Tangles sheets and other large items; hard on clothes

This unit was supplied with our new condo, so we didn't pay for it or have any choice in its selection. Since we'd had decent previous experience with GE laundry machines (both our own and our parents'), though, we didn't see any reason for concern.

The machine offers good capacity and a useful selection of cycles (although the Delicate cycle is pretty useless as it operates at the same speed as all the others). Both the washer and dryer are fairly quiet in operation. Dryer temps seem to be fairly well controlled. The lint filter on the dryer is a nuisance, though: lint clings to the door when you open it and falls into the washer if it's open.

From the very beginning, we had great difficulty washing bed sheets. No matter what we did (the owners manual has tips on how to load large items and suggests adding other small items, trying different water levels, etc.), the sheets became so tangled that they sometimes resembled rope at the end of the cycle. It would take a couple of minutes to untangle each one before placing them in the dryer. They didn't get very clean, either.

We also noticed more damage (lost buttons, frayed cuffs, more lint in the dryer's lint filter) to our clothes than we had with the old Maytag in our former home. The hems came apart on several of our new bath towels (two different brands and styles, from different stores).

We'd never had this problem with any washer before, so we searched the Web for tips on how to avoid it. None of the tips was effective, so we contacted the distributor here in Canada (Camco). A rep phoned us and said it sounded as though our machine had a broken "tub brake," as we observed that the laundry tub rotates counterclockwise during the wash cycle (you have to use a pen to override the safety switch in order to watch the washer in action with the lid open). He suggested that we make a service appointment. We did, and the service technician (also from Camco) told us that the machine is operating normally.

The technician told us that this machine is manufactured by Frigidaire (they offer a similar model under the Frigidaire name), and lacks any sort of tub brake whatsoever. The tub "indexes" counterclockwise during agitation, which causes the water in the tub to swirl in a counterclockwise direction. It's this swirling that wreaks havoc with sheets, tablecloths and other large items, causing them to wrap around the agitator. The agitator on this machine also has flat blades with squared-off edges (unlike the rounder, helical agitators on most other machines), which may help explain why it seems to be harder on fabric.

The wash action in most top-loaders makes the clothes "turn over" in place. The agitator circulates water in such a way that the clothes get "sucked down" next to the agitator and come back up near the perimeter of the tub. In this washer, though, the clothes rotate around the tub and take quite a bashing from the agitator as it quickly rotates back and forth.

One annoying characteristic related to the lack of a tub brake: because the tub takes a long time to stop after the spin cycle, there's a lid lock that keeps you from opening the lid (as a safety precaution) for several minutes after the cycle ends. This is normally not much of a problem, except when the washer experiences an out of balance spin. You turn the machine off to stop the banging and redistribute the load, but you have to stand there and wait several minutes before you can open the lid.

I complained about this machine to Camco, but a rep wrote back and said that the repair tech was correct in his assessment that our washer was working normally. He said that since the machine is manufactured by Frigidaire, they have no control over its design or quality. We found this a pretty disappointing response from such a large company.

We've now started to look for some new machines, and will avoid Frigidaire -built top-loaders (regardless of the name on the machine) when we buy. We suggest you do the same.

Update (July 2006) We still have this machine, but have learned a few "tricks" to get good results from it:
1.) Don't load the washer to capacity. We've found that if we keep the loads small-to-medium and use the "High" water-level setting, the clothes take less of a beating. The tangling problem with sheets and other large items is still there, though.
2.) Use a very short wash time (5 minutes or less) to reduce damage to fabrics. To compensate for the short wash time, we stop the washer after it agitates for a minute or so and let the load soak for 30 minutes. We re-start the washer and let it finish the load automatically. Our clothes are always really clean and have held up very well.