Why are Top Loaders Cheaper than Front Loaders?

[iheartmaytag]

Here's the way it was 'splained to me:

Front Loaders cost more because they have a more complex set of seals and balance system. 

Front Loaders cost more because American manufacturers are still re-cooping the cost of development.

Front Loaders cost more because they put more bling on them to get people to pay more.

 

Top Loaders take less time to do a cycle, but use more water in doing so.  As I was told, a FL machine takes about twice as long to do one load as a TL machine, but it holds twice as much, so in the end it's doing the same amount of clothes in the same time frame, and using less water and energy to boot.

 

 

 

[aladude]

I don't post very often but...

Hey pierreandreply4... I would just like to point out that you've posted that picture in threads 37338, 37342, and 36855, as well as twice in the current thread.

Furthermore you similarly posted a photo of an estate pair in 37235, 36815, and three times in 36855.

In the nicest and most friendly way possible, I am trying to say that we get it.

 

[hunter]

Consumer Reports and FL machines

When I had my euro sized Asko, Consumer Reports said that its capacity was small because it only held 5 pounds of laundry.

Funny last I noted 5kg was WAY more than 5pounds.

And laundromat machines don't hold much more than 8-9 pounds.

Just incredible. And uninformed people believe them.

 

[launderess]

Laundromat Front Loaders

Most brands such as SQ, Dexter, Wascomat etc start at 5kg or so but go up to 50lbs or greater.

Indeed the greatest trend in laundromat business these days are washers from 18lbs, 25lbs and those 50lb behemoths. This his happening for several reasons.

One, many customers like bringing in huge loads and bunging the lot into one washer rather than run several smaller loads in different machines. This includes local businesses such as dog kennels, vet offices, dry cleaners without their own capacity of washers/dryers etc...

Larger washers also allow the processing of huge bulky items like duvets, car mats, pillows and so forth by both in house wash/fold service and customers.

One problem is that many laundromats often upgrade and or install uber-sized washers but fail to add dryers that can accomodate those loads. While it may not be a problem splitting up 50lbs of laundry into many dryers, duvets and other large bulky items really do need more than than the standard pocket dryers to be done properly.

 

[sudsmaster]

It's because the front loaders are made in the USA and the top loaders are made in Canada.

LOL.

Seriously, the top loaders are old, proven technology. Even with the new restrictions on water use and temperature, they are still cheaper to make than most front loaders, esp the BOL ones, with plastic wash baskets and paper thin sheet metal cabinetry. To get a good wash a front loader needs to work smarter than a top loader, and this costs money for R&D and electronic controls.

 

[pierreandreply4]

Top loaders are not old

Top loaders are not old tech they are a better choice compare to front load washers at least for me as a top load washer you can control the water level depending on the load and they are also low price perfect for those that can not afford to buy a fl washer and the trouble with front load washer for those that suffer from arthrits in the back or tend to have occasnal muscle pain a top load you can unload the clothe standing up and there is also no door seal to clean and here is a quote of my last post try to teach an 95 year elder thats knows nothing on how to use a computers she would not know much about a washer with electonics controls if she do not know how to use a computer since an electronic control board is like a computer.

 

[DADoES]

 
You keep saying that about frontloaders with electronics being difficult to use, but I don't understand why.  How hard is it to push a cycle selection button (or turn a dial as the case may be) and press a Start button?  Majority of consumers use the cycle defaults so there's nothing else needs to be set, and all frontloaders adjust the water level automatically.  My grandmother, who only made it to third grade before an evil stepfather pulled her out of school, caught on to using an electronic F&P washer with no trouble ... Press Regular (which I marked with red tape) and Start (blue button), simple as that.

 

[pierreandreply4]

i am talking about someone in my family thats 95 years old and for me what i do not like about front loaders for anyone asking its the long wash time and the fact that i need to set the water temp to cold each time witch should of been the default water temp from the start and the long wash time is also a complete waste of engergy in my book.AND THEY LEAVE MY CLOTHES FULL OF WRINKLES 100% of the time witch forces me to rewash if my clothes have to much wrinkles compare to my old 1993 topload washer that i had my clothe came out wrinkle free sorry for the all caps

 

[DADoES]

 
My grandmother will be 93 in January.

 

[powerfin64]

someone report Pierre to Robert. This is completely Ridiculous posting.

 

[qualin]

Hi Pierre. I would have mailed you privately, but it looks like you are a basic member.

I don't really appreciate how you've been thread jacking. This is the third thread where I've asked a valid question and you've jacked it with the same rhetoric.

This thread was about why Front Loaders are more expensive than Top loaders, not how they are better. (Or not.) If I wanted to listen to a sales person, I'd go to an appliance store.

It is considered to be very very bad netiquette to jack other peoples threads with a topic very different than what was being discussed.

If you really want to discuss it in depth, create your own thread and spout your rhetoric there... and if people ignore it, live with it instead of continuing to jack other threads with the same damn pictures over and over again.

So, to put it bluntly, Aladude has mentioned it and now I'm mentioning it and now Powerfin is calling for your ban. Smarten up and think twice before you post, ask yourself if you have anything worthwhile to contribute to a thread before you post.
[this post was last edited: 11/16/2011-05:02]

 

[qualin]

Reponses

To Sudsmaster:
> It's because the front loaders are made in the USA and the top loaders are made
> in Canada.

With the dollar almost at parity, that does make me scratch my head. Personally, I do wish there was a company based out of Canada which made appliances. The closest we have I believe is Bombardier, but they make everything you wouldn't want to buy. (No, I don't own a Snowmobile. )

> Seriously, the top loaders are old, proven technology.

Well, if you count the old 1910-era Wringer Washers being "Top Loaders", then yeah, I would definitely say that is old technology.

> esp the BOL ones, with plastic wash baskets and paper thin sheet metal
> cabinetry.

I have to admit, those make me cringe. The first time I saw a top loader with a plastic basket, I nearly cringed in horror. It's bad enough the agitator is made from plastic, (As opposed to?) but that's really environmentally unfriendly, not to mention IMHO not very hygienic.. I mean, I wouldn't buy a plastic toilet...

The thin metal cabinetry makes me wonder about the frame inside of the washer, wether or not they've cut corners on that as well, so that over time, things become misaligned due to the vibration of the tub from spins and such.

>To get a good wash a front loader needs to work smarter than a top loader, and
>this costs money for R&D and electronic controls.

Good point. One thing I have noticed a lot is that front loaders do come with a lot more "Bells and Whistles" as far as being able to select things electronically. I guess it doesn't help either they throw in frills like VRT and Powerfoam, etc, etc.
---

Agree with all of you on the R&D part. I can see why American manufacturers are trying to recoup their R&D costs, because nobody made large capacity front loading consumer targeted machines before and they do have to stand up to a lot of vibration, water, chemicals, etc.

---
To Launderess:

I do agree, it was one of the reasons why I would go into a laundromat.. Stuffing some huge item into a 50 lb'er because there's no way it would fit into the top loader. I can see how that is an expensive proposition for a laundromat too. These machines just do not come cheap. I seem to recall hearing from a laundromat owner about how a Wascomat Triple Loader set him back $12k..

---

And finally to Pierre:

My Top Loader has 28 cycles and an incredible amount of options to choose from. My Front loader has 6 cycles and only really five options to choose from. I kind of figured since I paid $830 for this washer when I bought it new, I was paying around $500 to have all of those extra options available to me. If I had decided to go with a MOL or BOL washer, I would have been looking at around the $300-$500 mark for a machine.

So no, they're not always easier to operate than a front loader. That's beside the point though.. the point I was making is that electronics certainly do bring up the price of a machine, that's for sure.

 

[mrb627]

R&D

It certainly seems that more than enough R&D is being put towards the TL market these days. But it seems that for the most part, the research is towards how to make the machines cheaper and the life span shorter.

Malcolm

 

[whitetub]

I am skeptic about the R&D making the price higher. Front-loading washers have been around for a very long time. Since the fifties, if not longer. I think the manufacturers see that people want them, that they are trendy. And they use less water. And they are trying to convince people that the money they will save by using them will pay for the price difference in the long run. It's a marketing scheme. I am not biased against the FL, I own one myself.

And the reason why the traditionnal top loaders are so cheap. Nobody wants them anymore. The only way to sell them is to lower the price.

Just like the flat screen tv's and the bubble tv's.

That's my theory.

 

[qualin]

Replies

To Malcolm:

It seems to me that applies to any industry. Cost cut until you can't sell product, come out with something new that doesn't suck and then cost cut again until it does. Such is the way of the beancounter vs Engineer. (GM and Mopar come to mind here right away.)

What boondoggles me is just how much more expensive washplate style washers are over conventional top loaders, even though it's nearly the same technology but without a lot of the bits a traditional top loader would have.. like a ratcheting auger on the agitator, transmission, etc, etc. Maybe it's the electronics?

To Whitetub:

I think you are fairly correct. Back in 2004, new large capacity front loaders were fairly new and hence more expensive. Again, maybe supply vs demand...

 

[arbilab]

++++++++++++++++++++++++
Maybe it's the electronics?
++++++++++++++++++++++++

I've been in that business. That $150 board it costs to replace can't cost more than $20 to make. Not much design work either, the design is mostly dictated by the chipset, just copy it off the spec sheet. The only work that goes into it is hiring a programmer to write the code and it doesn't take a very advanced programmer to write washer code. These days, marketing determines what they want the machine to do, they email that to a programmer in India making 1/3 what a US engineer costs.

 

[qualin]

That still kind of blows me away that washing machines need software. I mean, it is understandable, but it makes me wonder how complex the software is in modern machines.

 

[arbilab]

Sequential-machine firmware is the easiest to write. I'm not even a professional coder and I can do it.

If you want your whole panel to be buttons, displays, and no clockwork, firmware is unavoidable. It's by no means necessary for laundry. Clockwork timers got clothes perfectly clean. My washer is clockwork and I have no complaints about it. Clockwork tends to be more reliable than electronics. Or at least, washers tended to be more reliable in the clockwork days than in the firmware days. Eh?

But to an extent, buyers want digital displays and program buttons they don't even understand. I sure the hockeysticks can't explain that. I'm an engineer not a marketer.

 

[launderess]

Every Type of Washing Machine

Has it's virtues and will produce clean and sanitised laundry if the thing is done correctly.

Whilst one adores the Miele and indeed all front loaders (built in heater preferred), there are times when one wants more control over what one is washing and or the load isn't well suited.

For instance when one has large or small numbers of all the same items such as napkins, then a front loader may *not* be the best choice. A proper load for both cleaning and spin distribution in such a machine consists of a varied load. Often when doing napkins by the third or fourth rinse things end up horribly unbalanced during the following spin.

Happily one has the Hoover TT and Whirlpool TL (amoung others) to get things done. For large amounts of napkins with today's modern detergents can soak them overnight and they are practically clean. Then it's off into the Hoover or Whirlpool mainly for rinsing and spinning dry. Items requiring more heavy duty cleaning can be boiled in my range top lessiveuse,followed by rinsing as above.

There are also times one does not wish nor require the endless cycles and buckets of time the Miele takes to do a wash.

 

[haxisfan]

If I may... I don't quite agree there :-O

@ Launderess: I found that a front loader is suitable for anything in my book.

I've washed anything possible and imaginable in my front loader of any size and shape and no once I've experienced an imbalance drama or any issues of any sort. Wash times are adjusted accordingly not just by the software but also by the intervention of the user. E.g. I'm likely to use a short cycle or options such as the 'time saver' facility if I've got a small load.

I don't understand the bit about the out of balance issue... surely that becomes a real problem in a TL as the items are sitting at the bottom of a kinda turntable and the don't have a chance to reshuffle (unless you do it manually)... a FL instead has the ability to rearrange the articles as many times as necessary. Things become are little more complicated when proportions are not worked out properly, some trouble related to balance is more likely to happen within such structures which bear huge drums in confined spaces... which is increasingly the case nowadays over here too: manufacturers offering bigger capacity FLs while maintaining the same size cabinet.

I guess we can generalize to an extent but it all depends on the specific machine we're dealing with no matter whether it's an FL or a TL: some machines are not as flexible as others. For example I would utterly abhor a FL which doesn't allow for some kind of leeway in wash times and temperatures... having said that, most of them do but extremely basic ones.

Sorry for going off-topic again

Ciao