you heard fail?....

 

[macboy91si]

Nylon and Plastic

Most machine applications use NYLON not PLASTIC. Nylon is much more durable and can withstand much more environmental stress. Nylon/fibre gears are commonplace and have been for years in many machine applications. The gears have little to no issue coping with wear and lubricant and are generally no less superior than their metal part for their application. I have mainly seen them used to reduce mesh noise, they also do not produce shavings that can destroy other gears and seals.

 

A multitude of GM vehicles and others have also used these fiber/nylon gears in their timing chain systems for years. Personally I have seen the metal components fail (chain, tensioners, guides) before these "plastic" gears.&#92

 

I've heard people moan and groan about plastic use in things forever. In cars and appliances. In cars it's usually the same people that don't understand EFI or any other modern automotive concepts, I'd wager it's the same in the appliance world. A washer with a poor reliability bites the dust, it must of course be because it's cheap plastic.

 

The answer is that it is everyone's responsibility to analyze the information in front of them in a non-biased manner and come to your own conclusion. Sensationalism never got anything solved

 

There is no substitute for reasoning and deduction.

 

 

-Tim

 

[mayfan69]

Agree with John, Martin and Tim here....

I have to agree with those above, especially regarding the nylon pinion gear in the Maytag pitman drive transmissions.

I have seen first hand the wear and tear a metal pinion can do in a transmission, when i pulled apart a Borg Warner gearbox used in earlier Simpson machines here in Australia. The metal pinion gear had worn all the way down. This was subsequently changed to the nylon pinion gear for later models and i still have 2 of those machines in my collection....still going strong after 30+ years.

I have not seen this in any of the Maytags or Wilkins Servis machines (that use the same mechanicals as the Maytags) that i have in my collection.

 

[runematic]

As much as I'd love to say that metal always beats out polymers, on the Norgetag trannies I can't say that.  The nylon gears are very durable.  There is an clutch-type spring in these trannies that ends up breaking, not the gears.  The Performa washers do not have an off balance switch.  The transmission slows down the spin to satisfy the off-balance situation.  These are the times you would find the wash not spun out.  It's just like the dependable care being shut off when off balance.  Redistribute and start the spin again.

 

As far as these washers going off balance badly, it is usually due to a worn snubber.  Sometimes the bases of these washers were bad as well and that can lead to a bad off balance situation.    Some of these washers had foam blocks mounted on the cabinet for the tub to hit.  Maytag found that if the blocks were removed, the tub could travel further and not knock the cabinet and alert the owner of an out-of-balance spin.  That seemed to work, too.  This resulted in less off-balance complaints.

 

To change the snubber you will need a tool to release the brake.  The spring is under a few hundred pounds of pressure.  To do it without the proper tools can result in injury. 

 

We have probably over 100 performas and atlanti in the warehouse.  We are now starting to go through them and find the nicest ones and change snubbers, clean out the gunk and get them ready for resale.  I was never a big fan when they were new, but find that folks love the large tub size and quietness of the washers. 

[this post was last edited: 3/5/2012-16:44]

 

[norgeway]

Tear Down A !!

Unimatic...and see how a transmission is SUPPOSED to be built!! No Plastic!!!

 

[magicchef]

@runematic

What causes the arms in the transmissions to brake so quickly? and i thought all you had to do to replace the snubber was slide the old one out and put a new one in......or at least thats what i saw on youtube.............there was another version showing how you needed to loosen up the brake in order to get the old one out and the new one in but i don't think it's is as hard as your saying to replace a snubber, i know that when you remove the tub there is a special tool for unhooking springs but i could just use a pair of pliers for that right? maybe if i held it tight enough