Kenmore series 80

by B.
(NY)

We purchased a Sears Kenmore Series 80 washer in 2002, replacing my dear harvest gold GE washer that saw me through two growing boys and nearly 20 years of laundry.

When we purchased that GE, with its shiny chrome trim and buttons, and metallic fake wood grain instrument panel, white was ‘cheap’ and cost $20 less, and olive green and harvest gold were very popular. I loved that washer. It could clean clothes perfectly, never caused wear and tear on our laundry.

It could spin out every drop of water so that I wouldn’t spend a fortune on drying clothes in the dryer. (I suppose I spent a fortune on electricity in 1983 running that powerful washer.) Only once in all those years did we have a problem when it didn’t drain. I’ll never forget as my husband puttered with it and victoriously pulled out one of my son’s tiny little white baby socks that had lodged in the discharge hose.

Never any problems. But in 2002, my lovely washer was getting tired and some days it barely seemed to agitate. My husband spent days examining it and taking it apart, to see if he could remedy its lethargy. But because of its age, we supposed we would have to break down and go out there and buy a new one.

From the very beginning I was not happy with my sears Kenmore. It seemed smaller, (although my husband assured me it was not) and the Sears sales representative had called it a “20 towel” washer. Ha. From the very start, I discovered that if I washed too many items in my “heavy duty” washer, that they would not come out clean, and sometimes the towels were heavy with water. They took forever to dry. I did not like the way the washer agitated. It was slow and very quiet. It barely moved the clothes, but frequently they ended being tangled together. My husband explained that because it used less energy, that the new washers “washed” clothes differently. I couldn’t compare it to my old one. Unfortunately, something was strange. For a washer that didn’t seem to agitate the clothes as much, it seemed to put a lot of wear and tear on the towels.

It shredded them. Also, as every year went by, the washer seemed to spin out less and less water. This past March, 6 short years later, not nearly 20 years as I had gotten with my GE, my washer seemed hopeless. My husband, now armed with the internet and endless suggestions for troubleshooting and repairing washers spent months looking at it. Heaven forbid we might call a repairman. My husband was adamant. “I can fix it myself.”

You know what those repairmen charge. “It probably cost half as much to repair it, as it would to buy a new one.” It was still washing the clothes, and discharged most of the water, but the towels and clothes were left sopping wet.

It was to the point that I had to hang the towels over the bathtub or outside to drip dry until they were “dry” enough to put in the dryer. Is it too much to ask that for an appliance that we spent almost $500 for, that it could last more than 6 years?

Unfortunately, we now also have a Kenmore stove, and a Kenmore refrigerator. This is one consumer that will now say NO MORE to Kenmore.