HeavyG said:

pgprescott said:

HeavyG said:

pgprescott said:

DoubleEgger said:

If you buy, the forum consensus is Speed Queen 

I think they are the only ones left that aren’t conservation friendly. They have a real agitator and use way more water. In other words they are designed to wash the clothes. 

And yet, by most testing, agitator top loaders don't clean clothes as well as most front loaders.

Certainly one potential advantage Speed Queens have tho is far fewer bells and whistles to fail.

Do the test yourself, then we can talk. 

Naaah, I'll never own a Speed Queen myself, am just relying on reviews from folks that actually test these things scientifically.

Just got a nice LG HE top loader (no agitator) a year ago and it cleans fine. But I probably don't put it to much of a test since I don't have any grease stained coveralls or the like to feed it.

pgprescott said:

HeavyG said:

pgprescott said:

HeavyG said:

pgprescott said:

DoubleEgger said:

If you buy, the forum consensus is Speed Queen 

I think they are the only ones left that aren’t conservation friendly. They have a real agitator and use way more water. In other words they are designed to wash the clothes. 

And yet, by most testing, agitator top loaders don't clean clothes as well as most front loaders.

Certainly one potential advantage Speed Queens have tho is far fewer bells and whistles to fail.

Do the test yourself, then we can talk. 

Naaah, I'll never own a Speed Queen myself, am just relying on reviews from folks that actually test these things scientifically.

Just got a nice LG HE top loader (no agitator) a year ago and it cleans fine. But I probably don't put it to much of a test since I don't have any grease stained coveralls or the like to feed it.

I know it’s real hard to believe, but most of those coveted scientific review sites have an agenda of sorts. Just have to know that going in so you can wade through the bs. Plenty of good options though. 

nolaegghead said:

Our LG front-loaders have been doing, on average, a couple loads a day for 10 years, zero problems.  The wash cycle takes longer than a top-loader but more water is squeezed out of the clothes for a shorter dryer cycle.  Quality wise it cleans better than our old top loader, especially large items like quilts.  Uses less water and electricity. 

My only complaint is we have to leave the lid open after using it to prevent mildew (just for a few hours) and sometimes it shakes like a MF-er.

HeavyG said:

pgprescott said:

HeavyG said:

pgprescott said:

HeavyG said:

pgprescott said:

HeavyG said:

pgprescott said:

DoubleEgger said:

If you buy, the forum consensus is Speed Queen 

I think they are the only ones left that aren’t conservation friendly. They have a real agitator and use way more water. In other words they are designed to wash the clothes. 

And yet, by most testing, agitator top loaders don't clean clothes as well as most front loaders.

Certainly one potential advantage Speed Queens have tho is far fewer bells and whistles to fail.

Do the test yourself, then we can talk. 

Naaah, I'll never own a Speed Queen myself, am just relying on reviews from folks that actually test these things scientifically.

Just got a nice LG HE top loader (no agitator) a year ago and it cleans fine. But I probably don't put it to much of a test since I don't have any grease stained coveralls or the like to feed it.

I know it’s real hard to believe, but most of those coveted scientific review sites have an agenda of sorts. Just have to know that going in so you can wade through the bs. Plenty of good options though. 

You're probably right, measuring stains in laundered fabric samples does have a well known left wing bias.

You must feel guilty or something. There are multiple kinds of bias. One for instance is the bias toward price over performance. Just an example. You carry on with your tin foil hat. Jeez!

Well, our discussion was just about cleaning performance.

When someone like Consumer Reports provides their suggested "best product" they look at all the various testing categories and make a determination based on some sort of decision matrix that weighs/ranks the various categories based on what they consider THEIR degree of importance/relevance.

Other folks might weight all those categories somewhat differently and thus they end up with a different "best product".

Consumer Reports does provide the tables that shows the results in every testing category so someone can make their own comparison. If someone wants a washer that has the best cleaning performance (all other factors be damned) it is apparent from the data that most front loaders clean better than agitators.

Speed Queen also makes front loaders and their cleaning performance was well below many other brands of front loaders.

There may well be other factors that leads many to want to buy a Speed Queen (whether front load or agitator) but top of the heap cleaning performance isn't their strong suit.

At least according to one biased organizations data.

epcotisbest said:

So update on my washer repair - brought it back in the laundry room last night, hooked it back up and we have done two full loads to test out my efforts, and it works great! And no leaks either. Goes through the cycle just fine, spins out the water and no longer leaves the clothes dripping and most importantly, my wife is happy. She did not want to buy a new one and thanks to her encouragement, we saved several hundred dollars.
It is satisfying doing it myself and saving some money. Now, since I don't know exactly what was the culprit, and went ahead and replaced several parts while I had it apart, I probably did not save as much as I could have, but that's fine with me. Kinda like changing a water pump...no reason to not change the belts and hoses while you are at it.