I absolutely love my Maytag Bravos washer/dryer set. The washer is an HE toploader. I have the best of both worlds -- low water usage, huge capacity (I can wash a king-size comforter and 2-3x the laundry I could wash in my former washer), I can soak clothes (very important to me), the high spin speed spins so well, laundry dries quickly, and I can add clothes as long as the Add A Garment light is on. Because of the huge capacity, I only wash 3-5 loads max per week, whereas I used to wash 7-10 loads per week. This has made an appreciable difference in our utility bills.

Hello all, just wanted to post a follow-up on my new w/d set. Lowes replaced my Whirlpool Duet w/d just this past week. My wife and I picked out the Bosch 800 Nexxt Series. The unit themselves looks nice but once again we are not as pleased as I thought we would be with a new set. As you will see from my previous post, we had a problem with the washer shaking violently and moving all over the place knocking into the wall etc. So to deter that from happening this time, we put down a rubber rug mat first and then an area rug on top of that so that the washer would be less likely to walk when in the spin cycle. Well here are the facts, the washer and dryer are both level (I check with a level myself both side to side and front to back) and when it enters the spin cycle it seems like on low to medium spin it is just unbelievable the amount that it shakes. You can here the thing vibrating the floor and walls of the house from any room on the bottom floor. Although I must say when it finally reaches the highest point of the spin it settles out and just moves a very little. So my biggest issue is getting to the high rate of spin when it gets there it is just fine. I read a lot of other posts and people were talking about loading one piece of clothing at a time to balance out the load. Usually we just throw a handful of clothes in a time and don't worry about it. I certainly don't think you should have to take sock by sock, shirt by shirt, etc and load the machine but maybe you do. Then I thought the drum might not be balanced but not sure what the liklihood of that is since it's a new machine. As soon as we did our first load and noticed the erratic shaking on low to medium, my wife and I just looked at each other and said oh no not again. We are really seriously beginning to think that no front loader out there is going to be right for us because of the way they shake when spinning. I think if I had it to do all over instead of going with another front loading model we would have went back to top loading, I just can't take all the racket. Now we are thinking about making provisions to just do clothes when we don't have company or setting the delay and having it wash while we sleep. It's a shame you have to do that with such expensive equipment. The only other issue that we had was with the new dryer. We kept getting the error of clean lint filter. After cleaning the lint filter 5 times during one dry cycle, I decided to contact Bosch to see if they had any suggestions. The lady advised me that my exhaust hose might be bunched up causing the machine to get warm thinking that lint is clogging up the filter. So I looked back behind the dryer and it was pretty warm back there and the hose might have been a little bound up but nothing to where I thought it should cause any issues. I wanted to leave a decent amount of length to the exhaust hose just because it makes it easier to pull out the dryer if you need to without disconnecting the hose because you have plenty of length. So as a work around or potential fix, my wife and I slid the dryer out a little from the wall to ensure that the exhaust hose was not being bound up or crunch up at all and I just completed a full load without any error messages claiming that the lint filter needs to be cleaned so I guess we are on the right track. If anyone has any suggestions or comments about either situation/example, please let me know. Thanks for all your help, Michael

Thanks everyone for all your comments. I have done so much research now on every brand that's been mentioned here. I'm still not sure of what brand to buy since they all seem to have their problems. I have heard that Speed Queen is about the best but it is pricier. I do believe tho that I will stick to an old fashioned agitator model and not go with the HE models. The HE's are much more attractive but it IS just the laundry room. It's so easy to get caught up in all the hype about low water usage, pretty colors and designer looking machines when all I really want is something that will get my clothes clean without ruining them and not break down all the time. I have never had to spend one dime on the old Kenmore washer and dryer that I have now and it's OLD! I know things aren't built like that anymore so will just have to get over it and lower my expectations somewhat, but I still don't want to spend good money on machines that will not last. Whatever I wind up with, I just hope it's not a lemon. I think that's the problem nowadays...the quality is just not there anymore. Too many plastic parts, too many engineering shortcuts. A lot more lemons than there use to be. :(

Can you recoup the cost of either set? Renters aren't usually choosy about what they get but can be a pain in the rear if you opt for price over quality and the set requires repairs. While I prefer the bells and whistles on my own laundry equipment, I wouldn't expect renters to get top-of-the-line while I used sub-par, or older, equipment. If the average washer lasts about 10 years now then you may want to take that into consideration when making the decision. Cost will always be an issue. Due to my experience with Ropers and Hotpoints when I was a renter, I'll never buy either of those brands nor wish them on my worst enemy.