I remember when I first got my FL I thought at first that the clothes were just "spinning" back and forth and would not get clean. However upon further inspection you notice as they get wet they slosh and fall. FL's dont just fill with water and start washing (like traditional TL's), they fill gradually. My FL (LG) will start a normal cycle at 55mins, by 48mins it is completely wet and sloshing pretty good. There have been some times early on where I put TOO much clothes in and even fully wet they werent sloshing, they were just turning with the drum which mean you will not be getting a complete clean load. Be careful not to overload. I have had my set for 3yrs now, best move I ever made. I STILL CANNOT GET OVER THE SMALL AMOUNT OF WATER!! (smile) I use maybe a tablespoon and a half of detergent, I switched to powder about a year ago and was using too much and started to notice a slight smell after closing the door even after 3 days of leaving the door open, cut back on my powder amount and within two weeks the smell was gone. Lesson learned. I have for the most part always used GAIN, even when I had a TL. Because of the high water extraction FL clothes coming out of the washer dont have that highly perfumed smell you may be accustomed to in TL's. They do smell clean and airy though. I noticed even when I used liquid FS (fabric softner) in the wash that the smell is almost non-existent coming out of washer. Matching dryer is good/OK. HUGE capacity which IMHO can cause some problems...at least for me. I have found that with the larger capacity some clothes tend to get lost in bigger clothes i.e. bath clothes, or hand towels in sheets and dont get dried. Did not have this problem with smaller capacity dryers as I suspect they dont have as much room to tumble. It is a trivial issue for me though and would not trade bigger capacity for smaller. This is the first dryer I've owned that has sensors to detect drying which can be a problem if you use FS sheets. Early on I noticed my clothes were not drying, I called LG thinking there was an issue w/my dryer, they gave me a quick fix if you use FS sheets (below). I use the Bounce stick that adheres to the drum of the dryer and love it, I just have to after 5 or so loads clean the sensors w/alcohol. It takes all of 20 seconds and SHAZAM!!! all is well!! ENJOY!!!!!!!!!!

Marc, we, too, have Whirlpool Top loader that is 15 years old...we're looking so I wrote to whirlpool and their response is as below... Thank you for visiting the Whirlpool website, we appreciate hearing from you. There is good and bad to the newer front load washer. The good is they can clean allot of clothes in one wash and wring them out well so that they don't take long to dry. The bad is that they are made in Germany so many of the parts, when needed, have to be shipped overseas to us here. We make them in our plant in Germany. Although we continually strive to use the best components available in all our appliances, any electrical/mechanical component can malfunction, and it is impossible to predict just when this might occur. To protect our consumers against the possibility of a defect in materials and/or workmanship at the time of manufacture, we provide a warranty with our productÂs that states that we will repair or replace any part that proves to be defective within a specified period of time. It has been our experience that manufacturing defects will appear and should be reported well within warranty, at which time repairs are made at no cost to our customers. Top loaders have a much better track record. All our top loads are manufactured in our OH plants. You can't fit in as much clothes but they are the dependable ones. The transmissions are allot stronger than they used to be. If you choose a top load washer, go for the WTW5900S or WTW5800S. These washers have a three speed motor. If you want a delicate wash, you'll get it with a three speed motor. Let me give you examples on the speeds: One speed- 180 strokes per minute Two speed- 180, 120 strokes per minute Three speed- 180, 120, 90 strokes per minute I wish I could make the decision for you but ultimately, you have to get what is best for your uses. Whirlpool does stand behind all our products with a strong warranty. We assist customers out of warranty many times for different situations. No other manufacturer does that. We hope you'll choose one of our products and stay a member of our appliance family! Have a great weekend! Again, thank you for contacting Whirlpool with your shopping questions! If you have further inquiries, please feel free to reply to this email or visit our website at http://www.whirlpool.com. Whirlpool's web site offers several on-line services, such as product information, dimensions guides, owner's manuals, and installation guides, for our consumers 24 hours a day 7 days a week. End of quoted letter...I posted some of this information on this thread and someone responded that it's not all made in Ohio but in China/Mexico...I don't know why they would tell me differently when they admitted Germany for the frontloaders..but this may help in your information gathering! :) Tara

millmacc, I wonder if it is your water supply. I know where I live in TX there is so much limestone and the water is extremely hard. Even with a water softener there is more buildup than I would like. I have kicked around installing a whole home water filtration system. We have a filter on the refrigerator and I notice the difference in taste in water from it versus other faucets. We do have a water osmosis system but I have never really delved into why they installed it since it seems to be only at the refrigerator and kitchen sink.

Shawn1972ut: "Front loader complaints of smell, long cycle times, inefficient rinses, poor electronic components, and failure rates at less than 5 yrs concerns me. " It is necessary to separate issues of front loader vs. top loader from issues of generations -- both generations of people and generations of manufacturing. The numbers would be difficult to aggregate, but, with a fair degree of certainty, it can be said that a majority of the automatic washing machines ever made have been front loaders. Front loading automatics have been around since the 1930s, but top-loading machines did not lose their mangles (those wringer arms that you see atop older top-loading washing machines) -- that is, they did not become automatic, until after World War II. Like tail fins on automobiles, top loading automatic washing machines became all the fad in the United States in the 1950s, but never caught on elsewhere in the world. In the United States, though, some consumers mistakenly think of top-loaders as "traditional." There is a high correlation between those who refer to top loaders as "traditional" and those who simply do not know what they are talking about. A couple of generations of housewives (that is not sexist, just the way society was organized), brought up on the post-WWII top loading machines, were educated to think that you need at least 40 gallons of water to wash a load of laundry. And that much water required at least a cup of laundry detergent; and if one cup is good, aren't two cups even better? When those consumers encountered later generation water-conserving front-loading washers, they continued to use their two cups of detergent per load, and that detergent overload is the source of a lot of the negative comments you see about front loading machines. Now, getting to your question, there are two kinds of "features" in washing machines. One kind of feature is choice of materials and construction techniques. Speed Queen washing machines are rightly often praised for construction quality largely because of choice of metal bearings in place of nylon bearings, heavier gauge steel where it counts, etc. The other kind of features are multiple selectable cycles, programability, LED screens, etc. You pays your money and you takes your choice. Personal opinion: one of the better "features" is a dimpled stainless steel drum. When a washing machine's drum spins for water extraction, fibers of the laundry inside the drum are drawn through the water drainage holes in the drum, and that accelerates fabric wear. Miele pioneered the "honeycomb" drum, with the drainage holes positioned in small domes in the drum surface to minimize the fabric pull-through. Samsung rather blatantly copied that feature in its "diamond" drum. So far as I am aware, no other maker has followed Miele and Samsung down that road. Our family, starting with my mother, has owned only four washing machines in over 75 years; they all have been front-loading washing machines. The first three lasted, on average, over 20 years each in moderately hard use. We purchased the fourth machine a few years back, and the deciding factor in our purchase was the dimpled drum design; we selected a Samsung over a Miele for price considerations. HTH.