My Biggest Concern with the LG WashCombo | LG All in One Teardown
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 28 มิ.ย. 2024
- Full size, heat pump washer/dryer combos are taking the industry by storm. The question is: will they last? In this video, Blake tears open the all-new LG WashCombo and gives us his unfiltered first impressions about the unit's build, and whether or not he would buy one.
LG WM6998HBA
LG 5.0 Cu. Ft. Black Steel Washer Dryer Combo
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The #1 concern you guys didn’t address or show us with your 6 months of use is the coils how dirty was the coils and did you find any lint on the coils ?
Their refrigerator problems are only with their in-line compressor. The WashCombo does not utilitize their in-line compressor. Before their proprietary in-line compressor issues, their refrigerators were as reliable as any good brand.
That's great to hear, thanks for sharing!
It was actually more reliable; before their linear compressor issue (which was due to them moving to offshore manufacturing), even back as far as their Goldstar days, their fridges were the choice of brand for hotels and apartments (where the purchasers were liable for repairs), at least in the USA, after repair rates were looked at.
I love hearing all your suggestions based on your extensive experience - makes me more confident in my purchases as a consumer! I feel like watching this channel gives me superpowers!
The only issue I have found with mine so far is that in many of the cycles, the “turbo wash” feature doesn’t fully function because the machine uses so little water that the reservoir empties faster than the water from the clothes can drain back into it. At that point the pump cavitates and the top two jets cease functioning entirely while the lower ones just go down to half their normal output. This tells me that, for their water sensor, the engineers did not properly calculate the slight additional amount of water that needs to be in recirculation for the jets to function properly. I have told LG this and they said they would review it and get back to me. 7 days later they thanked me for my suggestion and said “Your idea regarding a feature that allows you to add more water will be reviewed. We appreciate your continued interest and future suggestions. Thank you.” I am not really looking for their old-school water plus feature. I just want them to tweak the auto water level so that cycles have enough water in recirculation so that the turbo wash jets function properly. I would think they could very easily fix this by just supplying a downloadable fix. It probably only needs an additional 8 to 12 ounces of water. Note that the clothes are still cleaned perfectly. It’s just that the water jets do not function properly due to not having enough water in circulation.
Pop the top and give that screw on the pressure sensor a good crank, crank-and-a-half, clockwise... assuming it's the same as their other FL platform machines, that should be just about the right amount of water to have the sump full all the time, but not so much that you get the burrito-wash effect. lol.
That's a valid concerning, thanks for sharing that with LG! We spoke to them at a recent trade show with concerns of our own and they are intent on updating things as they come up. Thanks for watching!
@@dregenius - Are you serious right now!? I cannot believe that nothing has changed since my mother’s 1962 Kenmore top load washer! I thought you were joking! It worked perfectly after I got the Loctite they used loosened! It required one full turn and a quarter. Someone messed up the factory spec on this. I’m in shock that a washer made in 2024 still uses a simple pressure switch for water level control from the 1950s!! The only difference between the pressure switch in my mother’s 1962 Kenmore and the one in this WashCombo is this is more “plasticky”. Thanks very much! The jets function perfectly now! I love it. I figured water level sensing was entirely electronically controlled in this machine. Wow! What’s old is new again! LOL!
@@Hermetic7 it's not a switch like the old ones, it's actually a digital PWM pressure transducer... The fact it looks similar is because the shape of such a system hasn't changed... But it indeed is quite different from the old top-load clothes-shredder boat anchors. 😂 The screw is just to calibrate the sensor, so that all of the sensors leaving the line read the same PWM duty cycle at a given pressure. But yes I think LG was too conservative on water level on many of the cycles, although I suspect part of it is Americans tendency to use WAY too much detergent (since the old top load laundry-soup machines needed half a gallon to get stuff clean lol), which means more water is tied up in suds, which the pump cant effectively move.
@@dregenius - Ahh! So progress HAS been made! 😂 I hear you on detergent dispensing! I recently saw a woman pour half a bottle of detergent in the dispenser because she thought she was filling the auto-dispense. I wonder how that wash turned out for her? 🤣 As to LG underfilling the machine such that the recirculation pump is constantly cavitating, well it’s no wonder their most replaced part is the pump. Thanks again. I really appreciate your help!
I agree with the comments on the user interface. While it is slick and nice looking, it is slower to use than the app because you are always dialing and selecting. You can do absolutely everything with the interface that you can do with the app, but the app takes much less time and is more efficient and easy to use. I just load up the machine and put in detergent (I use powder as I hate liquid detergent…the whole reason for so much mold with front loaders in the US initially due to liquid detergents not rinsing away cleanly and leaving the residue for mold to eat…along with fabric softener) and then use the app to select everything and remote start it. Works for me. But…a lot of people probably won’t want to use an app to do their laundry.
Use vinegar in place if fabric softner it will wash away any soap and it sanitizes ur clothes
We were definitely impressed with the app's ease-of-use, but you're right in that a lot of people don't want to use an app to do their laundry. Thanks for watching!
The whole thing about "don't put in a humid area" I believe has nothing to do with drying or the heat pump, just that it's an expensive appliance with a lot of gadgets in it! lol. Remember the heat pump in a dryer (or these combos) is a closed loop system - they're not using it to absorb heat from the room around them like a heat pump water heater... think of heat pump dryers as a "dehumidifier in a sealed box with your clothes". Air comes from the clothes, moisture condenses out when it hits the evaporator coil (which is cold because heat has been absorbed from it), then the air immediately flows over the condenser coil (which got hot because that's where the heat from making the evap cold came from) so the heat is recovered, then the same air goes back to the clothes. The heat pump is there to keep those two coils, which are right next to each other, at as different a temperature as it can, but the whole loop is effectively sealed and the ambient environment the machine is located in plays little role in the way it works.
Excellent description, thanks for sharing that!
@@BoulevardHome thanks! I sell appliances so Ive been working on the best way to describe heat pump drying... Dehumidifier is by far the best way I've found to help customers realize how they work (and that they really do work). A customer might have doubts about how a heat pump can dry something, so I like to compare it to a damp basement - you wouldn't run a bunch of space heaters with the windows open, right? That'd be silly inefficient! You run a dehumidifier, which does a good job at removing moisture without significantly wasting heat. 😜
@@dregenius the last line just made it even clearer for me, thanks :D
Am at the point where you have your filter on top of the machine and can see the side with the seal facing the camera and that the seal at the top is very slightly deformed. I can already tell you mine was the same and you have to hold the filter very upright and insert the two tabs and then move it down into it’s slot. If you do it kind of carelessly, the seal will not seat properly. To resolve the deformity, just hold it in with your finger as you insert it upright and move it down into it’s slot. Not sure I am clear, I’d probably have to demonstrate. But, if that seal is deformed in any way when it is inserted, it is not going to keep all the lint from leaking around it.
That's good information to know, thanks for sharing!
Also what happened to seeing how it did with all the hair? Felt like you had to cut the video short as I thought we were watching how the inside does against time with hair for 6 months
Sorry for the confusion! This machine is actually brand new and hadn't been used at the time of filming, but we plan on doing follow up videos on how it handles things such as dog hair over time. This video was more about Blake's first impressions as a repair technician. We did do a video testing it out though which shows its performance with dog hair after a couple cycles: th-cam.com/video/TPFLw0PO-s8/w-d-xo.html
Thanks for watching!
Use vinegar in the place of softner. Fabric softner destroys a washer. It will stick to the drum over time. I let a jug sit for one year it’s now like a very thick glue sticky and won’t pour out of the bottle. Thus is the Downey white softner
I used vinegar in my old top washer but not sure about front loads like this, I hear it eats away at the rubber in the inside.
Using a bicarbonate of soda tablet with your washing helps eliminate calcium build up in your washing machine which means it will last longer
I watch you from saudi Arabia ❤❤❤
I have a question, I dont like the filter from the top because its hard to put a table on top but, when you open it up, is it easier to clean the coil from the top than the ones like GE and Samsung?
In my opinion the coil does seem more accessible than it does on the GE combo unit. I actually haven't tested the Samsung yet so I can't speak towards that. Thanks for watching!
OK… Let’s install a electronic control board under a giant tank of water… OK… Should be fine 😂
It may look compact, but the installation manual says leave 4 to 5 inches behind it and the clear. This thing is too big…
For my money, and I’m about to spend a bunch on this stuff, I’m staying with a conventional LG washer dryer set .
Nothing wrong with sticking with a conventional set! We're excited to see where these types of units go in the future though for sure. Thanks for watching!
@@BoulevardHome why does it need 4 to 5 inches behind it, does the GE need this also?
It’s very common for washers to have the motor controller or inverter on the bottom under the drum😅
I've been having issues with my unit.
I had it replaced twice, and the pump replaced on the 3rd unit. There's a design flaw which prevents the unit from draining correctly in the dry cycle. It won't siphon the water out correctly and will back flow back into the unit which then prevents the heat pump from running correctly. I've tested this extensively and you'll see the wattage sit at 50+ watts instead of 400-700 watts. Then randomly you'll also get an error that the drain is clogged, and you need to clean out the pump filter.
This problem also causes water to seep into the drum and wet the dried clothes during the fan cycle at the end of the load. This is issue is caused when you have a drain above the height of the unit. Mine is 54" high which in the manual says is within spec but that is not true. If you're experiencing extremely long dry times and wet clothes, these are all symptoms of the pump not correctly draining. It seems you need to be within 34" or less for the unit to drain correctly.
When I place the drain hose during the dry cycle in a trash can, the unit dries appropriately and no water seeps into the drum. The heat pump stays on continuously until the fan cycle as well.
I'm in the process of trying to resolve this issue with LG. I suspect if this unit had a check valve or backflow preventer, this would not be an issue and the unit would work as intended.
Mine stopped drying properly less than a month after I bought it. Both Best Buy and LG sent technicians out and both said "it's working as it's designed", yet it's still not drying so it's designed not to dry?
They're telling me it's working as designed even though it IS NOT working as advertised. It's a washer/dryer that DOES NOT dry. I have another technician coming out next week, I've been going back and forth with LG (liason) all day today.
Okay I tried draining directly into a 27-32 gallon garbage can last night and it worked much much better. I think only two pieces were a little damp so I ran them again with a few already dry items on 'delicates' and they fully dried. I just checked the drain height on my wall and it's 36 inches.
@@NDZ-jf8ur are you using the drain hook or cut your hose length? I would try extending some extra into the drain. might help with siphoning which seems to be a issue with this unit
@josepht1575 I initially tried stuffing the hose deeper into the wall but that didn't help. In fact, when the Best Buy technician showed up he thought that was the problem. I actually thought about cutting the hose because it does seem like it's unnecessary long. For now I put the U shaped bracket (from my old hose) on the end of the hose and have it hooking into the drain, similar to my old setup. I'm going to try it again like this, but I don't expect it to work.
@josepht1575 Okay so we did a load with the hose hooking into the wall drain and it dried the first time, the second time it did not. My guess is it slowly backfills after each load and just gets worse. I told the tech about this over the phone and he said LG may need to do a recall and install a more powerful pump.
What good is a warranty if LG insists "it's working as designed" even though it IS NOT working as advertised? The damn thing DOES NOT dry and they keep telling me "it's working as designed".
I would never recommend an LG combo washer/dryer. I bought mine 2.5 yrs ago. It died this week. However, the LED lights started going out within 6 months of purchase. This progressed to not being able to choose many cycles. Finally, this week, water started leaking into the drum while not in use. I will also say that, even though it has a cycle for bedding, it leaked badly if I ever tried to wash a small blanket.
So sorry to hear about that! Where are you located? This model only just released in the United States where we are located, so I'm curious if we're talking about the same machine. Thanks for watching!
@@BoulevardHome It’s probably a different model. (Model is WM3998HBA.) I’m replacing it with a top loader washing machine and separate dryer. I went with GE because of the awful experience I had with LG. I must’ve watched 7 of your videos last night, so I really appreciate the information. Was going to buy stackable or a stacked unit, but your discussions made me think that wouldn’t be wise (and I’m avoiding LG)
Replace current setup
I have always felt softer was bad for the washer but now that you guys mention something about it I'm curious, what is it that's really bad about softener? What little you mentioned was more of a tease to people that didn't see that video 😅
Fabric softner will stick to the drum over time. It clings to it like a glue that’s very heavy sticky. Get a bottle of Downey let it set up for a year open the bottle and you won’t be able to pour it out. It hardens like glue.
Of course! Here's a video where we talk all about it: th-cam.com/video/8Y3RpTEfH0M/w-d-xo.html
Thanks for watching!
@@BoulevardHome is vinegar safe in place of fabric softner?
Not only softener, liquid detergent and especially pods are horrible as well. Powder and hot washes keep the machine clean
@@MieleW2573 you can't use powder with new machines, can you?
What about the 6 months worth of DOG HAIR ????? I thought that was the purpose of this video. You guys showed nothing about the Kent getting into the coils either which is the #1 issue with all Combo systems.
Sorry for the confusion! This machine is actually brand new and hadn't been used at the time of filming, but we plan on doing follow up videos on how it handles things such as dog hair over time. This video was more about Blake's first impressions as a repair technician. We did do a video testing it out though which shows its performance with dog hair after a couple cycles: th-cam.com/video/TPFLw0PO-s8/w-d-xo.html
Thanks for watching!
Sell the old ones and bank the $$$.
I would like to see a paragraph explaining the pros and cons of this washer -dryer combo and not have to listen to a video that runs too slow and too much chit chat
In our experience...
Pros: looks nice, cleans well, very quiet, efficient, user friendly app
Cons: takes a very long time to dry, gasket gets dirty, lint filter on top could be annoying if you were wanting to place things on top
You can watch our full test and review of it (not the teardown) here: th-cam.com/video/TPFLw0PO-s8/w-d-xo.html
I somehow get the feeling that many American appliance influences don't want to promote LG products because LG has better products than the usual brands found in America. That's a shame because you're just letting your egos get in the way of enjoying some really good products that will make a difference in peoples lives.
Nothing like that going on here. We've endorsed plenty of LG products. Blake has consistently rated them as one of his top washing machines. We will continue to review products honestly, and that includes both what we like and some concerns we have.