Looking For Recommendation - John Lewis Or Zanussi

[dougt]

Hi - looking for a bit of advice on buying a washer/dryer

Out Hotpoint WD63 has packed up for the last time (not even 3 years old but has required numerous engineer visits and I'm fed up paying £40 a pop for new heat fuses. Anyway, I digress...)

Due to space constraints, we need another combined washer/dryer, so I have been reading through your advice and seeing whats out there and have narrowed down the choices to either a Zanussi ZWD1272 (£399, 2yr warranty) or a John Lews JLWD1406 (£499, 3 year warranty), both from John Lewis. I'm looking for advice on which of these you would chose?

The JL one obviously has the longer warranty but costs more, so I factored in getting 5 year warranties on both to level the playing field a bit (Zanussi +£169, total £568. JL +£109, total £608). I'd probably not be going for the 5 year warranty as I have a bit of aversion to paying for extended warranties on principle.

So I guess the question is this - Is the JL machine worth the extra? I see from your advice they are practically Zanussi machines anyway, so is it really worth it?

Would be grateful for your thoughts...

Thanks

Doug

[Whitegoodshelp (Andy)]

Hello Doug,

There appears to be a few more differences than just the price and length of warranty. A great feature of the John Lewis site is to be able to directly compare two or more washing machines. There's a little white box on each washing machine, and if you tick two or more, then click the "compare selected products" you get a side by side comparison.

Looking at the two washer dryers you mention it seems the main differences are -

• The john Lewis is 2 cm deeper
• It has 3 more programs
• It uses almost half the amount of water
• It spins at a faster 1400 (as opposed to 1200)
• It has an extra year's guarantee (3 years instead of 2 years)
• It costs £100 more

It's just a question of whether the extra features are worth it to you. As I mention in my article on washing machine spin speeds ( Are washing machine spin speeds a con? ) We do pay a fair bit extra for relatively small increase in spin speed, but if you regularly tumble dry your laundry then the 1400 spin may save energy costs over the life of the washing machine. Plus if it uses half the water there could be other (long term) savings, and if you don't want the extra cost of a 5 year extended warranty the 3 year one may be attractive.