Comments on: Zanussi ZWF16581W

By: Washerhelp

Washerhelp — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 12:06:51 +0000

Paul: The attitude of aftersales engineers and even their managers is often myopic because they are a compartment within a larger company with conflicting and even competing roles. Aftersales are focused on spending as little money as possible on dealing with the company’s in-guarantee obligations, and earning as much money as possible charging for out of guarantee repairs. Some engineers may even earn commission on all money they collect. Therefore they may often prefer to try to charge a customer with an appliance just out of guarantee instead of offering good will and extending the guarantee in the interests of keeping a customer happy with the company so they continue to purchase their appliances.

Most engineers or even service departments could really care less if you bought a different appliance as they believe there will always be enough other people to keep them in a job. They are also correct in that the day after the guarantee expires they no longer have any legal obligation to help. However, this kind of attitude does say something about the overall ethos of a company though I’m not sure they are any different to the majority of appliance manufacturers.

The only one legally responsible if the appliance hasn’t lasted a reasonable time is the company that sold it to you. Therefore if you get nowhere with a manufacturer (and sometimes they will offer reasonable concessions to customers) the only people you can complain to are the retailers

Unfortunately most retailers are equally stubborn but at least you have the consumer law on your side if you have a genuine case. I believe a Zanussi washing machine with a fatal fault at only 18 months should be as clear a case of not lasting a reasonable time as you can get (unless it can be shown to have been used very excessively).

Check out the experience of Mr Dobalina in the comments of my article Sale of Goods Act gives us 6 years to claim for faulty appliances who had the drum bearings in his 2 year 4 month old washing machine fail and won his claim in the small claims court.

By: Paul

Paul — Sat, 07 Jan 2012 10:54:27 +0000

We bought our Zanussi ZWF16581W in Aug 2010 for £353. The washing machine drum failed 5 months outside of the 12 month warranty, by which I mean it began to physically detach itself from the rubber seal leaving the machine unusable.

I called the opinion of an independent service agent (note, only £15 call out) who said the cost of repair would be too expensive to make it worthwhile and suggested I request a replacement machine. Zanussi stuck rigidly to their company policy insisting we used their own repair firm (min £60 call out… plus the new parts to be determined by them…), upon which I could apply back for a ‘contribution’ to the costs incurred, but with no guarantee they would agree.

I appealed to Zanussi on the basis of Goodwill – asking that they recognise that a Zanussi machine should last longer than 17 months: no chance..! The chap’s exact words were “What you fail to understand Sir is that you are outside of the guarantee. It doesn’t matter if 6 months, 6 hours, 6 minutes, you are out of guarantee and so no, we will not treat it as if in-warranty”. Priceless response!

Draw your own conclusions as to how much Zanussi care about customers unlucky enough to have trusted them.

I bought a Bosch instead for £309 with a 2 year guarantee as standard. The £353 spent with Zanussi was just wasted cash we’ll put down to experience.

Good luck.

By: Mike

Mike — Sun, 30 Oct 2011 18:36:32 +0000

We bought one of these in 2009 after many weeks of research.

Less than two years later the computer board has broken and a replacement part only at £225 is just not worth it when we have bought a replacement machine for £4 more with a 12 months warranty.

I have replacing things that can be fixed, but this is riduclous.

There are only two of us in the house and only do 2-3 washed per week at the most, we don’t live in a hard water area or any such problems

We really did expect better.

By: Foxypuppy

Foxypuppy — Fri, 25 Feb 2011 17:58:41 +0000

I brought this machine after owning a hotpoint that broke down once a month. After 3 months of it not being fixed under the warranty, I deicded to buy a Zanussi, both my parents own a Zanussi Jetsystem, my mums is 10years old and my dads is 6 years old. My mums broke down once, since then it hasn’t broken down, and my dads hasn’t broken down at all. When I lived with my mum her machine was on at least twice a day, so based on this I decided to go for a Zanussi Jetsystem myself.
I haven’t had any problems with the machine rinsing, and did read somewhere that with the Jetsystem washers, you are meant to reduce the amount of detergent used.
It is unbeliveably quite, much quieter than the older Jetsystems.
The only thing I have encountered is that it has cut out the final spin a couple of times due to it being out-of-balance, in my opinion the detector is quite sensitive. On my machine, the drain pump can be noisy at times.
On the “proportional” programes, the washing time is altered based on the weight of the load, so it doesn’t waste electricity or water.
I would like to see the old version of the extra rinse option (on this machine it adds two extra rinses and slows down the spin between each rinse, I have found this not to be as effective as the normal rinsing).
All in all a great machine and very happy with it.

By: WMUser

WMUser — Sat, 26 Dec 2009 23:39:18 +0000

WATCH OUT!! I’ve discovered this washing machine has a “poor cotton rinse”. If you have skin allergies of any kind, I urge you to read the page “Why can’t modern washing machines rinse properly?” on the White Goods Help website:

http://www.whitegoodshelp.co.uk/wordpress/why-cant-modern-washing-machines-rinse-properly/