Hotpoint WD860 Review

Overall Rating

It can sometimes wash and dry clothes. It makes a useful shelf/surface (don't put anything valuable or delicate on there though as it will be shaken to pieces).

It more often doesn't wash and dry clothes.

Save your money " avoid the Hotpoint WD860! We have been plagued with reliability problems to such an extent that we could not continue with the machine and have gone in search of alternatives. We were attracted originally to the machine by its competitive price, ease of use, aesthetics, running costs and washing load.

However, five months after receipt of the machine, we had our first of many breakdowns with an error message appearing on screen. It was still under warranty at this time so an technician was sent out and duly fixed the problem. One month later, the same fault appeared. Technician was dispatched again to resolve the problem. All was then fine for a few months until the one year warranty expired.

Just after expiry of the warranty, the machine broke in spectacular style flooding our kitchen and hall causing considerable damage which of course was not covered by their warranty. To avoid paying for callouts we invested in an extended warranty. Since taking out the extended warranty, we have had 12 callouts to resolve further problems with the machine including 2 further occurrences of flooding. We became reluctant to continue calling out technicians due to the waiting time of often 2 weeks for them to come out and their ineptitude. One technician would often criticise the work of a predecessor claiming that they caused the problem due to poor workmanship.

Finally, after much persuasion with the warranty providers; Domestic & General we had the machine replaced. It is now five months old and like its predecessor, has developed faults. The primary fault is leading to our consumer unit RCD to trip out the whole house with one in every two washes. This means that most mornings, we wake with no heating or electricity and our clothes locked in the machine! Whatever is causing this cannot be detected, so of course, Hotpoint will not fix or replace the machine.

When the machine does work it is incredibly noisy, takes a long time to complete a cycle, dries inconsistently, and creases anything made of cotton so badly, it needs to be ironed twice. On the good side however, it is easy to use.

With the cost incurred from extended warranties, repairs, damage to the house and cleaning, we could have easily afforded a much superior machine. We don ' t intend on making the same mistake twice.