Hoover Optima 7 OPH716DF Washing Machine

I bought one of these machines from Appliances online some three years ago as my previous Hoover machine lasted a good 10 years with no problems whatsoever. Within 2 months it had a problem spinning out. I would put the odd garment or item of lingerie or sweater on a wool or handwash cycle and at the end of the wash the item was still soaking wet where the machine hadn't performed the final spin properly. I reported this to Hoover and they sent and engineer who just did a test wash cycle, declared the machine ok and went away. He did tell me that these machines were not built at the Hoover factory and are in fact manufactured by Candy!

Well I learned to live with the intermittent no spin problem by switching the machine to the manual drain, spin setting and eventually it would extract the water, however, today it decided to perform the final spin on the manual spin cycle and then blew a fuse. When I went into my kitchen to empty the machine, there was smoke coming out of the top at the back of the detergent drawer. I'm not going to pay for Hoover to come and fix something that was a dog for the last 3 years and will not be buying a Hoover washing machine again.

I bought this machine 3 years ago and to date have had no problems at all. It is compact and quiet in use. Despite its shallow depth of only 400mm the drum capacity is amazing. Controls are easy to use and digital read out is a nice touch. All in all a great machine ...

Do not buy. The belt is jumping off and break at all time.

The start/pause button on this machine is badly designed...its seems very flimsy and its just a matter of time before it breaks. When I first used this machine and pressed the start button I new instantly that there would be problems very soon with it..And after only roughly 30 washes its bust!..

I have just had an unbelievable conversation with Hoover washing machines. We have a brand new washing machine that we bought 6 weeks ago and have just been told we need to spend £150 repairing it because a 20p coin was left in a pocket. Basically, I have been told categorically by the customer care team at Hoover that this is a known (and accepted) issue - they are knowingly selling washing machines which they know are likely to brake seriously (ie at a cost of over £150) if something as small as a 1p coin or a metal button (from a child’s dungarees, for example) is accidently put in the drum. From my conversations with them, this is a common problem and they are fully aware that machines are not of a good enough quality to withstand even a one pence coin. The build of the machines is such that a coin can pass from the internal metal drum through to the plastic outer drum; at high spin speeds this coin or button can make a hole in the plastic drum which will cause all the water to come out. The plastic drum will then need to be completely replaced. Other manufacturers use metal for an outer case which prevents this problem. Families are obviously not being made aware of this when they are purchasing these machines in good faith. Neither does the Service Guarantee mention anything at all about foreign bodies in the machine, although apparently leaving a 1p coin in a pocket is categorised as ‘misuse’ of a washing machine. I was told that families should really take out the ‘extra warranty’ to cover this known problem or even use laundry bags (this is obviously not mentioned in their service booklet)! To me, this indicates that Hoover are aware that their machines are not of robust quality and therefore not really fit for purpose. I think this is disgraceful for consumers and obviously something Hoover knows all about. I would certainly have thought twice about buying a Hoover machine if I had known this to be a problem.