Dyson CR02 Flowcheck Contrarotator Washing Machine Review

Overall Rating

Looks great.
Intuitive to use, good manual.
Coin trap, child lock.
Very large capacity.
Door unlocks immediately.
Relatively quiet.
Takes superking duvet.

Inner door has to be slammed shut.
Stands proud of standard kitchen cabinets.
Mediocre engineer installation.
No longer manufactured.

So far we are happy with this Dyson CR02 Flowcheck. This machine looks great ("it's a monster", commented a male visitor admiringly). It's intuitive to use, but the manual is so well written I read it anyway. Has a handy coin trap, and child lock that has so far mystified our 2year old. You can fit a very large load of laundry - about double our old standard sized Zanussi, even though it's rated at only half again the capacity. You can get at your washing as soon as the cycle has finished - or as soon as it drains if you stop it in mid-cycle; our old machine had a door lock that stayed locked for a couple of minutes. Although it's hardly silent, the noise it makes is sort of a gentle background whirring, not unlike a wheel spinning. It's certainly not a standard washing machine noise (our last one used to sound like planes were landing). So far it's coped with everything we've given it. It even has a special duvet cycle - and we've tested a Superking duvet in it, with success.

It has some faults though. It has two doors, and the inner door really needs to be slammed in order to shut (it tells you if it's not shut). It also stands proud of standard kitchen cabinets, so it doesn't suit corner positions where it could block cabinet doors and drawers. It is installed by Dyson's very own engineers, but I was disappointed to find that he didn't do anything fancy - just installed the machine, which frankly I could have done, it's so well designed. He wouldn't even wire it directly into the existing point (our old machine was directly wired in), so we had to string the flex up over the kitchen counter and plug it in next to the kettle.

One of the biggest concerns I have is that Dyson's have stopped manufacturing these. I don't know how long it will be possible to get spare parts if they're needed. They still have stock in the warehouse, and I assume there is a reasonable stock of spares, but someday the replacements will surely become an issue. So far, thankfully, nothing has gone wrong with it.