JJ Lighting & Electrical - Home Electrical Centre

Well, part of the problem might be just that, you’re buying the cheapest machine available. You can get washing machines for under £200 but as you’d expect, the build quality is pretty poor, with cheap bearings and motors which simply can’t cope with heavy use. They are designed to do a fairly small set number of cycles in their lifetime, and if it’s getting regular heavy use it will kill it very quickly indeed. It’s tempting just to make your decision based on the purchase price, but it’s a bit like buying the smallest and cheapest car on the market and expecting to drive it to Scotland every day without any problems, it simply can’t manage it. Logic dictates that if a £200 washing machine lasts a third as long as a £350 washing machine, buying it is a false economy.

We would recommend as a bare minimum buying a Zanussi or Whirlpool basic machine for between £250 and £300, which should give a few years of normal use. Really though, if you can stretch to it, an entry-level Bosch machine for about £350 would be your best bet. It’s simple to use, tough enough to last many years of normal use, and a two-year guarantee is provided for free for piece of mind.