Dec 18, 2004 02:35 PM
22053 Views
(Updated Dec 18, 2004 02:39 PM)
I have owned the IFB Elena for about a year now, and still never got perfect washing performance out of it.
I bought it in October 2003, and MS didnt have any reviews for this model then. Based on my research, I was impressed by the front-loading system and this was the cheapest on the market. It had no fancy controls or extra features that we are never going to use, and backed by the brand name of IFB, I went for it.
The first problem which hit us, on first use itself, was the deafening noise it made during spin cycles. I had to call the service technician thrice in a month, and they were not able to get it right. Each time they adjusted the machines' legs, claiming that it wasnt leveled correctly.
The machine used to literally jump around when it sterted spinning, because of the centrifugal force in the drum which collided with the machines' side walls. The technician made me purchase rubber 'shoes' which he fitted on the machines legs, claiming it would stop the jumping movements.
If leveling was such a culprit, couldnt the technicians bring spirit levels to confirm the horizontal levels rather than trying various levels at my expense ??
The noise continued, though on a lesser scale and I was made to beleive the load was less i.e. less clothes so it vibrated. But hey, am I expected to wait till my laundry reaches the specified load and then only wash ? That too, many clothes come with 'was separately' or 'wash dark colours' separately instruction, so how can I wash these clothes and yet keep the full load ?
So I continued like this for several months, with the machine randomly breaking into deafening sounds during start of spin. A few months later, more damage surfaced - the machine developed a earth leakage which caused my earth circuit breaker to trip in middle of spin cycles. So I had to either run the machine without the earth wire connected, or leave it for 5-8 hours and then run it again.
Also, it used to make strange sounds as if a belt is slapping against some surface while spinning. And the worst part, it used to stop after about 30 seconds of spinning, even though the timer is moving, and start spinning again with a jerk 2 minutes later.
Technician comes, finds that the drum has developed a leakage, and it is actually splashing water all over inside, during spinning. He changes the entire drum, disasembling the entire machine in the process. With the new drum, the earth leakage and belt noise disappear But the intermittent spin stoppage continued.
Called the technician again, but after 3 futile visits, he is unable to find any fault and does not even understand the problem correctly, since the problem only occurs when machine is run with full load from the start; whereas the technicians simply turn the knob and start the machine from spin cycle directly, in which case it runs fine.
As for the quality of service, its quite pathetic - they come whenever they like without any appointment. Since I work monday-friday, only Saturday is the day when I can call them over. Even then, they promise they will come in the given time, but fail to turn up, even though I am sitting at home cancelling my other appointments.
The technicians themselves dont seem very knowledgeable about the machine, and are adept at bluffing or spinning a yarn when it comes to answering questions about why is the problem occuring.
Also, this machine has a single hot-water setting of 60 C while all clothes have washing instructions to wash at 40 C - unless washing heavy duty clothes like bedsheets or curtains.
On the plus side, the quality of wash is not bad, and it uses much less water and clothes come out less entangled than a top loading machine.
But alas, in its zeal to produce a cheap machine, IFB has compromised somewhere in the machine design and you will end up with a noisy vibrating monster that you always have to crack the whip on, to make it work.
