The most expensive (450 pounds) washing machine we have purchased to date, we had high expectations of the Hotpoint ultima with its cool blue electronic display and super quiet operation.

Set up of the machine was straight forward, you need to remove the transit bolts at the back, and must do this properly or risk problems with the machine later. An odd instruction was to remove a small square sheet of corrugated plastic which is then re-inserted under the machine to help with 'noise' levels! I used a spirit level to level the machine in its final resting place to ensure it would operate optimally.

This machine only has a cold fill plumbing inlet, so no need for the hot water plumbing pipe of the past, these should be blanked off to stop future leaks (you can get a small blanking end piece from DIY stores for about 2 quid)

The cold fill only saves money, as the machine only heats the amount of water it needs, and most biological powders work best at low temperatures only.

The glowing blue digital display looks great and is easy to use, there are lots of cleaning options, my only criticism is that the digital panel sits out proud from the front of the machine slightly, and we found that as the machine sits under a work top, whenever we are standing at the worktop to make a cup of tea, its easy to knock the buttons and turn it on/ off!!! luckily if you turn it off during a run, it remembers where it is, cool eh!!

A big selling point for us was the 'quiet' cycle, as we have a nervous dog who doesn't like noisy washing machines left on at night! (bless) Initially this seemed brilliant as the spin cycle and overall operation IS very quiet.
Unfortunately, to spoil it all, our machine has a very annoying habit of BANGING loudly at certain points of the wash cycle, especially when it has a full or slightly uneven load. The first few times this happened were very disconcerting as it sounds like someone taking a hammer to its internals!

This seems to happen as an intermittent fault, and the machine does it when it is trying to even out the load before spinning. We have had the machine walk itself 6 inches out from the wall on its own while banging, or walk backwards and jam its pipes at the back!

I found out what this noise is, where as lots of washing machines have a breeze block at the bottom for weight/ stability, this one has the concrete block at the front, just in front of the bottom of the drum. The noise is the uneven load banging from front to back as the load spins slowly, banging into the block and moving the machine.

This was so disappointing, as are the intermittent leaks from the machine, it became incontinent after only 3 months in the house!

I have re- leveled the machine several times, checked that the transit brackets were all removed following the instructions to the letter (they were), but still the problem persists. We try to make sure the load is not too big or heavy now, or that we don't wash only a couple of items, or anything that would give an uneven load, but to be honest we have never moly- coddled a washing machine before to this extent and never had these problems.

The wash quality of the machine is excellent, shirt collars coming out nice and clean, so the wife is very happy with the wash performance.

I can't really recommend this machine because of the banging noise/ leaks already within a few months, but if yours does not have these faults, otherwise it is a great looking appliance, easy to use, large capacity washer, whose wash quality is excellent.

Should make use of the free 5 year (?) parts and labour warranty and get someone from hotpoint to look at it, but in the fine print they go on and on about they will charge you if the fault is because you installed it wrongly, or didn't level it, or didn't remove all the transit brackets properly, so we have lived with it so far... maybe it will 'settle in' eventually???