I did do a search, and the last thread I saw on this topic was from 2021.
With our move, we will be purchasing a new washer and dryer.
I am pretty certain I want a top load washer. My mil and sil both have top load Maytags with agitators. My college roommate has a top load Whirlpool with an agitator and hates it because her clothes get all wound up. My other friend has an LG with no agitator, and likes it just fine. He says he isn’t picky, though.
It is just the two of us. We do run which creates a lot of laundry, but we aren’t really stain-prone.
My college roommate with the Whirlpool dislikes just how efficient hers is because it judges necessary water by clothing weight. Her dh bikes, and while those clothes are lightweight, they get icky dirty. She says sometimes the water doesn’t even cover the clothes completely.
On the older thread there was lots of praise for SpeedQueens??
I’d never heard of an impeller, but I guess that is what washing machines without agitators have?
Anyway, if anyone has any thoughts/opinions on washers (and dryers), I’d love to hear them!
My parents had a top loading Maytag. I did their laundry for years. I’m 5’3 and it was hard for me to get stuff out of the bottom because the tub was so deep. I also agree about clothes getting wrapped around the agitator.
I believe some of the newer models have override features for water levels and cycle lengths.
I have a front loading LG pair that is 18 years old that I love. I’m going to replace with the same when they die.
I bought a top load LG washer with impeller about two years ago, and for the most part I like it. It’s large enough to hold king size blankets and duvet covers. The downside of the large size is that I cannot reach small items at the bottom without using tongs and/or a stepstool.
The washer has a deep water wash cycle as well as the option to add more water to other cycles. It also offers an extra rinse option, which I use often. It has an internal heater and I use the extra hot setting for bedding, kitchen towels, bath towels, underwear and H’s jeans. Delicate items have not been damaged in the delicate cycle, unlike in some previous washers.
The companion dryer seems to have the same problem that our previous (other brands) dryers had, which is the sensor shutting off the dryer before things are really dry. There are settings to increase how dry things are before it shuts off, but I find it works better to use the timed dry cycle now that I know about how long it takes to dry most things on low heat.
A vote for the top-loading aspect (which sounds as if you’ve already decided).
We’ve had front loaders for over 10 years and have to always keep the washer door open to prevent mildew. So it projects right in the path of the laundry room walkway.
I’m the proud owner of a pair of SpeedQueens. I bought them six years ago. So far, the only problem has been that the light in the dryer burned out.
When I bought them, the man at the appliance store told me I’d “never have to buy another washer or dryer again.”
The only downside to the washing machine is that there is no spin-only cycle. So if, for example, you get a lot of towels wet because of a leak or something, you can’t just spin them; you have to go through a whole wash cycle.
I’m happy to see this thread as I’m in the market too. Currently have a Maytag and speed queen… both top loaders. Maytag was purchased in 2020, speed queen in 2018. The speed queen is closer to the washers of old. Uses more water, has an agitator, has been extremely reliable. The drum is significantly smaller than the Maytag. I couldn’t wash a king size comforter for example. I don’t run into the problem of items wrapping around the agitator. Maybe because there’s more water? The largest tub they offer is around 3.2 IIRC. And they are on the expensive side.
The maytag has an impeller no agitator. It is very deep so if you’re under 5’5” I’d say it might be challenging to reach the bottom. I think the tub in mine is in the neighborhood of 5.5. I wanted a large tub because we wash lots of beach/pool towels during the summer. It has a max fill feature which I love and use pretty much all the time otherwise the water barely covers the clothes unless it’s a small load. Without the agitator my sheets or towels will on occasion (maybe 1 out of every 5 loads) end up in a ball that causes an unbalanced load. Using more water seems to help negate this. The tub doesn’t spin as fast as the kenmore elite it replaced which seemed odd and results in longer drying times and the tub itself seems to be a bit less stabilized so it gets unbalanced more easily than the kenmore did. It also has a glass lid (which I like) and is WiFi enabled (I’ve never used). The speed queen doesn’t have either. The Maytag doesn’t have just a spin and drain cycle which I kind of miss.
Both clean the clothes well and have the usual cycles to choose from. If you don’t need the larger tub I’d recommend the speed queen over the Maytag because it seems more solidly built but I’ve been happy with both.
I still have my close to 20 year old kenmore elite dryers. So no opinion on dryers other than I love these and I’m not looking forward to replacing them with the ones currently on the market so they last a while longer.
I had Maytag units from the '90s in my previous home and had needed a repair guy for some minor issues through the years. Repairman always said don’t get rid of these as they don’t make them like this anymore. Well, I didn’t listen. Inherited newer Maytag w/d when I bought condo two summers ago and gave older units to neighbor’s S & DIL who had just built a house and were happy to have something they didn’t have to use money on with long list of expenditures.
Fast forward to last summer when washer started making horrible sounds as if it were possessed. Repair guy in Nashville says he can’t recreate it, but from my description it was probably gear box and repair would cost as much as new washer. A few months later, same sound. I stalled a bit on purchase of new washer until December when it happened again two times in one day. Bought a Maytag.
When I had repair guy last summer, he said Maytag is not very good now, but Speed Queen is great. Did I listen? No, because I thought that since I live alone and don’t do that many loads a week, I could get by with another Maytag. Bad choice. I hated new Maytag washer from day one as it goes on forever and is very noisy, more so than unit it replaced. I reached out to Maytag about some issues and got a visit from a different repair guy (covered by warranty). He checked machine and told what to do to minimize noise (definitely didn’t eliminate it and he said it would help, not cure). He also said Speed Queen is best - long life, quiet, not many problems.
I am planning a bathroom remodel this summer, but after that is done and I see how much cash is still available, I am headed to appliance store to buy a Speed Queen set. Life is too short to hate your washing machine as much as I currently do!
I’m going to miss my kenmores. I recently realized my washer/dryers are 12&15 years old. They could die soon.
Another vote for top loaders! I am 5-10 with long limbs, so it’s so much easier for me to reach into the washer than stoop to get stuff out of the dryer.
Our current washer has no agitator. I like it fine. I’m not picky either about washing clothes. I rarely separate anything unless it’s bright red/orange/purple and newish.
When I get a new one, I want the ones with the least bells and whistles. I don’t need any features. They only break. And I don’t want anything that expensive. We are now just 2 middle aged adults. We don’t do that much laundry. And if our last basic ones lasted 15ish years through the kids growing up, we will be just fine.
I will get a top loader next time. Agree with poster who said you need to keep door of front loader open to prevent mildew. I have Samsung, and they are probably 15 years old. They’ve been fine but I wouldn’t feel the need to get them again. When Sears was around I we had an appliance sales person that did a fairly good job for us, but they’ve been gone for many years now.
I have to laugh about it being hard to get clothes out of a top loader.
I like most people had a top loader for most of my life until I switched to a front loader.
I was at my daughter’s recently and did a load of laundry. Definitely felt the being too short!
I think there is a top loader that has a removable agitator. Might be worth looking into.
I’m happy with my front loader but it has a way to drain and a filter to clean. I don’t find that it gets mildew or anything than my old top loaders did. I know I’m an anomaly.
Also congratulations on your impending move. I think I missed that you were considering
My Kenmore washer and dryer are more than 20 years old. I want to replace them but I am limited because they are in a laundry closet and most of the newer models are too deep. If anyone has a recommendation for a gas dryer that isn’t too deep I would be grateful. I think our max depth can be 28 or 29 inches.
We built a rental duplex in 1980. All the appliances were Sears Kenmore commercial versions and we bought two of each. The washers lasted 33 and 23 years, the dryers lasted 23 and 26 years, the stoves lasted 27 and 33 years, and the dishwashers lasted 22 and 27 years (I keep good records ). Keep in mind that these were used by renters, who weren’t always the easiest on appliances! Unfortunately, those kinds of appliances aren’t available anymore .
@patsmom off topic but curious why you said renters aren’t always easy on the appliances. Is there a difference between how renters and owners wash their clothes?!
I suspect that renters are more likely to overstuff their loads. In my own washer, I sometimes pull a few items out to avoid overworking it.
Our Maytag washer and dryer are definitely the older/better vintage. Our eldest was in a stroller when we shopped…. I think they are about 33 years old. Now we have had a few repairs to each over the years (the last one several hundred dollars for the dryer). But we liked the idea of keeping the simple design, keeping them out of the landfill.
Dryer has gotten rather thunky, not good given the laundry closet location in upstairs hallway, open to family room below. But in retirement I mostly air dry on a rack - saves a tad of energy and put humidity into our dry Colorado air. So for now, we hang on to our old cherished set.
It is not how they wash their clothes, it is how they take care of the appliances. “Not mine, I don’t give a bleep because I will be outta here in a year” seems to be a common motto.
I’m a big fan of my Speed Queen dryer! When the Miele washer bites the dust, it will be replaced by a Speed Queen frontloader because Miele sadly stopped making heavy duty washers for the US consumers.
This forum is almost entirely home owners. I didn’t say I was a renter. I do find these comments to be a bit offensive, particularly at a time when home prices and mortgage rates are so high. Not sure how washing machines can be abused. Maybe a lot of you are landlords too. End of intrusion on topic.
It is often the landlords who don’t care for or repair machines, or let them get moldy. And renters are afraid to complain for fear of losing their apartment.
Front loaders need to stay open. This is a problem when they are in a closet, resulting in the closet doors needing to be open as well, sometimes in a narrow hallway.
We got a Speed Queen top-loading electro-mechanical washer (not electronic; it has dials) in 2015. It has an agitator and a steel drum; it’s built like a tank. I’ve never had to have it repaired.
There is no lid lock. I don’t see our exact model on the Speed Queen website but they have one like it.
I find it washes our clothes well. Its spin cycle is very fast so it extracts water well. If one selects hot water, the water is truly just hot, not diluted with cold water, as our old washers used to do.
The SQ dryer we got in 2021. It’s a front-loader, also with electro-mechanical dials. Although it dries very well, we have had problems since we bought it with the cycles not advancing. The dial gets stuck in its initial position and the dryer will keep going forever if I don’t go down to the basement and manually move the dial past the point where it gets stuck. So I can never run the dryer while I’m out, or overnight. I’ve had the repair guy out 3 times now – it’s still under warranty-- and he replaces this and that but it never fixes the problem for long. Within 6 months, it’s doing it again. So I cannot recommend the dryer with dials.
Edited to add: For some reason only the dials on the Automatic dryer cycles get stuck. The dial on the Timed cycle works fine. But the timed cycle doesn’t have Extended Tumble-- so towels come out stiff and clothes come out wrinkled.
Thanks. Excellent, helpful perspective on renters. (My rental experience was admittedly from the days of shared laundry rooms. And dorm laundry rooms - oh my, don’t miss that!)
Speed Queen - I have never heard of that brand, except on CC where it comes up often, in a positive light. Where do you purchase this brand?
they last a while longer.
). Keep in mind that these were used by renters, who weren’t always the easiest on appliances! Unfortunately, those kinds of appliances aren’t available anymore 
.