Parts warranty?

That is unbelievably quick. It took me much longer than that, even with the drum removed from the machine...

The problem being, when the bearings fail, the bearing seal becomes damaged, allowing water to get to the shaft and cause it to rust. So the bearing inner-race, seizes onto the shaft. Trying to persuade the rusted in shaft to move, without damaging the inner or outer drum, can be tricky at best.

Ours is a Hotpoint WD-420, it didn't seem excessively difficult. Open case, release seal, release motor, weights and pipes. Then lift complete drum out. Split the outer drum, then work the inner drum out of the bearings, off the rusted shaft.

I cannot imagine it being any more or less difficult, no matter what the name on the machine.

They don't tend to fail mid-wash. The rust will build up between washes, such that it will fail and refuse to turn at the start of the wash. As did mine. It will sense a failure to rotate, and go to error. Manually rotating the drum to free it, before you start the wash, will likely enable it to complete a normal wash.

Ok, thanks.

Unless the bearing is part of the drum. Hotpoint RPD9467.There is no part number listed for the bearing, it is part of the drum assembly.

Great design!

I took the bearing out in the previous machine, in situ. The problem was that it was in a blind housing.

Easier/cheaper to manufacture, and cheaper in labour to repair - if more expensive in parts.

But an engineer could keep dozens of sets of bearings in the van, I doubt they carry more than one drum at a time, so probably have to go and collect one per job that requires it ...

Drum failing to turn is often the sign of the brushes on the motor being worn down too far. It can be very deceptive on removing the old brushes that they still seem to have plenty of carbon left, until you compare them to the replacement brushes.

On a machine I once owned the bearing just got very noisy when they failed, but I had months of audible warnings :) I seem to remember on it's very last legs the cloths got contaminated with little spots of dirty grease.

But still a lower labor cost.

Exactly, £120 of labour and £15 for parts versus £60 of labour and £60 of parts... If you want to check out the ultimate agony to replace a cheap part, google Rainman Rays repairs and the three part odyssey required to get to a rear crankcase oil seal.

That involved removing the strater motor, two prop shafts, the transmission, the flywheel - or flex plate - and some very rusted exhaust studs that mostly broke when he pulled the exchaust off.

Three day job for a $60 part...

My local repairers would have charged me a fixed price of £65 for the labour, plus the Hotpoint cost of £200 for the darned drum, including bearing. So sorry, Hotpoint, but you have lost me as a customer completely after this.

And Rainman Ray is very good at getting bits off and replacing which lesser mechanics would dismantle the car even more to do the same :)

Thanks, that's a very useful site. I may well use it when my Hotpoint gets excruciatingly noisy. Although the model numbers mostly don't appear on the Miele website, a little searching usually finds a vendor, and a much higher price than that offered by the Miele outlet store even at its quoted price.

Well, that was interesting. As far as I knew, the manufacturer's warranty on my 2016 machine ran out after 2 years, and th parts warranty runs out after 6 years, as long as I use Hotpoit's expensive service. Today, I received a 'phone call from what sounded like 2 Filipinos, offering me to extend the warranty that I don't have, from Home Appliance Insurance. They said they were extending my washing machine cover, for £6.99 per month, and all they needed to send out the letter was my Bank Sort Code. Sound of alarm bells ringing. I kept insisting that they did not need this to send out a letter, they kept on repeating that I had 14 days to cancel the insurance. They would not send me their letter without my bank's Sort Code, so they gave up.

'Who-called-me' gives their number as:

"The overall rating is Negative. There have been 161 phone lookups, and users have left 12 comments.

(01224) 607119 has been identified as a boiler scheme scam, located in Aberdeen / Offshore (UK)".

The number of comments is about to grow by one. A pity, I could have done with that warranty coverage, but this just stank from the beginning.

The scam intensity is way up. Even by real banks. I transferred the best part of a grand into my company bank account at HSBC in order to pay my corporation tax and accountant, but they have frozen it because my account is now 'dormant;' since they told me they would close it, and then didn't. After I had set up alternative ways to do the job. So didn't use it much.

They could have shouted:

"La La La! This is a phishing scam!"

To make it slightly more obvious.

That would have spoiled the fun! Although it wouldn't have been fun for anybody who fell for it.

I get these calls regularly. I let them get through the spiel about extending my warranty, which I know has long ago expired, and then shout loudly down the phone, "F*ck off scammer." It's not much, but it gives me a little satisfaction for having to keep receiving these calls.