Zanussi TCE7276W Review

Overall Rating

Stylish and quite easy to use. It also has a very large capacity water reservoir which we've found particularly handy. I've not found another condenser dryer with as large a reservoir as this model.

It's also a bit quieter than other models we've had.

Service Force were easy to deal with when ordering spare parts.

One of the buttons (the buzzer button) stopped working after just about a year. A year later, the start button stopped working - rendering the dryer useless.

Service Force were unable to meet their web-site promise of same-day repair if booked before 10:00a.m. The earliest they could do for me was 5 working days - a long time to be without a dryer with 2 kids and wet weather.

Like others, we've also been affected by he defective button assembly problem, although we didn't know this initially. I called a local engineer out and was told that the problem was the PCB (Printed Circuit Board) which was defective and that this would cost upwards of £200 to repair, as it had to be ordered and installed by Zanussi's own repair service (Service Force - http://www.serviceforce.co.uk). I paid the man his £25 callout charge (which I thought was reasonable) and resolved to having to purchase a new machine - which I did the next day.

Since the dryer was effectively scrap, I decided to crack it open and take a look for myself. It turns out that the PCB was working perfectly. When I depressed the little buttons on it to operate the dryer, everything worked as advertised. There is a plastic assembly that sits behind the main panel between the front buttons and the PCB. The front buttons push against this plastic panel which then connects with the little buttons on the PCB. This plastic assembly seems to be very poorly designed. Very thin strips of plastic had cracked and slit apart, meaning that the appropriate bit of plastic was not reaching the PCB buttons with enough force to depress them. This problem was what was causing both buttons to not work - and there were another couple of buttons that looked like they would stop working soon also because of the same problem.

I called Service Force (08705 929 929) and went through to their 'spare parts for dryers outside of their warranty' department. The very helpful woman asked me for the 9-digit number on the inside of the door and promptly e-mailed me over a diagram showing all the front panel assembly parts. The part number, as clearly depicted on that diagram, was 535A and this would cost £18 (including shipping). I've just ordered this, which will arrive in a few days.

I now have 2 perfectly functional dryers!

Members' Comments oncdmonline's Review

• dazza190574 on 29th Sep 2008

  I found this review helpful because... I've got problems with the same model. I was going to order a new one too. Should save me a few quid!