I get quite a few emails asking what I think of Panasonic washing machines. It’s a good question because Panasonic have a very respected reputation for brown goods. So people are naturally interested in their washing machines and wonder if they are just as good. I’m a fan of the Panasonic brown goods brand.
I currently have three of their products (a TV, a hard drive recorder, and a Blue-ray home cinema unit). I’ve also previously owned several of their VCR’s and cameras in the past and never had a single problem with any of them.
However, in the UK their washing machines were only launched in 2009, so there’s not much of a track record on white goods yet compared to other brands that have been making washing machines here since the 50s.
It’s highly likely they will be striving to carve an equally good reputation for white goods but white goods are completely different from brown goods.
Any new brand of washing machine has an uphill struggle to become established in an overcrowded market especially against names that have been producing white goods in the UK for many decades.
I can’t help feeling there are already too many washing machine brands to chose from (even though many are owned by the same handful of manufacturers) but I suppose there is always room for genuine innovation or better quality if that proves to be what’s on offer.
Panasonic seem to be pitched in the mid price range competing with the likes of LG or AEG so I would judge their washing machines against those brands and ask, what’s different about them? What are Panasonic offering that AEG and LG aren’t?
Which? have a lot of information about Panasonic washing machines which you should check out before buying.
Panasonic do have an excellent reputation on brown goods products so it would be crazy of them to produce sub standard white goods to sully their name. On the other hand, can we afford to just assume anything they make will be excellent?
Washing machines are very different to a TV, reliability is much harder to achieve because they are far more mechanical and have many moving parts.
If I turn it around and imagine what I’d think if AEG or Hoover started making TV’s it would seem pretty strange. LG made the transition well before Panasonic and sell both brown and white goods in the UK.
However, even after several years they are still very much a newcomer in white goods, and haven’t taken too much of the market from the old established white goods manufacturers.
At the end of the day moving to a completely new field of products such as moving from brown to white goods may take a good few years to get right.
After-sales service is important
An important aspect of selling white goods is a good supply of spare parts and technical information to the trade as well as a good quality after-sales network to cover the guarantee period. White goods, particularly washing machines break down much more often and need a lot more spare parts. Newcomers can take a long time to get these right, especially from a background of brown goods, and my sources tell me spares and technical information can be difficult to get for these brands.
Only time will tell, but after-sales is a vital consideration when buying appliances likely to require some repairs in the future unless you are happy to just get as long as you can out of something (with fingers crossed) and throw it away when it breaks down. My personal preference is to buy washing machines where the manufacturer have their own engineers in this country to repair them under guarantee. Panasonic are like all the brown goods brands in that they do not have their own engineers. They instead use third-party networks of repairers and this in my opinion is far less satisfactory.
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Have just received a Panasonic 140VS4WGB, it worked for 3 days and the I got error code H43. Service engineer came and emptied the water from the bottom of the machine, said he could not see a leek and left. When my wife got home she try to use it, and yes error code H43 appeared again and clearly it is still leaking. I have booked another engineer but have told the retailer I purchased it from if this does not work I will be requesting a full refund under the 4 week consumer law rule.
Hello Ray. It does seem bizarre for an engineer to find water in the base of a machine and not be convinced it must have leaked from somewhere. It should have been tested with a load of laundry inside (some leaks only occur when the washer bounces around with washing inside) on wash, rinse and spin. However, I doubt if many engineers have that luxury of time, which is why we so often get such poor service as lamented in my article here – Why are there so many appliance repair horror stories?
People seem to receive bad service across many brands but if a manufacturer uses a third party company they tend not to pay much so engineers have to cram as many into a day as possible. However, if they get called back soon after they are unlikely to get paid either so it’s a difficult balancing act between trying to be as quick and efficient as possible. Must be very frustrating and I’m not surprised you are unimpressed.
Panasonic NA-127VB4WGB failed bearings within 15 months of purchase… lucky the machine had a 2 year warranty and whilst it has taken a while to sort out (Panasonic are sending out a different better spec replacement model as the original retailer did not have a suitable replacement in stock which has caused the main delay)… I managed to convince the engineer to leave the machine in one piece and send proof of the bearing issue to Panasonic using a smartphone video so that I was not left without a useable machine (in theory the engineer needs to dismantle the drum to prove that the bearings are shot). Worth trying this approach if you have similar issues. Anyway I hope the replacement Panasonic NA-140vg4wgb that they are sending lasts longer! Thankfully not been left without a washing machine during the process and should end up with a better spec machine for little money (I purchased the original in a sale).
where I work they purchased a Panasonic washer it was discovered by the local washer repairman the jubilee clip around the large rubber door seal was missing hence it has leaked and got into the sensors over time it was past its 2year warranty by 3months it cost over £600.00 is this a mistake in they did not fit one has anyone else had this problem
It’s very bizarre to think of a part missing on production, I’ve never heard of it before but couldn’t say if it’s possible or not without knowing how they are manufactured. However, I would expect that if the large jubilee clip holding the door seal to the tub was missing the door seal should have come off pretty much straight away as soon as it started thumping about on spin with a big load in. It’s very surprising to imagine one staying on without the clip as they are normally just loosely fitted over a lip and rely on the band to hold it in place.
Bought my Panasonic NA-148VA 4 years ago. Happy washing until yesterday. Error code H55. Rang Panasonic and engineer came out. He said circuit board has blown, he can smell smoke and motor is gone also.
Panasonic say I only have two year guarantee I cannot find out what is the guarantee for parts, if that’s 5 years I might be ok.
What should I do?
This is the first problem with machine.
help
Our Panasonic NA-148VG4 is 13 months old and over the last 4 weeks we noticed that some of the clothes had what appeared to be grease or oil stains on them.
We have run a service wash at high temperature 3 times over the last 3 weeks with no success.
We requested an engineer to call as the machine was still covered by the 2 year warranty.
The engineer called this morning, took photographs of the soiled clothes and then called his manager.
He then told us to do another service wash and that he would call us later in the day.
So we are now in limbo as to what will happen next.
I assume that they do not want to carry out a repair because it is either too time consuming, too expensive or perhaps both, but surely they could let us know if the repair is feasible or not.
It’s a shame that this has happened as we have quite a few Panasonic appliances in our house and have always regarded them as manufacturers of quality products.
Oil or grease in the bearings gets washed out when the
seal fails ,Then the bearings fail ,you are made aware of
this has the machine starts getting noisy in spin.
Thanks William for your comments.
I agree with you that the seal is faulty.
The machine still sounds like new and is very quiet.
The engineer phoned me late in the day to tell me that Panasonic want pictures of the bearings so he has booked us a double slot next week when he will come and strip down the machine.
The lack of noise suggests to me that he won’t find anything wrong with the bearings but hopefully he will use a new seal which will solve our problem.
What I don’t understand is why he didn’t do this on the first visit as I now have to pull the machine back out of it’s location and into the kitchen once again where he will have the space to work on it.