Yes it will be my first FL. Wife has used it before at her place.
ok, so that is better than neither having used an FL. Still, there is a mindset that needs to be addressed when moving from top load to front load. The video below demonstrates the pitfalls of not doing so well I think.
This a decent review of an AI DD LG from Malaysia but there are a number of issues with this video.
1) First, this guy is using some no-name dinky one-foot long torpedo level. See above for what spirit level to get.
2) Second, since he is coming from a top loader he expects more water to be in the machine during the wash. He finds wash quality is not so good. He then looks for a hack on the net to increase the default water level and is happy with the result. The downside is his hack will void the warranty. So why did he do this?
Since he is in Malaysia he thinks he can get away with cold washes. He should have stuck to forty-degree washes. That will be more consistent when it is cloudy and the overhead tank does not get as hot during sunny days. In any case, there is no harm in setting it to forty as if the water is hot it will not heat the water up anyway.
The next problem is a bit more tricky. Why is the detergent foaming up leading him to use rinse+ or a third rinse? The reason is the detergent he is using. I notice it had instructions for top loader, front loader and handwash. That right there is a red flag. This most likely is a top loader detergent that is being sold as suitable for front loaders. I already highlighted this issue with P&G India in an earlier post who have since rectified the problem. Not so in Malaysia. When I look at the detergent he is using. It is called
Dynamo and the graphics make me think this is the equivalent of Ariel so P&G. A top loader detergent is going to foam more because that is what it is supposed to do. You need some foam to lift dirt & lint in a top loader but you do not want that in a front loader because it cushions the clothes and reduces the wash quality. Right away the formulations are different, they have to be as the mechanics of washing are different.
The fact that he was finding detergent in his clothes in spite of three rinses suggests the water temperature just wasn't high enough. This is why the detergent expected more water to completely dissolve. Since there is no heating in a top loader. Top loader detergents are generally slower to dissolve than front loader detergents. What is interesting to me is this also applies to liquids. This detergent he is using will definitely leave deposits in his drum and cause issues at a later date because it's the wrong bloody detergent. Not his fault. MNCs should not be pulling stunts like this and deserve to be called out when they do. How the hell is any user to know otherwise
So his problem is using a cold setting instead of warm and compounding that with the wrong detergent. But he finds fault with the machine instead.
The bottle says power gel. Ariel did release a gel about ten years back in Europe. You didn't put it in the drawer but there was a ball that you filled and you put that ball in the drum. The product was a flop and they discontinued it. No ball is offered with his Dynamo gel. Maybe putting it in a small container in the drum would work better. I've had to do this with a detergent I bought recently which is in paste form and it works well that way.
3) As a result of the poor wash quality he questions the utility of low water use in front loaders in the tropics. Simple, it's so it's cheaper to heat up water. Costs more to heat a larger volume of water. Living in a tropical country so don't need to use a heater is bogus thinking I found even with another Indian reviewer who reviewed a Motorola FL. That guy just could not understand why different temperatures are available with a FL. Not there on a TL so why is it needed on an FL. When I asked that Indian reviewer why he did not use powder, he said powder leaves 'deposits'. Well, I never find any 'deposits' in my clothes with the powders I use so could it be the water temperature out the tap at the homes of these two 'tropical' guys just ain't high enough to do the job?
4) This video demonstrates well why you do not want tinted glass on the door. It seems like it's another layer of glass on the outer door so there is no hollow like usual in the door. It's hard to see in there even with a torch and no way could I have done the temperature measurements across two panes of glass. This was an aesthetics marketing decision and it overruled the engineers. Poor poor decision. I suppose it's safer when doing boil washes as the second pane will not be so hot to touch. But you should not be touching the pane anyway. And being able to tell how hot the glass gets is a good indicator of whether are things working or not.
Stay away from machines with tinted glass as they are counterproductive. You need to check foam levels from time to time and it's best if that view isn't obscured in any way.
5) The water level during rinse in his machine is an inch higher than mine. He turned that screw to the max water level.
6) Good suggestions at the end about wiping the door, the gasket and leave the drawer open. Though I'd leave it open for several hours not just half an hour.
7) I have never seen that much foam on the drain filter after a wash, he's definitely using the wrong detergent
8) He does admit the front loader cleans much better than his previous top loader where there was hardly any movement in the drum. Poor wash action means poor cleaning.
He did say something interesting. It seems Time delay in these new machines is the equivalent of rinse hold.
Sorry I made a typo. Interchanged the model numbers for 2 and 3.
The correct ones are:
2. FHV1408Z2M -
https://www.lg.com/in/washing-machines/lg-fhv1408z2m
That's what Amazon has. Unfortunately, they don't have it in white, only this 'middle black' colour.
3. FHT1408ZWS -
https://www.lg.com/in/washing-machines/lg-fht1408zws
But these are 42k and 52k on the website. Not sure which model will come down to 35k.
That model is a little older and has a tinted door which I recommend not get
It adds wifi on top of the one above. And it includes Turbowash. What is Turbowash? check this
post.
If you notice yours only says Turbowash. But the better deal is Turbowash 360
And the logo on the machine should indicate 360 after Turbowash.
Best Washing Machines in India: Compare & Buy LG Washing Machine Online. Choose from semi/fully-automatic, top load & front load washing machines.
www.lg.com
LG 8 Kg Front Load Washing Machine (FHP1208Z9B_Black) : Amazon.in: Home & Kitchen
www.amazon.in
^This is likely an import.
360 had four jets. Turbowash has only one jet which isn't going to be as effective as four. This machine has a recirculating pump which adds complexity over the plain jane model.
The idea of turbowash is it can shorten wash time cycles by asking the clothes more during the wash cycle.
What I don't like about these models is the tinted glass. If Turbowash 360 was available without tinted glass it would be a good model to look at.
His model does not have a tinted glass. hmm. It is a little noisier with the recirculating pump. Does it really shorten the wash time. There is a caveat
This is the 1 hour wash, which is a downloaded cycle through the app. As with most of the additional cycles in the app, they aren’t actually different cycles but just standard cycles with options preset. In this case, 1 hour wash is Cottons with turbo wash enabled. However
if you load anything more than a 1/3 load it will take 3:48 - hardly an hour wash .
Only if its one third rated load. What does that mean?
Something else I'm sensing with the reduced water usage of these AI DD models. A full load on my non-AI LG takes 2h30 (in reality closer to 3 hours). Well, these machines with the 'Add item' feature are going to add an hour on top of that. Less water means more time to complete a full load.
40 degrees cottons wash on a full load
In this video the LG is washing a full load on Cottons 40° (the load itself weighed 8.5kg on the bathroom scales). Anything more than roughly 1/3 load on Cottons 40° triggers the long 4 hour cycle. There were some heavily soiled items in here which did come clean, but then I would expect it to after such a long cycle. Unfortunately despite the length of the cycle and the Turbowash jets, the load was not fully saturated at the end leaving some dry patches on garments. A large load such as this would have been very quickly saturated in either the Siemens or the Miele W1. On the long cycle it does do decent length interim spins up to 1400, which it doesn’t do on the shorter cycles times (they only go up to 800rpm on short) and also does 3 rinses rather than 2. Detergent used: Persil Colour liquid and Lenor Spring Awakening softener
How did he manage to get 8.5kg worth of clothes into that machine? Are bathroom scales accurate enough for such a small load?
He really stuffed it full here. This is a 55cm depth machine
from the UK.
The absolute MAX of that load is 4-4.5kg and not 8.5kg
So if your full load does not weigh more than 3kg then you're good with turbo wash. My full loads rarely go more than that.
Otherwise it's a 4h wash.
www.lg.com
www.forbes.com
mashable.com
