Hotpoint Washing Machine Drum Bearings

[steve2006]

Well the 4 year old Hotpoint has been getting more noisy on spin lately to the point where it sounded like Concord taking off at Heathrow and after checking I decided the bearings had gone.

OK google the model number and order the correct bearings and seal kit for a mere £11.99

Having arrived I decided today to do the job and finding the useful tutorials on Youtube the drum was reasonably easily removed,on to the next tutorial removing and refitting the new bearings.

"Tip the drum on its front and remove all the 13mm bolts holding the 2 halves together"

There are not bolts just plastic clips but even forcing these in and prising the 2 halfs nothing moves.

Back onto Google where I discovered that these drums are now sealed for life and cannot be split open for bearing replacement.

Result you have to buy the complete drum for the not so princely sum of £156.00 + delivery!

The reason Hotpoint say for doing it this way is the "Reduce production costs"

Certainly not reduced the price of the machine so interpret this as "making it cheaper for bigger profits and then when it goes wrong the customer will have to buy another new machine"

There I was the other day replacing the tensioner bearing on my LS400 for £1.35p and then you get an unrepairable Hotpoint washing machine.That's the difference between quality and cr*p!

To top it all the bearings although ordered from the correct model number were wrong anyway had I been able to fit them!

It looks like the original bearing fitted at the factory has been hammered in by an untrained monkey.

Hotpoint are now owned by Indesit perhaps a H between the s and i would be more appropriate!

[Bluesbreaker]

The monkey had obviously never used a tubular drift, to tap the ball-race in Steve! ...production line butchery, at its best.

[jomo]

Have you tried packing it with grease?

[steve2006]

Pure bad workmanship is what it amounts to!

Now another strange thing is the model number is not recognised by Hotpoint WF320TB which I thought strange until I remembered where I had bought it from ..Currrys part of DSG.

Now knowing their system this would appear to be a model specifically made for the group very cheaply, the bearings in mine are 25mm diameter as opposed to the normal 30-35mm ones so there is a greater load on them, the workmanship speaks for itself!

I guess the manufacturer must be proud that they contribute so much more to landfill because they sell sealed unrepairable washing machine drums which cannot be recycled,very green not.

Unfortunately regreasing the bearings is not an option as there is the outer set seen in the picture and the inner set inside the drum .