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Hanging suspension systems and automatic washers

Allow for a much faster, spin speed for a greater water extraction a much smoother operation overall and of course, a lower cost of construction, which is what makes the world go round.

You can always spend more for something in life, but the reality is you can’t buy the most expensive of everything in life decisions have to be made every day and every month of how much you’re going to spend on something.

There were only three top loading washer designs in the US after World War II that spun at over 1000 RPMs the first and best of them was the GE with hanging suspension that hit 1140 RPMs and had no vibration problems that I ever saw and the Frigidaire unimatic mechanisms also spun at 11:40 RPMs, but they had severe vibration problems. They also made a machine machine in the late 60s that spun at 1010 RPMs it also had serious vibration issues and wasn’t a good fit for people with wooden floors and such.

Hi Jeff, I’m not gonna get an argument with you about car hinges and such this is about washing machines, but I spent over 100 days with my former partner in junkyards pulling parts from old cars and we would frequently open the hood or the trunk of old cars and the hoods would break in half at the hinges because of the stress sometimes the hinges themselves would break Or the springs, this may not be a fair comparison, but I would rather have a lighter car so I think it’s a good trade-off.

Yes, I have replaced struts on several cars as they got older, but when you think of all the things that don’t go wrong with modern cars that we used to have to replace it’s a good trade-off. I’m very happy with newer cars, just like newer appliances they require far less service and repair over their lifetime than Older cars and appliances did.
 
The hanging suspension system is prone to self destruction, torsion and damper failures. Every hanging washer ever produced has exploded at some point. If a load becomes severely unbalanced enough the whole assembly will violently bang into the cabinet until the outer tub is destroyed and the cabinet is dented in to the point the whole washer is UN-salvageable. There are plenty of documented cases of this, including model Ts, LGs, Samsungs, ect, I even had two cases where the model T tub started banging into the cabinet. It was scary, rapid and loud, outer tub and ring cracked, much scarier than a Speed Queen going off balance which is nothing in comparison. People have even leaked videos of Whirlpool washers undergoing imbalance destruction testing showing this is an issue manufacturers are very well aware of but want to keep hush-hush and tip-toe engineer their way around with complex electronics and input sensing which I honestly don't believe makes the washer 100% self destruction proof because the news reports are still coming in. 

 

To get rid of the torsion issue, ie the portable World Washers would physically spin around at the end of spin because of their brake, manufacturers took out the brake and just let the tub slow down on their full size units because the washer will either twist around, shatter its hanging sockets, or tear its rubber dampers without some heavy, pricey modifications.

 

Second issue are the dampers. Tub straps break, especially on model Ts. I've personally seen the damper pads on belt driven Whirlpools end up in the wash basket at the scrap pile. Dampers are masking (and rather poorly) the unrestrained unrestricted unhampered nature of a hanging tub. The whole design is asinine at best, dangerous at worst. I will never have another hanging tub washer for a variety of reasons including the fact it could explode at any moment. 

 

 

Vibration. Not buying it. Vibration wise my Speed Queen vibrates slightly less than a model T. The milk stool takes care of it better than a hanging suspension while the meaty base and frame absorb whats left instead of vibrating/jiggling/shacking with what does get transferred. During a Speed Queen imbalance the tub bangs the cabinet, however the tub does not reach full speed like model Ts, World Washers, ect. As such the machine does not self destruct. Whats more the machine does not move- my Speed Queen has never moved an inch let alone split open during severe imbalances.

[this post was last edited: 7/25/2024-03:05]
 
self destruction

My sister owned a recalled Samsung top load washing machine (which used suspension rods) which indeed did explode in her garage, sending metal, glass and plastic shards everywhere, including into my brother in laws then month old F150.

Fortunately my nephew and nieces were not near it when it went into self-destruct mode.

My brother in law is very obsessive about product warranties and had duly registered the demonic machine @ Samsung's website after it was delivered and installed by Lowes.

He never received any sort of recall notification from Samsung, zero, zilch, nada...

To replace the hapless Samsung they bought a new Speed Queen TC5, this was about 5 years ago, they've never had any issues with the SQ so far, with 3 children and my brother in law being a construction company consultant the SQ gets quite a workout.
 
Self-destructing top load washers

There are many videos of these newer machines flying apart, when people tried to wash bedding that was water resistant in them, when the load suddenly becomes unbalanced at high speeds, the machine can be destroyed. It has nothing to do with having hanging suspension however, it has to do with the speed with which the machine was spinning when the severe unbalance occurred.

There’s even a video online of a 1954 Frigidaire unit Attick washer disintegrating because its balance ring self-destructed.

Front loadThere’s even a video online of a 1954 Frigidaire unit Attick washer disintegrating because it’s balance ring self-destructed.

Front load washers do not tend to have this problem. They have better speed control. And the tumbling action tends to get the water out of things so they don’t go radically out of balance once it’s at a high speed.

Anybody that serious about washing clothing today is going to go to a front load washer because of energy constraints top load washers have just been too Badly affected to remain effective machines any longer.

Of the last four Maytag dependable care machines we pulled out of service. We’ve replaced all of them with front load washers. Yesterday we took out an A5 11 that had served a long time was replaced with an Electrolux front loader .

Back in February we pulled out A712 that had put in a nice long service. It had a lot of repairs including center seals transmissions and timer and we replaced it with a new GE full size front loader. I happened to talk to the customer on Tuesday this week and they went on and on about the new FL GE stating never had such clean clothing and they couldn’t believe how easy it was to wash large things that they used to have to take to the laundromat at great expense because they wouldn’t fit in the Maytag.

John
 
Re: reply #19

Well said, very well indeed!

Up until 3 weeks ago, laundry in my household was done with a Newton based Maytag top loader, all I've had to do to it repair wise was to replace the lid switch, everything else on the machine is original. I would imagine that it's washed thousands loads of laundry in the 24 years I've owned it

Alas, the machine's transmission has gone bad, it doesn't agitate, this forced me into continuing restoration of a 2018 top load Speed Queen which I bought used for a paltry $75 some time ago.

In working on the SQ I was very impressed at how stout the machine is constructed, particularly the base plate and "milk crate", the thickness of the steel used in these components proved that Alliance Industries wanted these units to last a long time.

Equally impressive is how simply the machine operates, agitate and spin modes are accomplished by simply reversing the drive motors rotation (along with a few other key components), ingenious!

I refuse to get caught up in the "disposable" appliance syndrome most all other appliance manufacturers are expecting the public to accept, no splutches, critical drive mechanism parts made from plastic and a plastic outer wash drum for me!

Of greater importance, no incredibly stupid and idiotic suspended wash tub design neither...
 
Video of WO 65 washer self-destructing

I unfortunately do not have a copy of it. It was somebody down in Georgia I believe from AW they had come across and brought home a WO 65 apparently the balance ring was very badly rusted and when it got up to high speed, it let loose the iron filing ballast material, and there was smoke and crashing, and, it basically self-destructed the tub and did a lot of damage to the outer tub and top of the washer.

I don’t remember what happened to the machine or even who had it at this point, but it was a pretty dramatic video, somebody else here I’m sure knows although I don’t know how many people are reading this thread.
 
Jack is laughing all the way into the bank and his retirement. GE built up a reputation, then used their name to extract as much profit out their loyal customers before becoming defunct today. They knew what they were doing. 

 

 

 

 
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Jack is laughing

Whirlpool did the exact same thing with the Maytag name, they've dragged the once respected and renown name through the gutter and back.

Pity the unsuspecting and uneducated consumer who falls for Whirlpool's con in purchasing one of their POS washing machines and having to push it to the curb in 3 years time, 5 if they are extremely lucky.

Poor 'ol Fred Maytag must be perpetually spinning in his grave...
 
Maytag themselves are just as much to blame. Wanting to appeal to the markets blind thirst for larger capacity washers they put out a whole bunch of plasticky performas/amanas/norges which did their name and their reputation in. Whirlpool bought the name so they could appeal to Jet Clean and center dial customers. The remaining customers dissatisfied with Maytag would just buy a brand they already had switched to like Kenmore/Whirlpool/Estate/Roper/Kitch-Aid, ect. 

 

If everyone was like me the Dependable Care would have been selling like the Direct Drives were. Unfortunately people had been accustomed to longevity, and buying a direct drive which last 15-20 years created the perception that increasing capacity was not a trade off of any kind. 
 
The demise of GE major appliances

Compared to the other things GE was doing they never made much money on major appliances. They had wanted to get out of that business for nearly 20 years.

Maytag on the other hand, completely ruined themselves by buying all kinds of junk brands and trying to compete with companies like whirlpool and GE Electrolux, etc., and they couldn’t do it. They ended up ruining their reputation with crummy products that required a lot of service at high prices. If Maytag had just stuck to building washers and dryers and improve their lackluster dishwashers, they could be where Speed Queen is today or even far bigger.

We were initially excited when Whirlpool bought Maytag instead of it going to the Chinese, in retrospect whirlpool spending nearly $2 billion to acquire what was going into the ground quickly was not a good move for whirlpool. It has ruined some aspects of whirlpools major appliance business. We see the effects almost every day whirlpool let way too many people go, and there’s not enough personnel to handle many situations that should be better handled.

If I could read Wright history I would’ve rather seen the Chinese buy Maytag and do what they wanted with it. At least they would’ve kept more of the factories that were closed , there would be more American Jobs if the Chinese had bought it.
 
just as much to blame

You are correct, towards the end Maytag produced garbage, such as the "Amanatags" and the ill fated Neptune series, however it is presently Whirlpool who has taken the once respected name and plastered it onto their woeful washing machines.

Whirlpool knew exactly what they were doing in this ploy, con the general public into believing that since it's a Maytag, it should perform well and be very reliable, we all know that nothing could be further from the truth.

WP direct drive washers of yore were well performing machines, however their Achilles heel was the drive coupling, which, as we all know will fail regularly. My brother who owns several rental properties, supplies DD washers for his tenants use, keeps several spare couplings on hand, he tells me that he can replace them when blindfolded.

Additionally, Maytag washers (and dryers) finish was superior to Whirlpools, I've seen countless WP machines develop cabinet rust.
 
The last DDs were done with worn out tooling, and from what I've heard they are not lasting as long as the 90s DDs.

 

 

I know Kenmores had a porcelain top based on which model up you bought, at least from what the sales person told me on the floor. And yes, I've seen the rust you speak of. Nothing can or will compare to a Dependable Care. Its a shame the first thing Whirlpool did was close down the DC factory and lay off all the workers. Whirlpool could have kept them in production for their high end and commercial lineups. But thats just me talking.  
 
chetlaham and kalanikaau1

I completely agree. It's a domino effect. I have used a Maytag built by Whirlpool, and I was disappointed. They were the ones in my dorm. The water level was too low on the so-called large setting. The dryers didn't dry properly even on whites and colors. They were the commercial variety. And yet we wonder why people buy foreign.
 

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