Beko WTG1041B4W

The WTG1041B4W is a washing machine manufactured in Turkey by the Beko Corporation and was available in 2020. It has a belt-driven 10 kg load capacity drum, and the Prosmart Inverter Motor for which Beko provides a 10-year guarantee (not covering labour charge). This A+++ rated machine has energy consumption of 214 kWh/annum, and uses 11659-litres/annum of water. The sound level is 54 dB during the wash cycle, and 76 dB during spin cycles. The energy figures are based on 220 standard washing cycles for cotton programmes at 60 °C/40 °C at full/partial loads. Its dimensions are 84 cm × 60 cm × 64 cm, and mass 72 kg ±4 kg. Full specifications, features and function are given in the manual.

Review

This Beko machine has some advantages going for it because the manual mentions its service life to be 10-years, and the Prosmart Inverter Motor itself has a 10-year guarantee. This motor is supposed to be quieter, and more reliable, and as an end-user, it certainly is quieter, however I will have a better idea of reliability in a few years time. On this occasion, I decided to check in advance to make sure the parts for it were cheaply and readily available.

Other features that I liked are the 15-minutes fast wash, which is a great improvement over my old machine that took one hour. The front control panel is intuitive and logical to use, though the manual did give me the run around when trying to determine how one initiates the drum clean cycle. I loved the door handle design, which has no moving parts and one simply pulls it. This was a great improvement over my old machine which had a moving mechanism that was fiddly. There is also an LED to let one know when the door lock has disengaged. Many machines do not have this simple feature and one has to guess by pulling the handle, which can over time result in damage to the lock. I liked the location of the pump filter hatch and the easy access to it. It requires regular cleaning and therefore it is vital that the access hatch is not fiddly to open and is a good distance above the floor level.

Unfortunately recent manufacturing trends are for a sealed tub design and small bearings because it is cheap to manufacture, however smaller bearings usually do not last as long. Consequently, I decided to get a machine with 10 kg load capacity even though I did not need one because with those machines I would expect the bearings to be more robust. This machine also has some intelligence to sense the load capacity and automatically adjust the resources used.

The installation was very simple as the inlet and outlet pipes are standardised and can be swapped out without any fuss. In this model, there are four large transportation bolts at the back that will require removing. These are usually removed, and the supplied plastic blanking plugs installed to cover the holes. In case you were wondering, the water inlet pipe is usually stored inside the drum compartment. The manual is written in tiny fonts on recycled paper; however you can read it here in the following pages more easily. Remember to register your machine online to activate all the guarantees.

Price/eBay

I got a Beko this time, because it was the cheapest I could find in the 10 kg load capacity range that cost less than £250 including VAT and delivery. I figured that if I get at least two years use from it then I have got my money’s worth!

These are usually for sale on eBay, and I placed an order for a brand new machine during the coronavirus crisis. I was pleased to receive a factory packed and sealed machine promptly, and the AO delivery left it on my doorstep without any fuss.

My Old Bosch VarioPerfect

My old washing machine was this Bosch VarioPerfect, which gave me many years of faithful service. As you can see, it had a hard life, and after the bearings wore out, we kept using it by switching it off during the final spin cycle. I would have replaced the bearings but unfortunately in this model, the drum is inside a sealed tub that cannot be opened. Consequently a complete replacement tub is required which makes the repair uneconomical.

My dad chose this one after reading all the reviews, and his reasoning was that if you buy an expensive model then you can get the parts for it readily. However since nearly all manufacturers have moved to a sealed tub design, the reasoning behind buying the Beko was to buy cheap and if you get at least two to three years use from it then you get your money’s worth.

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