Indesit WE16S

Author's product rating:   

Performance	Poor
Ease of use	Easy
Durability	Satisfactory
Noise	Average
Value for money	Poor

Advantages:	Looks good, well designed
Disadvantages:	Model prone to faults, terrible customer service, dishonest engineers

Recommend to potential buyers:

no

Full review

(This is a long review - if you are going to skim, please at least read the section on Customer Care. Thanks).

~~~ Background ~~~

Two years ago, having recently redecorated our kitchen in a fetching lilac/silver colour scheme, it was only fitting that we opted for a silver washing machine. The Indesit WE16S was a reasonable price from the Great Universal catalogue and so we went for it. Oh how we wish we had not now...

As we have a large family (there are 10 in our house!) a washing machine is not a luxury, but a total necessity. Our brood is aged from 2 up and so build quality is also an essential consideration when purchasing an appliance in our house.

~~~ The Unit - Aesthetics ~~~

As mentioned above, the machine itself is a fetching silver colour along the front and sides, and like most modern appliances, the door is in the front with a large, toughened glass so that you can check whether your washing is in progress or whether the machine has broken down (more later).

At the top left corner of the unit is a three-compartment drawer for putting in your washing powder or tablets and also your fabric conditioner. To the right of the drawer is a small backlit LCD screen which shows various details of your selected wash program (including time remaining until the load is complete), or error messages as and when they occur. The display is flanked to the right by a "Mode" button, which allows you to select different wash temperatures etc and a power button to the right. At the right-hand side of the unit is the program selection dial which allows you to choose whether you are going to have an intensive wash, a 90-minute cycle, an intensive spin, a rinse cycle etc etc. All of the possible programs are thoughtfully printed on the detergent drawer so even when you lose the manual, you should be able to do your washing correctly.

Hidden at the back of the unit are the water intake hoses and a flexible hose which is placed into the special drainage pipe you should have fitted in your kitchen or laundry for such a purpose.

~~~ The Unit - Build Quality ~~~

The Evolution WE16S is, to be fair, quite sturdily constructed and has survived the last two years without any serious problems (to the external housing anyway). the small LCD screen has been cracked on our machine (probably with the assistance of our four year old) and the "Mode" button is now so loose that it keeps falling out of the front fascia (my fault - I did it whilst trying to fix the unit once).

Our previous washing machine was rented from the company formerly known as Radio Rentals and had a problem with the drum being quite fragile; it once got broken by the assorted shrapnel which kids leave in their pockets when putting clothes in the wash. The Evolution has coped admirable well in comparison thanks to its sturdily constructed metal inner and outer drums and the concrete "sleeve" which rests between the drums to keep the machine glued to the floor during intensive spin cycles. In fact, the drum is so well constructed it has withstood many "tests" by our two youngest using the washing machine as a hiding place (fortunately they have grown out of this since.

~~~ The Unit - Usage ~~~

OK, being a young guy, if I can use a washing machine, anyone else can. I can use the WE16S, so therefore anyone else can too. There's not a lot to add!

However, the WE16 is prone to regular faults characterised by the machine stopping whatever it is doing and flashing up useful error messages like "F-02". Even more helpfully, none of these error codes are documented anywhere official; the only place I have found any mention of (or any help for) was on a forum at www.ukwhitegoods.co.uk. Once these messages start appearing on a regular basis (as the aforementioned forum suggests they do in a large number of cases) usage of the machine becomes far less easy. My wife has had to run the same program up to nine times just to do one load of washing from start to finish, as each load we now try and run fails with an ominous "F-02" error...

~~~ The Unit - Internals ~~~

It may seem strange to include the internals of a washing machine in a review such as this, but if you buy a washing machine from the Indesit Evolution range and don't fancy paying £99+ per engineer visit, sooner or later you are going to become acquainted with the inside of your machine.

Fortunately the WE16S is very well laid outand most of the parts you will need to access are very easy to get to. The first place you are going to look for any problems is in the pump. This can be found behind the plastic panel right at the bottom of the front of the machine. A very useful screw-loose cap allows access to the pump and easy removal of the 5p piece or the like which is stopping your machine from draining.

Sometimes, or even more frequently, you will need to delve into the internals of the machine in the hope of resetting its onboard computer or the like. Once you have disconnected the washer from the mains, the top of the unit is removed very easily by removing two Philips screws at the back and then sliding the top off. Once again, everything is relatively well laid out and on the rear of the front fascia, you will find two control boards which do most of the elastic-trickery required to make the machine work. Every now and then you will need to disconnect the wires coming off these boards and clean the contacts with a small eraser before replacing them. You need to do this when the computer crashes, as this sometimes bring the unit back to life.

As mentioned in the Usage section above, there appears to be a common design fault with the Evolution machines and their internal circuitry, particularly with the washing machines "programming" (or EPROM chip if you want to be technical!) becoming corrupted and screwing up the rest of the machine. For this reason, I cannot commend the build quality of the WE16 internals in the same way that I can the external housing.

~~~ The Unit - Customer Care ~~~

This is where my opinion of the Evolution WE16S becomes completely negative. Whilst the unit was working, all was well, but trying to get Indesit to resolve this issue has tuned into a total nightmare.

All Evolution washing machines come with a 5 year part warranty, which is fantastic news and should be a brilliant selling point for Indesit. However....

When we finally had enough of trying to coax the washing machine back into service, we decided we had better get an Indesit engineer to come and have a look and replace the parts which were clearly faulty. We even decided to stomach Indesit's £35 call-out charge and knew that we would almost certainly have to pay a further £55 charge for the fitting of any replacement parts. And as I said before, a washing machine is a MUST in my household.

So my wife booked the engineer's visit for the earliest possible date (approximately a week later). As my wife and I were unavailable to meet the engineer on the day specified (he was booked to arrive between 8am and 1pm), we fully briefed our 19-year old daughter as to what was going to happen, and left her with a cheque to cover the £35 call-out fee. We also told our daughter that the engineer would only be there to diagnose the problem and that he would probably have to come back later in the week with replacement parts. All should have been fine...

The next day we had a call from our daughter telling us that the engineer had indeed diagnosed the problem and had specified three parts which needed to be replaced. He then tried to charge her £300 for the replacement parts, depite the fact that they are covered by Indesit's own 5 year warranty. The engineer continued to argue that this was not the case despite telling my daughter the EXACT date on which the machine had been bought. Eventually my daughter managed to get rid of the engineer, clutching his cheque for the agreed £35.

Upon our return, my wife contacted Indesit to argue that the engineer had been in error and had attempted to extort an additional £300 from us. Indesit apologised for the mistake, but glossed over the incident arranging for another engineer to return and fit the replacement parts the following Thursday.

Thursday finally arrived (bearing in mind that we have not been doing any washing because we cannot get the machine to complete a cycle) and 10.30am brought a voicemail message from the engineer saying that he had checked the part this morning and it had been damaged in transit. My wife went ballistic. She had taken the day off to wait for the engineer to arrive (again in that fuzzy 8am-1pm window).

I rang Indesit and spoke to their Customer Services department, who were very apologetic and said they would try and get us an earlier appointment because we have been without a washing machine for nearly 4 weeks. Instead the Customer Services guy passed me straight to the Service Department without explaining any background. The woman in the Service department was distinctly unapologetic and refused to look for an earlier appointment despite my insistence that this was now urgent. I also decided to try my luck and see if Indesit would loan us a replacement machine or reimburse some costs, but they would not agree to neither. And neither department were interested in the engineer who attempted to con my daughter out of £300 on his last visit.

Maybe we will finally get the machine fixed, but the way Indesit have acted so far make this seem unlikely...

~~~ Conclusion ~~~

The design of the Indesit Evolution WE16S is fantastic, a good blend of pleasant aesthetics, ease of use, and good range of functions. The planning that has gone into the layout of the internal componentry is again commendable and all SHOULD be well with this appliance, but the simple fact is that it ISN'T.

The problems with the WE16's electrical componentry is beyond the experience of most washing machine owners, and all I now know has been gleaned from the UKWhiteGoods forum and a bit of experimental tinkering myself. In all honesty, beyond replacing the carbon brushes on a washing machine's motor, I do not expect to have to tinker with its internals. Add this to the apparent frequency by which owners of Evolution devices are plagued by incoherent error messages and programmatic faults and there is clearly a serious issue which Indesit are yet to address in their appliances.

These electrical faults coupled with the appalling service by Indesit have caused my wife and I agree that we will never again buy an Indesit device, no matter how good an offer we receive. Similarly, I cannot recommend Indesit or its products because of the ineptitude of their service department. That and the blatant attempt at tricking a 19 year old out of £300.

~~~ Resources ~~~

The UkWhiteGoods forum is an excellent source of troubleshooting information for all makes of popular appliance available in the UK and is located at http://www.ukwhitegoods.co.uk/modules.php?name=Forums&file=viewforum&f=34

Should you be an Indesit owner, you can contact them via:
Phone: 01733 568989
Fax: 01733 341783
Email: theservicecentre@indesitcompany.com

Should the above review not dissuade you and you are a prospective customer of Indesit, a brochure of their range can be obtained by emailing info@indesitcompany.com with your details. But don't do it. Please. For the sake of your family.

~~~ Update ~~~

Two weeks after submitting this review, the machine was finally fixed and all the faulty parts replaced. Fortunately we were not graced with the presence of the original engineer (or should that read "extortioneer"?); one can only hope he has been dismissed for violating Indesit's company policy, but I strongly suspect that he was just unavailable for this visit.

My wife said that the second engineer was very helpful, polite, and did not request any additional payment. He too was incredulous at the gall of his predecessor asking for an additional £300. Said engineer was quick, efficient, and most importantly of all, managed to resurrect the WE16S much to my wife's delight.

Despite the helpfulness of the second engineer, I would still not recommend anyone to purchase an Indesit WE16S. Or any other Indesit machine for that matter...

© ben-lloyd 2009. Please note that this review is posted on other websites under the same user name.