Nov 20 2007
Waiting, waiting and waiting some more.
The other night our Washing machine truly gave up the ghost. It appeared to make clothes wet, but didn’t actually seem to do much else to them (ie agitating, rinsing, spinning…you get the idea). This culminated in a nice burning smell originating from the machine itself.
Burning smells always make me nervous. The burning smell, however, seemed to be the only thing the washing machine actually did well at this point, and so I was forced to concede to Lisa that yes, it may in fact be time to go and get ourselves a new washing machine.
I’m not criticising the one we had. We got it for free from my Mom and Stepfather when we bought the house (all the other appliances were included), and it wasn’t precisely in pristine shape then. So 18 months of use from a “free” machine shouldn’t be sneezed at I s’pose, although the burning smell did seem to trigger some sort of alergic reaction.
So this past weekend we went out, found a nice front loading washing machine (Lisa had done all the homework here, and for this major purchase my contribution was limited to the odd sarcastic comment) and arranged to have it delivered on Tuesday, the earliest day available (We go through a fair amount of laundry here at Casa Flexibility).
So here I sit. My delivery window has been alternately given as between 09:00 and 13:00, 09:00 and 17:00, 09:37 and 13:37hrs (Huh?) and now stands at between 08:40 and 12:40 according to their online service. I took the morning off work to be here for the delivery, but beyond surfing the net and playing the odd video game I’m not getting much done staying within earshot of the driveway.
That some useful online thing they got!
What time did they actually turn up?
Funny little techno-widget. Out of curiousity I checked the delivery time web address when we got home at 5:00, it told my that my delivery time would be between 11:40 and 3:40pm…
The actual delivery was made at 11:00, no complaints here. Quick 5 minute drop and collect and away the boys went. Spent the evening removing the assorted “transport bolts/thing-a-ma-bobs” and we’re now doing our first load of “high efficiency” laundry.
Yaaa-hooo…
So nice that they took the dead one, too…
$20 (well, $22 and change with taxes) to remove the old one. Money well spent as far as I’m concerned.
-GRIN-
The delivery “Window” has been a running joke for years.
It just seems to get bigger and bigger.
But at least you have a way to clean your clothes…:)
The best thing about a front loader is, you get more surface area to put crap on.
Same thing happened here last month and $150 later it was fixed. Then last week my dryer died.
Yay.
Piet: Yeah, no complaints here, I was told it’d be before noon and it was, I had prepared to take the entire day off (and the though wasn’t exactly costing me any sleep) but it wasn’t required.
All in all I was impressed with the service, impressed because they delivered when and how they told me they would, I guess consumers expectations have dropped a bit over the last generation, where merely meeting expectations is celebrated as opposed to “exceeding” them.
Matt: We thought about having it fixed, I took the service panels off the machine and poked around underneath the machine. A casual inspection showed massive corrosion underneath the drum, and covering the motor itself and the mount. Was likely from a previous owner as we’ve had no leaks, but it looked to me like it’d take a herculian effort to replace the motor, possibly replacing the mount itself and even then no guarantees the transmission or something else wouldn’t kick it a month later.
Figured as it was free, and had served 18 months with a completely unknown history we’d invest in a new one.
Seems to have been a good choice, now the trick is paying for it.
-GRIN-