[cute fuzzy bunny]

With regards to the Kenmore, a bunch of them were made 4-6 years ago with some bad bearing or something in them that eventually leaked and caused a catastrophic failure of the unit, preceded by staining up your clothes.

A lot of people who learned of the problem were able to fix it proactively, and the problem was fixed a number of years ago.

Sears really should have done a recall or offer to fix those machines. Bad decision to throw their hands up and say it was out of warranty.

I had one of them and I fixed it myself. Front loaders are ridiculously simple machines. Theres generally one motor with a belt that does everything, a water valve, and a pair of control boards...one to run the motor and one hooked to the knobs. Pretty obvious when something goes wrong which part it is.

Funny thing is, most of the same-size front loaders are built by the same company and then sold under 5-7 brand names. So if you see a 2.8 or 3.1 cu foot unit sold by Kenmore, Frigidaire and whirlpool and the controls all look to be about the same, its the same washer. Whats really interesting is then seeing the drastically different reviews on what is essentially the same machine.

We went the other way size-wise and bought the humongous Bosch unit. Lowes and Bosch both gave me a rebate, the water company gave me a hundred bucks and PG&E gave me $75. So IIRC the end cost of the thing was around $450.

Whats nice is that we used to do 4-5 loads of laundry a week and now its two: one color and one white. With room to spare. You can put a fluffy king comforter in it and still have room for the sheets.