BoilerButtSlut t1_isfez8p wrote on October 15, 2022 at 3:48 PM

Reply to comment by NWO_Eliminator in Dishwasher keeps going by Atlantic76

>The other Whirlpool commercial washer has a POS transmission with shitty plastic gearing that's widely undersized, along with shitty shaft seals that die within a couple of years

Are you sure? I pretty much have the same model in one of the buildings I manage and has been working fine under heavy use for 15 years. It's the same kind that laundromats buy. Owners of laundromats aren't stupid: they pay attention to lifetime cost. They aren't going to buy something that falls apart every few years.

>There is NO reliably designed refrigerator at the moment but hopefully someone will step up to the plate.

Commercial fridges are all garbage? Again, the people buying commercial are looking at the lifetime cost. Miele is also well-known for going fine for 20+ years (both for dishwashers and fridges).

I think you're just painting a pretty broad brush.

NWO_Eliminator t1_isg3uv2 wrote on October 15, 2022 at 6:43 PM

>Are you sure? I pretty much have the same model in one of the buildings I manage and has been working fine under heavy use for 15 years.

If your washer is 15 years old then it has the direct drive transmission which is a completely different animal than this one.

Commercial fridges are all garbage?

Well, if you have 4+ thousand dollars burning a hole in your pocket, they may be reliable. I'm not up to speed on the durability of new commercial refrigerators. Modern day electronics could have changed that.

Miele is also well-known for going fine for 20+ years (both for dishwashers and fridges).

Looks around here and on other forums. There's been complaints about the electronics prematurely dying on newer Miele dishwashers. Same goes with their recent vacuum cleaners. I'm not familiar with their refrigerators.

BoilerButtSlut t1_ity4jt9 wrote on October 27, 2022 at 3:49 AM

>If your washer is 15 years old then it has the direct drive transmission which is a completely different animal than this one.

What's different about it? I'm looking at the parts diagram for the one I posted vs. the 15 year old one I own and I'm not seeing much of a difference in transmission. I'm not an an expert though so I could be missing something.

>Modern day electronics could have changed that.

I work in consumer electronics. Electronics can easily be made to last decades. All you have to do is go to any factory that is still in business from the 70s/80s and you'll almost certainly still see a lot of original controllers around the place.

The tradeoff is that longer-lasting electronic components cost more money. If you're making something that's only expected to be used for a few years, then yeah the manufacturer will gladly go to lower lifetime parts to save a few cents. The capacitors in most low-cost smartphones are only rated to last about 2-3 years (basically just enough to last a typical upgrade cycle).

>There's been complaints about the electronics prematurely dying on newer Miele dishwashers

Every brand has complaints. Even a 99.99% perfection rate means thousands of complaints when you're shipping millions of units. The expectations are also a lot higher when you spend that much money on an appliance. The questions to ask are 1) were the problems fixed? 2) How difficult is it to service yourself or get parts when it's out of warranty? Miele is good on #2. I've only dealt with Miele support once (over something the installer did wrong) and they were way better than any other customer support I've dealt with.

It's possible they went down in quality, I suppose, but why now? They've owned this market segment for over a century and are privately owned. There isn't an incentive for them to suddenly change gears.

NWO_Eliminator t1_itys7i6 wrote on October 27, 2022 at 8:42 AM

You can't see the differences between the old and new designs and transmissions?!?

Read through this thread to see what actual appliance repairmen that have 50+ years of experience have to say about the new design. Go to Reply #33 and sift through 10 pictures of all of the tiny cheap plastic gearing inside. Look at the rusted agitator shafts that are destroyed in 3 years or less due to their shitty tub seals.

https://www.automaticwasher.org/cgi-bin/TD/TD-VIEWTHREADM.cgi?78846

Here's the inside of the transmission of the older style that has zero history of tub seal issues.

https://youtu.be/cUOH67WisHU?t=246

Profit. Make it cheaper and sell for the same price. If everyone else is cheapening their design to maximize profit, follow the trend to survive. I also think they're coming out with new designs and not spending enough time with research and development.

This has been a major issue in the automotive world the last 10-15 years. They come out with a new engine/transmission design and by the time they fix all of the problems, they crank out another design and the process repeats itself. Engines went to low tension piston rings in the mid to late 2000's and they had a ton of oil burning issues. Actually, a lot of new vehicles still have oil burning issues due to this shitty design to increase MPG's a measly 1-2 points. Now the new trend is putting small engines in everything, including trucks, and throwing a turbo on it. It's greatly reducing the lifespan of engines and turbo are dying early deaths.

Just look at automatic transmissions in the last 15-20 years. In the early 2000's we still had 4 speed automatic transmissions with designs that went back to the late 70's/early 80's. Then it went to 5 and 6 speeds to 8-10 speeds in as little as 5 years. There were a lot of major changes in a short period of time with automatic and CVT transmissions and they were dying premature deaths due to the lack of R&D. A Toyota Camry was still using the same 4 speed automatic transmission in 2001 as they did in 1983. Some Toyota products went from 4 speed transmissions to 8 speed with several different design changes in between in just 6 years.

BoilerButtSlut t1_iu9wvia wrote on October 29, 2022 at 6:19 PM

You said that the older ones were direct drive and the newer ones weren't. I assume direct drive is having the motor directly connected instead of a transmission. Both machines have transmissions. If that's not what you meant you'll have to clarify.

Looking at the pictures of the transmissions I agree that it appears that cost saving manufacturing steps were made. Whether that affects lifetime I'm not sure.

If it does affect lifetime, I expect that these will disappear from laundromats pretty quickly in favor of more durable models. Laundromats keep track of this stuff and it will be obvious they cost more to operate.

>If everyone else is cheapening their design to maximize profit, follow the trend to survive. I also think they're coming out with new designs and not spending enough time with research and development.

Well the first problem is that this will kill long-term profits. These are private families that own these brands. They are not beholden to shareholder promises or quarterly promises. German companies are notorious for filling small-volume niche markets like this and just never leaving. I doubt the families are more greedy than they were 50 years ago, nor that german economic policy has changed much during that time either. So again, assuming this is even happening, why now?

The problem is that "everyone" isn't doing it. All you need is one company that doesn't go along for the whole scheme to fall apart. US carmakers already tried this twice and both times some import came in and destroyed them.

I've always heard this "oh everyone is doing it" but I still have no trouble finding durable and long-lasting versions of stuff. If Whirlpool (or whoever) is reducing quality, look elsewhere and I guarantee you'll find it.

>They come out with a new engine/transmission design and by the time they fix all of the problems, they crank out another design and the process repeats itself.

The new designs are for regulatory compliance. They don't do it for fun. You can blame the federal government for this. This has nothing to do with the carmakers themselves (source: I know automotive engineers at 2 of the big 3 automakers).

Same thing for the transmissions. That's all for fuel economy compliance. They aren't doing it for fun or in some vain hope that it will fail and bring repeat business.

You can still find the old engine/transmission designs in developing markets where emissions/fuel economy requirements basically don't exist. Up until recently (like within the past 10 years, I believe), Egypt was making a licensed version of a western car from the 70s.

This is one of the major drivers behind automakers going to EV: fuel and emissions compliance is no longer an issue and they don't need to spend so many resources redesigning stuff.