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.
Spares
Spares4Appliances is a spares company run by repair engineers who understand all about spare parts for appliances.
quite interesting reading some of “these complaints ” and the poor repair men have to go and repair the machines “that are very difficult to repair ” perhaps they should be doing something different ? fishing?
Does anyone know what the fault H 45 means? Is it like the H 43 – a wet sensory somewhere? Please help.
Our machine (purchased from John Lewis in Reading just over two years ago) has this morning been “written off” following its second main bearing failure in a year. The repairman told me that Panasonic UK no longer replace bearings as it’s a four-hour job and totally uneconomical. The repair agent who came the first time swapped out the whole drum and said it had cost over £350! If it hadn’t been for its 4-year warranty we’d have been in expensive trouble
When new, this was the best, quietest machine we’d ever owned. It washed faster and spun more quietly than anything we’d had before, including Bosch, Zanussi and Indesit. Now, I don’t know what to do if we’re offered a choice of replacement machine, rather than another Panasonic Any suggestions?
Hello Peter K: I would go for one of the John Lewis own brand washing machines because carrying the John Lewis name should give you extra leeway if by any chance you have big problems plus they come with a 3 year guarantee. They are made by Zanussi (at time of writing) but John Lewis usually get them to put extra features and/or energy savings into them.
I purchased a NA – 168VX2 from john lewis in march 2011 and less than a year on it developed a U11 fault where it was unable to drain. Did the usual checks and there were no blockages. JTM came out 3 times over the space of a month where my machine was out of use. It had a new sensor and pump (which took a very long time to order in). Everything was fine untill a few weeks ago when this error appeared again and would not complete the last rinse and spin cycle. Called john lewis and got another engineer out (not JTM this time). He said it was dirty pipes even though I had checked the waste pipe before making the call. He’d taken the pump apart and said there was nothing wrong with it. Fair enough, if its fixed its fixed! What a surprise, after he left and I attempted to do a wash, same U11. Called john lewis and they put me through to someone to speak about a replacement. Here comes the bombshell….panasonic have no record of me owning one of their machines (I applied for the free extended warrenty and have the documents!!), and they only have one record of a call out (the most recent one). So, john lewis (the call centre is Sitel) said I needed to have written evidence of the previous call outs….I signed and dated papers which were taken by the engineer! I didn’t even have to sign anything on the last visit. I would not recommend buying a panasonic washing machine. Takes too long to fix if there is a problem and the customer service is shoddy. I had a much cheaper hotpoint for many years with no probs. Only replaced as this one had a larger capacity and better spin. What a mistake!
Bought machine from comet a NA 127VB3WG in January from the start never liked towels made strange banging noises when spinning. November 2012 circuit breaker cut power, washing machine causing fault when spinning cloths. Comet gone bust called panasonic, engineer came 5 days later. Told us motor has gone and the machine needed a new door lock. Week later another engineer came to do repair without the parts, so say they were in his van, but after trying to get access to machine in a small kitchen told us he did not have the right size tool to get motor out. After receiving 5 phone call regarding another job, legg it and told us he would put in an email to panasonic about parts or replacement.
Telephoned panasnoic complete joke, reading from a script, drove to out local comet. Spoke to a nice lady they spoke to panasonic cannot get the parts, comet ask them to give us a new washing machine because they were in administration they refused .Comet confirmed panasonic did not have any spare parts. Drove to John Lewis ordered one of their own make with 3 year guarantee. Will now contact bank and see if we can get back any money back through charge back because comet are in administration. A lesson learnt.
Update
After contacting bank regarding charge back, because panasonic had sent a repair man over i was not covered, they filled their end of the agreement. As a last ditch attempt, phoned panasonic again told them to remove their machine by 1300 next Tuesday or it was on the tip and I will be taking them to the small claims court. Result their special priory team phoned within 2 hours and offered me a new machine, I refused and they offered a full refund.
Thanks for sharing your experience Elizabeth.
Thought I’d a ‘good’ experience to highlight that its not all bad.
Bought a Panasonic NA-148VA2 1400 in Sep 2010 from John Lewis. As luck would have it it came up with the H43 error last week, a little over the two year warranty offered by John Lewis. However, I’d bought the machine with the free Panasonic six year warranty and so called them direct. Called them Monday, they sent an engineer Thursday.
I’d had the back off myself and could see water leaking from the area of the drum seal. The engineer showed up with a new drum seal unprompted and replaced it in about 30mins. He did report that the machines were a ‘nightmare’ to work on but from a customer point of view 30 mins is no big deal. Anyway, that cured it and its back to working hard again.
Whilst I’m not happy it breaking down in the first place, if it does another 2 years before the next incident I cant complain too much and the service was about as good as it gets. So its not all doom-and-gloom.
I have had my panasonic for little over a year and just experiencing our second U11 code. Will be calling them on Monday. However, when they came out last year the customer service was excellent. I phoned, didnt have to wait long. Had a slot a day later and the engineer called me when he was 20mins away so I could be home. And, panasonic phoned me the following day to check I was happy. So, OK, the machines may have the odd error code issue but it does the best wash Ive ever experienced, even with my eco friendly, leaping bunny approved washing tabs.
I would still buy it again.