As far as the question "does anything run trouble free for 7 years?" I would guess the answer is no. If you have not purchased a service agreement and call about your 2 year old appliance that is now broke (and nothing is cheap these days), they will refer to the fact that they sell extended warranties to cover these problems and you should have purchased one. I've had my washer for about 2 1/2 years with basically no problems (pushed the cancel/pause button probably a million times to many by accident and messed up a cycle, stupid stuff like that). It's just a little annoying when you have a weekend to get a bunch of laundry done (by the way keep in mind that wash cycles in FL are a lot longer...in my machine anywhere from 45 minutes in the normal cycle to 2 hours in the sanitize cycle, doesn't include extra time if you like to prewash)and your machine is giving you an error code when your wash is 15 minutes from being done and then you need to start it all over again. At this point I like my machine more that I dislike my machine...I cannot say that I am in love with it. But they do not make appliances the way they used to. I've just had bad luck with the last 2 out of 3 Kenmore appliances I've purchased and next time I'll try a different place. My mother's dryer is still working and it's 42 years old. Amazing. I just wanted to let you know that there are some problems with the older models and I researched left and right before buying mine and nothing was reported. Good luck with your choice! They wash a ton of clothes!

sjay, The Duet HT and HE5t are basically the same, but the Sears models have a few "extra" features. The main one you mentioned is a profile wash. On the HE5t, there is a stain treat option that will start a wash cycle with warm water, and heat it to hot over an extended wash cycle. It can be used on several cycles. The Duet has that feature built into the Heavy Duty cycle, so that is less flexible. I use that feature several times a month, and that alone was enough to convince me to get the Kenmore over the Whirlpool. I don't know if is still the case, but the Kenmore machines had a slightly longer (like 5 min or so) longer wash cycle than the whirlpool models. HE5t has an extended spin option, and its top spin speed is slightly higher than the whirlpool machines. It also has one more spin speed, extra slow. Both machines allow an extra rinse to be added (default is 2 rinses), but the Kenmore model also has a more intensive rinse option called Skincare Rinse II. HE5t has both cool (77F) and tap cold settings. Duet's cold is controlled at 77F, with no tap cold option HE5t has an energy saver option, which increase wash time by 10 minutes while reducing water temp (Heavy duty and whitest whites cycles). This is supposed to provide the same results while saving energy. Duet has no such option. The Duet allows you to select loud, soft, or off for the button sounds. The HE5t only has an on or off option for the button sounds. These are all that I can think of right now. Joe

I have the HE5t without steam. I don't have any reason to have the steam function. I love my new washing machine, I've had it a bit over a month. I do dry the boot after the last load of the day and leave the door open when not in use. I use normal for most of my loads, I have also used Heavy Duty, great for hubby's outside clothes and Whitest Whites. I used the Sanitary function one time just to use it and it 'cleaned' as well as Whitest Whites. I have run the Clean Washer cycle one time, but I don't think that it needed it. The water comes up higher on the window and I had no suds, probably because I've been using Charlie's Soap exclusively. I sure wish that I had a light in my washing machine!

Hi, I too did exhaustive reseach on front-loaders, spent many hours reading here and other sites. I ended up buying LG 2487 washer with LG 7177 dryer. It's been two weeks and maybe 5 loads of laundry and I'm very impressed so far! Our house is buuilt on a concrete slab, so washer did not need leveling even though I had level in hand as they installed it. Washer is very quiet! Average wash time has been 54-55 minutes. I like how it senses the size of the load and then calculates how much water, how much time, etc to clean load. I'm also surprised at how much laundry 1 load will handle! What used to be two loads in our old TL is now 1 load in the FL. Clothes come out clean and smelling very nice! We used the Tide HE liquid sample it came with. The warrantee seems like it was pretty good, 1 year parts/labor, 2 years-control board, 7 years-motor and 10 years-drum. I have 30 days to buy extended warrantee which I'm still thinking about. Dryer is also very impressive, the auto-drying has averaged 41-42 minutes per load on normal cycle, it also is very quiet unless you have zippers or snaps that can clang in the SS drum. The venting sensor is cool, lets you know if you have sufficient vent flow. It has cooling tumble after clothes are dry to keep from wrinkling, and last but not least, the coolest jingle when dryer is done. These machines have many more features, but so far so good! I live in the very populous SF bay area, so I'm not too concerned about service in needed, I too leave door open as a precautionary too prevent mold smell. My neighbor used to be a Sears appliance repairman, Sears does source out to numerous manufacturers now, so Kenmore brand is not exclusive to Whirlpool anymore. Take all advice with a grain of salt, weigh all your options, roll the dice and hope for the best! Good luck with what ever you choose. Take care and stay clean!! :)