John Lewis Jlwm1402 Door Glass Cracked!

[mentalmike]

Last night my partner and I were watching tv when we heard a massive bang, we went into the kitchen to see the washing machine was in its spin cycle and the door glass was cracked straight down the middle with smaller cracks coming off the main one. We stopped the wash and I carefully opened the door to see on the edge of the slant of glass just before it goes flat a chip of glass missing and the crack seems to have started from there.

The worry I have now is how did this happen and will it be covered by the warrantee? The machine is just over 5 months old. I've left all the clothes in there as they are - all that’s in there is a towel few pairs of trousers and underwear not overloaded or anything. I haven't phoned up John Lewis yet as its Sunday and the bank holiday tomorrow so a bit of a pain when we need clothes for next week! The situation I don't want is for them to come out say its not covered charge me 60 quid for the visit, then charge me for a new door and however long it takes to replace as I've had them out before to have a look at it when it was making a scraping noise. Luckily that was covered as originally the repair guy thought it was a bra wire that had gone under the drum but it was a loose fitting inside somewhere, but he said it would've been around £60 otherwise just to remove it!

If it is unlikely to be covered is it possible to buy a replacement door and how much are they likely to be?

Sorry if this is posted in the wrong place!

[Whitegoodshelp (Andy)]

At this stage it's not a consumer issue although I understand you are anticipating a potential consumer issue. It's rare for the door glass on a washing machine to break although it seems to be happening to a few people more and more these days - Washing machine door glass exploding danger.

In theory it should never happen. The problem is going to be finding the cause (unless it was some sort of design or manufacturing problem that they are aware of). An immediate suspect will be something like a coin or a large buckle or something metal on the trousers (A coin may also have dinted or otherwise made marks on the inner drum).

There's a possibility an engineer could simply do the job and not worry too much about the cause but there's always the possibility they would advise it's not covered and is chargeable if they think it's been caused by an obstruction of some kind. It may even be something they can't prove either way. It's a tough call because until he's there you don't know how it's going to go and it's too late by then.

If you genuinely can't find anything that could have caused it and believe there's a fault you could refuse to accept liability but if you have found something that could account for it you may wish to try and obtain the part yourself. A complete door may be available which would be easy to replace although I'd expect it to be around £60 or so (but still cheaper than paying someone) The cheaper option should be to buy just the door glass and split the door to fit it but a little trickier.

John Lewis should be able to put you in touch with somewhere you could order the door part from, or if not, Zanussi would be able to help as the John Lewis JLWM is made by Zanussi. I wouldn't try elsewhere because no one normally stocks parts like a washing machine door glass because they virtually never need replacing normally.

Finally, if you have accidental damage insurance on your contents insurance, and you realise it was caused by something accidentally put in the washing machine you may be able to claim for having it repaired. However, as you would probably have a £50 or so excess, this would only be worth claiming for if you'd paid an engineer something like £100 to repair it.

[mentalmike]

Thanks for the reply, just had a quick look in your where to get parts from and I can get one for £16, so I'm thinking it may be quicker just to get one. The only thing that I believe could have caused it are the metal buttons on a pair of jeans, but its something I've never heard of it happening. I'll give them a call tomorrow and see what they say - hopefully they can give me an idea if I'll be covered before they come out then I can make up my mind on to buy the glass and fix myself or get them to do it. If I do go the route of buying the glass myself would I need to get a new seal or something as well?

[Whitegoodshelp (Andy)]

Check the washing machine pump filter ( How do I clean my pump filter - where is the pump filter? ) to make sure there are no coins inside it (which is what a repairman may do if he suspected the glass could have been broken by something that shouldn't have been in the washing machine). If you find any coins it may be better to go for the door glass option. To be honest I've found thousands of coins in washing machines and seen them do all sorts of damage to the tub and drum but I've never seen one break the door glass.

Also carefully check the condition of the inner drum, are there any dints or creases in it? If both these points are clear then it may well be that there is nothing that you've done to cause this. If it looks like it may have been the metal buttons on the jeans, check there is nothing on the wash label that advises against washing them without taking certain precautions, such as turning them inside out. This is just a precaution to cover all possible accusations that you were to blame.

If it really looks like you did nothing wrong but wash your laundry I would expect the damage should be covered by the guarantee. Unless they could prove it was not the washing machine at fault by finding a coin or something (although even so it's still only circumstantial evidence) they couldn't prove you were liable - .

However, and this is where the consumer issue comes in, if it happened to me I would want to know why the door glass isn't strong enough to stand up to washing normal everyday jeans and what's to prevent it happening again?

As a precaution in future I would maybe turn the jeans inside out before washing and unless you can see damage to the door seal it shouldn't need replacing.

[Whitegoodshelp (Andy)]

A lot more comments and developments have been added to my white goods Blog article called - Washing machine exploding door glass danger so anyone interested in this topic should find it useful. Please consider adding your own experience to its comments if affected.