IFB ELITE - NOT BAD AT ALL. Review on Choosing a Washing Machine

Well, I was on the lookout for a WM, and tried to get some reviews for the WMs I had shortlisted, from our MS. Finally, harsh reviews for IFB notwithstanding, I went for the IFB Elite 5kg, upon seeing it at the store.

The machine was installed and running the next day. Thought I have to admit that the IFB person who came for installation was a bit rude. He wanted me to purchase all the IFB merchandise he had brought(washing powder from IFB, water softeners, etc) and was annoyed when I declined.

Coming to the WM, the Elite is pretty easy to operate, with minimum number of settings buttons on the panel. U have 3 settings basically, Normal, Light, and Quick, each taking around 2 hrs , 1.5, and 45 mins respectively. And there is the temp setting, from 30 C to 95 C. Then there is the WSD)water saving device), and the Economy buttons, which u can always keep on. No need to touch them.

Mine being a smaller capacity one (the reason why I settled for it), it can manage around 12 medium sized clothes in a wash. I first used the light wash for my sarees, and my daughters little clothes. There was nothing noticeably good or bad in the wash. Then I compiled all towels(mostly white), white uniforms, and the like, and used the normal wash with 95 C temp. I was expecting clothes that wud come out shiny white, clean smelling, etc, like they show in the ads, but to my disappointment, the clothes were washed ok, but there wasn't a great diff in the wash quality, as I was expecting(i had used 95 C water, almost boiling.!) Only the WM was hot to touch.!

Finally..

I stashed in the soiled shirts of my hubby, in the normal wash, with cold water. Previously I had been using a semi-auto WM, and the shirts wud be washed without the stains from the cuffs and collars removed. I had to always scrub them before putting in. But to my pleasant surprise, the shirts were washed clean, with collars and cuffs and all light stains removed completely..! this is what I had wanted actually. No scrubbing needed.

So far the WM has been trouble free, and has made things a bit easier for me. So overall, it has been a good buy for me. I forgot to mention that the WM uses lesser water, than I expected. And lesser than what my semi-automatic WM was using previously.