LG: Life is not Good if you own one of their washing machines

In September of 2009, I wrote the following letter to LG's Customer Interactive Center, complaining about what a terrible job my washer does. I wasn't hoping to get this lemon replaced, but I was hoping for a response. Well, it's been 5 months. Time to take my gripe to cyberspace, as I mentioned I would do at the end of the letter. This isn't exactly about frugality, but it is the first time I have not heard anything back when corresponding with a corporation regarding one of their products. I find that totally unacceptable, and that is why I share this. I want to spare you the headache and trouble that these appliances have caused me. Read on, and caveat emptor. I will never, ever own a product made by LG again.

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LG Customer Interactive Center
P.O. Box 240007
201 James Record Road
Huntsville, AL 35824
ATTN: CIC

To whom it may concern:

I am the very unhappy owner of a LG Washing Machine, Model WM2016CW, and a LG Electric Clothes Dryer, Model DLE2516W. I purchased these appliances new from Sears in May 2007. Together, I paid more than $2,000 for these appliances. I know they are out of their usual warranty period, but I am compelled to write and tell you how extremely dissatisfied I am with their performance, especially the performance of the washing machine. The longer I use these appliances, the more dissatisfied I become. I hate them! Never again will I purchase a front-loading washing machine.

My primary complaint is with the inability of the washing machine to get clothing clean. Not only are stains usually not removed on the first washing (even if they have been pretreated), it often takes pretreating and washing as many as three times in order for the stain to be removed. In many cases, when I have failed to pretreat a stain, it is transferred to other clothing in the same wash load. Washing on a higher soil setting, or using the Water Plus feature has very little to no effect. I find it to be highly inefficient—both in terms of my time and the electricity, water, and detergent—to have to wash clothing two to three times in order to get clothing clean. It is a waste of my time to have to examine every inch of every piece of dirty laundry for stains before putting in the washer. I have far better things to do with my time than to scrub at stains with a toothbrush and detergent or an OxiClean solution.

I have enclosed two photographs that illustrate what I am experiencing on a consistent basis.


In Photo 1 there are two stains on the back of a shirt that went through a load of laundry undetected. Upon detecting the stains, I immediately pretreated with Spray & Wash, both in stain stick and spray form, and washed again, on the highest soil setting using the Water Plus option.


Photo 2 shows the shirt after coming out of the wash (before drying), and the stains are still there. I then mixed up a solution of OxiClean for pretreating, and scrubbed the spots with a toothbrush dipped in the OxiClean solution until the stains were gone and then washed the shirt again (the stains lifted quite easily using this manual method, by the way). That is THREE washings to get stains out. Can you see why I am upset by this? Not only am I wasting time washing and rewashing clothes, but our clothing is being subjected to an unnecessary amount of wear and tear by being washed so many times.

I live in an area where we have a very reliable, clean, and naturally soft source of water. I have used virtually every High Efficiency detergent on the market, all with equally poor results. I have done my family’s washing for more than 20 years using a traditional top-loading agitator-style washer, and never had results as pathetic as these.

My husband keeps urging me to sell this washer and dryer on Craigslist and put the money toward a traditional top-loading washer and matching dryer. The only thing that is stopping me from doing this is my conscience. I could not sell this set of appliances to anyone and still be able to sleep at night. I would not wish this laundry nightmare on my worst enemy.

So, I am stuck with these lemons…or am I?? I contacted your customer support department at 1-800-243-0000, and aside from the suggestion to use the Water Plus setting (which I was already doing), received no helpful suggestions on what I could do to make my laundry experience using these appliances more acceptable. I was directed to write to this address, which I am doing in the hopes that you will be able to do something more substantial for me. Ideally, I would love to be able to return both the washer and the dryer (which does a really bad job of drying towels and socks; I have to set it on “driest” and still dry the load more than once) for a full refund. At the very least, I expect to hear from someone in your organization who has the authority to make policy decisions in this matter and can offer me some sort of solution. I am sure you appreciate the importance of ensuring customer satisfaction in this age of Facebook, Twitter, Blogger, and other social media. I am an active user of all of the aforementioned social media, so rest assured that I will not hesitate to discuss this experience and its outcome with my online communities. I hope, once this matter is resolved, that I can say “LG really listened to my concerns and cares about me as a consumer.”

I look forward to hearing from you soon and learning what LG is willing to do to win me back as a customer.

Homemade Laundry Soap

New reader "A" (welcome to the blog!) makes her own laundry soap--so cool! Here's her recipe:

1 bar (3 cups) Zote soap (or Fels Naptha)
1 1/2 c. Washing Soda (not baking...you can find it at grocery stores usually)
1 1/2 c. Borax (cheapest at Target here)

Just put all that in a food processor and chop until fine. Use 1T for small/light load, 2T for large/soiled (boy) loads. It's roughly 3 cents per load.

Man, I wish I could try it out! I have one of those dreadful "high efficiency" washers that you have to use the special "HE" soap for. Never again will I have a HE washer. I find it terribly inefficient to have to hand-scrub each stain with a toothbrush and full-strength laundry soap before washing, and then still having to re-treat the stain and re-wash it. Tell me, just what his "highly efficient" about that?

25 Quick and Easy Ways to Improve Your Financial Situation

I found this great article online last summer and had saved the link to use as ideas for this blog. However, I am just now getting around to it, and realized that it would be better to give you the link to the entire article, written by Jeffrey Strain, and let you read it all for yourself. He has some great ideas, none of which are terribly time-consuming.

If you try any of these ideas, you'll have to let me know. I've not been terribly successful with calling the phone and cable companies and asking for better rates, and I honestly think that my washing machine doesn't do as good a job in cold water. What really impressed me was his ability to break his soda habit--I'm trying to do that, too, and I am proud to say that I am down to the occasional diet Coke or diet Cherry 7Up. Not only better for my pocketbook, but my teeth and my health as well.

Things I Reuse: Dryer Sheets & Zip-top Bags

Here's another topic I promised to start writing on: things I reuse.

• Dryer Sheets. I reuse my Bounce dryer sheets until they become extremely limp. Usually after the first use, I will use two per load. Another clue (at least in the wintertime) for when I need to finally toss them is when the clothes come out of the dryer all static-y (is that a word?)


• Zip-top bags. For most uses, I use freezer zip-top bags. They are heavier and stand up to repeated hand washing. I only toss them once they have become so worn as to be unusable or have held raw meat (especially chicken). When using them for raw meat (marinating chicken, freezing meat, etc.), I try to use ones that have already been used at least once. The good folks who make Ziploc will advise you against reuse ("it's just not safe"), but I've never had a problem with them.

I'm sure I will think of more down the line. If there are things you reuse, let me know.

Energy Use Tradeoffs

I have a friend in Utah who is a stay-at-home mom of seven (yes, 7!) kids, whose hubby is an elementary school teacher (he may be a principal by now, but the point is, he works in public education). She is far more qualified to write this blog than I am, I'm sure! But, since she is not a blogger, from time to time, I'll share some of her frugality tips. Today, it's using a clothesline in the summertime. She writes:

One more thing we did...now that it is finally summer...I had [hubby] tie a rope across our backyard. After I do the laundry the loads (minus socks and underclothes) go out to dry. It's amazing how quicky they are dry...I do throw them in the dryer for about 10-20 minutes to soften them up...saving on the power bill so we can have some air conditioning. And once again, with 7 kids...we have a lot of laundry!

Fortunately, she lives in an area where using a clothesline is feasible; I just don't know how often I would be able to confidently put a load of laundry out on the clothesline without worrying about it getting rained on before it was dry.

Getting back, though, to the title of this post: they air-dry the majority of their laundry in the summertime so they can afford to run their air-conditioning. Is there some energy use you can "trade" for some savings? It might be air-drying your clothes; it might be not running a TV in the background just for the noise. The options are endless!