Bosch Tumble Dryer Woes (2025 Update)

Just realised that I should have stated this is a condensing dryer, not the vented variety

I can't speak for dryers specifically, but often this kind of thing is when it reaches a certain point in the programme. eg if the heater had a fault, it would only notice when it turns on the heater. Maybe it spends a while spinning and blowing before engaging the heater and 10 mins in is the first time the heater is engaged.

OK it's not the heater then, but is there something else it might engage at that point? Condensate pump?

An alternative is some sensor goes off, either because of a faulty sensor or because of a knock-on fault (eg clothes got too hot because the fan was clogged/wasn't spinning and after 10 mins the temperature limit tripped).

The 'waiting a few minutes' thing does suggest a temperature related issue. Are the clothes hotter than they would normally be?

Theo

Our experience with condensing dryers is that they simply don't work very well. Our has zillions of settings for different types of clothes and different types of dryness but none of them actually produces dry clothes, just variations of 'not quite dry'ness.

You stated the only important thing. It's a Bosch. Throw it away and buy something decent.

I had very similar symptoms with a Beko condenser - except it'd trip at the main board. Turned out to be a faulty mains filter. I repalced it twice in the

And that "something decent" would be....?

Thanks Theo

I think the next point of investigation will be the fan. Looking at youtube videos, only a back panel needs to be removed to access that.

Difficult to say whether the clothes are getting hotter than normal, cos I/we don't usually open the door mid-program. But I'm guessing probably not based on the heat that usually escapes above the machine and back into the kitchen space.

Phil

We've still got our Beko, although it's only 11 years old. It works perfectly as I stayed away from what would have been the third "official" replacement last year, and fitted one of these instead:

It required a bit of fiddling around to fit, as it wasn't a "drop-in" replacement. Only time will tell if it has solved the "faulty filter" issue.

What make? Our Beko works well (as does RJH's - see below) but perhaps that's because it doesn't have zillions of programmes. The lowest level of dryness - "iron dry" - leaves the clothes slightly damp so they can be ironed, although the manual shows the RH of iron dry, normal dry, and cupboard dry to all be 60%!

I don't follow, are you saying that all of 'iron dry', 'normal dry' and 'cupboard dry' actually produce clothes ready to iron?

That's our experience, every setting seems to produce what I would call 'ready to iron', not actually dry.

I looked at some Treznal sites:

-- clean the moisture sensor. Bosch says scrub the stainless steel sensor with a coarse sponge to remove limescale and laundry additive residues.

-- might be a voltage regulator that died...

--

Thomas Prufer

Um...in the title!

He referred to "condensing dryers". Were they all Bosch, some, or none?

We only use "normal dry", but the clothes feel dry (and are rather hot!). If I leave them in after it stops, empty the condenser reservoir and restart the dryer, after a few minutes it stops and there doesn't seem to be any more water in the reservoir. I suppose it might be possible to take something out at each drying level, let it cool and wrap a humidity meter in it to see what the RH is, but I don't know if that would work.

Ah, OK.

As it happens, we have a Bosch condensing dryer. When it's needed cleaning out, it's thrown an error code.

The heat exchanger was a bit weird. To get to the fluff, you had to cut away a rectangle of plastic (on a pre-formed cut line). Then seal it again with a panel bought from the spares department!

Dye know, it probably doesnt exist. Which is why I bought a UK made piece of average s*it, which has now lasted 8 years..

But its so simple its probably fixable.

Remember the more bells and whistles and the more eco crap it is the more likely it is to break down beyond economic repair

Sadly the company (White Knight) has been bought by a Turkish company.

Buy low so you don't mind throwing it away when the warranty runs out, or buy high with a ten year warranty. It ends up the same TCO

So its either a £200 quid piece of s*it or a £1000 Miele. I had reasonable luck with Beko s*it

You might find it useful to use the following forum where some appliance service engineers offer advice. There's no commercial tie-in.

If anyone here has a subscription to Which? they might be able to advise what Which? found about brand reliability.

We too have a Beko. Initially we tested all of the programmes and found that only the Extra Dry got clothes even almost dry enough, so that's what we now use. So I agree that it doesn't work very well, but it's just about good enough. The worst feature of all Beko appliances are the manuals, which appears to be designed to hide all useful information. But their condensing dryer is about half the price of anything else on the market, so one can forgive some limitations...