Listening to all these comments I just want to scream. We have a Whirlpool Cabrio top loader which is fairly new. I noticed the water levels stay pretty low and the spin cycle did not always work at first since we moved in here and just got in this unit.. Sometimes I would put it on a second rinse to get the water out. The washer has corrected itself now and releases all the water however, it appears that everything I wash is pilling no matter what fabric whether it be towels shirts pants socks underwear or separately or together everything is pilling. Zippers and buttons are not any obstacles they have never caused a problem before and they aren't now. Nothing is snagging it. At this rate I will be losing all of my clothing if it keeps on. Most of these clothes I have had for a few years and they always wash up nice they never pill some of these clothes are brand new and pill after just a few Washings.. So my opinion is that these washing machines that supposed to be so modernized are ruining our clothes with the different Cycles in the process that the machine uses to wash the clothes I absolutely hate it. And we the customer, are suffering by buying an item that is useless and ruining our clothes.. in my opinion the general public should not have to go through this crazy task of trying to figure out what is causing this issue I feel it is a manufacturer problem something to do with the way these machines operate and we are stuck with it I'm ready to go buy an old fashioned washer that I know it's going to clean my clothes and not put me through such stress. Any repairman out there or anybody that has figured this out please help!!!! This machine worked in the beginning. I don't think it has to do with detergents, softeners, load limits, water level..... I truly believe it's poor quality workmanship in these machines that triggers this.

Hi Peter-- Thank you for your note. Yes, I have read about your experience--unfortunately, not until after I had already ordered my machine. (I was active on the Forum last fall, then decided to come back and post my review as one always wonders what happened to people and what they decided and how it worked out) It was then that I read your posts. What a nightmare, indeed! I am hoping that if I need service, Best Buy will come through for me. I chose Best Buy because I noticed that they had a lot of LG machines on the floor--washers, dryers, refrigerators. Using Laudry Forum advice, I asked the manager of large appliances: do you have experienced repair people for LG? He looked surprised and said: Yes, of course. LG is one of our biggest sellers and so we have a support system in place. That reassured me. I hope I don't rue my trust. In any case, I do hope that you find a good replacement machine. I did not respond to your post asking for suggestions because I don't have much to offer. I just know that I was going to go with Thor, but Thor, it seems, was even worse than LG; see my post last fall in the Combo Washer/Dryer thread. No response to my email, and when I actually called, they were annoyed and could never give me a single name of a single repairman. And I live in Chicago! Come on! The Askos scare me bec. of report of leaks from them. Equator seems kind of cheap. Maybe Bosch or Miele for you? MMK

Let me start out by saying that I do not have a LG FL, but I do own a FL for the last 9 plus years, maybe I can shed some light on your washer for you and its cycles. I am surprised that you do not have a whitest white cycle on your machine. I kinda thought this was a standard cycle for all Front loaders. According to your owners manual, you would wash whites/cotton on the normal cycle, well there is no heat boost to this cycle to begin with, so whites may not come out as clean as they should. I would use the sanitary cycle or maybe even the baby cycle to do whites in. Your sanitary cycle will heat the water to at least 153 degree's, the baby cycle will go to 130 degree's. A lot of owners manuals will not convey the wash times on the cycles, which I think is stupid personally. But you can figure them out by just turning the soil indicator know to heavy or light soil. All this does is increase or decrease the wash time, and when the heater is in use, it give the heater more time to reach the proper temperature. IF the wash time is too short, the water temperature may never get to 153 degree's for sanitation results. That is why the manuals will say a cycle gets up to XX temperature. If the owner selects a light soiled wash, then more than likely it will not reach its optimum temperature. Alot of People complain about the longer or long wash cylces of front loaders VS traditional toploaders, but the extra time is needed to ensure a gentle cleaning, vs a agatator beating the clothes to deal for 15-18 minutes before going into a spin and rinse. I have to agree that cylce on machines have gotten rediculous over the past few years, such as baby cycles, kids wear, athelic wear, and my favorite one...beach towels.. which all it does in rinse the towels before you wash them to get the sand out. Like I cant take the towel outside and shake it real well first, and maybe just use a prewash during my wash cycle? Baby cylces will usually add and extra rinse to ensure detergent removal. Bulky cycle usually uses more water, slower agatation and spin speed to avoid excessive shaking of the machine. Your prewash temperature will be the same as your wash temperature that you select. Some european made machines, like a Meile may be different, depending on the model, especially if it only has a cold water hookup to it and the heater heats the water to the wash temperature. This is called step cleaning and is quite effective in stain removal on clothes, but it takes more time to do this and Americans in general do not want to wait that long for a wash cycle to complete itself. Your Wash temps will be cold 66-70 warm 90-105, hot 120-130 sanitary 153-158 the reason for the large variation is due to LG giving me these figures and I have contacted them in the past over wash temps for both there front loaders and the new wave force HE top loader. I hope this helps you out some

I have washed Brahms Mount cotton blankets using the pillow cycle on my Miele 3037 and a Brahms Mount wool blanket using the handwash cycle. I put the cotton blankets in the dryer on medium and removed them while still damp to finish drying neatly folded. The dryer was not used for the wool blanket. Washing them this way was successful. I have not been brave enough to try washing an alpaca/cotton throw. My concern is that the two fibers may react differently to the same agitation/water temperature/detergent/etc. Perhaps you should talk to someone at Brahms Mount to find out why dry cleaning is recommended. Also, they may have positive or negative feedback from customers who have tried washing the blended products.