I’m looking for the Shimano XT / 105 of the white goods world, fridge, cooker, washing machine, tumble dryer

Currently favour Bosch as the straddle a decent price / quality price point, I also have an mini electric screwdriver which has taken an absolute beating at work over 3 years and refuses to die

Anyone else I need to look at?

Miele. Maybe a bit more expensive – think Ultegra not 105, DeWalt not Bosch

Avoid Indesit. Oven’s made by them and in the last 5 years Ive needed the heating element replaced twice,and the fan once.
Last washing machine was Hotpoint, which was my parents and lasted at least 20 years. I’ve replaced it with a Bosch, but i don’t think they make these things as they once did, and i doubt the Bosch is going to last as long.

I would have said Miele but we’re having a few problems with our dishwasher. Been faultless for nearly 8 years, but now throwing up fault codes all over the place and the technician has thus far been unable to trace the problem. Good customer service, mind.

I plumped for Miele because in a previous job amongst other things I dealt with the aftermath of insurance claims which involved household appliances.

At the time, Miele and Fisher and Paykel were the only two companies that we hadn’t dealt with appliance fires from their appliances. Not sure whether that’s still the case but was certainly persuasive for me!

Ta, yeah I’d go for Meile if funds would allow but def see them as Ultegra!

Samsung and Siemens are potential alternatives but I know nothing about them

DeWalt not Bosch

This makes no sense. I’d personally place Bosch over DeWalt, based on experience of owning and using both brands. Festool would be a more accurate comparison.

i don’t think they make these things as they once did

That’s the bottom line really; quality has fallen across all brands. Hopefully new laws about companies needing to make products repairable, might reverse this trend. But we live on a backward facing little island, so don’t hold out much hope…

We moved in to a place with all AEG kitchen stuff and I’ve been impressed with it. V happy with a Haier washer/drier also.

I’d personally place Bosch over DeWalt

DeWalt, Milwaukee and Makita are seen as the most premium common tool brands no?

We default to Bosch for most stuff. We have had Smeg cookers in our last 3 houses, got the first in a discount place due to a good offer and it was great. So have had 2 more since. We have a Samsung fridge – the house has a kitchen built for a US style one and the Samsung was the design the wife liked – its very good (but should be for £1.5k).

All the appliances in our new kitchen are NEFF, which I think are a lesser(?) version of Bosch?

Anyway, the lovely projecting LED on the dishwasher failed after 18 months, as did the cooling fan on our combination microwave oven after 23 months (just inside warranty). Also a couple of letters have fallen off the logo’s on our ovens.

I’m not sure if Bosch are much better for the equivalent. Otherwise I’d have gone for Miele.

My kitchen stuff all came from Howdens, Lamona brand. 6-7 years and not a glitch so far.

I’d vary the brands – Bosch for washing machine & dishwasher, cheapo Beko for fridge and tumble drier (simpler devices), dunno for cooker.

Yeah the mix and match between complicated and simple items makes sense, Bosch did do a super low energy fridge freezer I quite liked a while back, not sure if it’s still available, I wasn’t keen on Beko but a mates been running one of their fridges for about 20 years

DeWalt, Milwaukee and Makita are seen as the most premium common tool brands no?

Milwaukee aren’t a household name to most people; they’re a ‘professional’ brand of the Techtronic industries umbrella, which also owns the ‘consumer’ brand Ryobi, as well as the AEG (home appliances’, Hoover and Vax brands. Bosch sell loads of consumer tool products, the green ranges you find in B&Q etc (as well as the ‘professional’ blue products). Pretty good to be honest. I’ve yet to find a Bosch product that was ‘bad’.

Bosch and LG have been good for us.

I’m sceptical about the premium brands – our most unreliable fridge/freezer was a Miele (software crashed in the night or when you went away for the weekend) and worst dishwasher was a SMEG (didn’t actually clean things).

Samsung for me. In 7 years of homeownership, The Samsung washing machine is the only thing with the exception of the inductions hob (Smeg) which hasn’t been either repaired or fettled in some way.

I don’t think there is a single right answer across everything.

Generally, I wouldn’t say price is a great indicator of reliability either. But it is a good indicator of features, whether or not you’ll use them.

Miele is a cut above though. Interesting fact is that Liebherr make the Miele fridges, so you can get a decent fridge from LiebWho? for (much) less than the equivalent Miele.

Bosch / Siemens / Neff are all pretty much the same with different trim and buttons. Siemens is the premium brand but the gear underneath is the same as the equivalent Bosch / Neff models. Check the warranty lengths though as sometimes you get a longer Siemens warranty (to justify the price hike).

In addition to Liebherr for refrigeration, consider LG for laundry (10 year motor warranty) and as above, Fisher & Paykel for cooking.

What I would also recommend is this place (Appliance City) if you’re getting the gear in one go. Phone them up and they’ll do a deal on price which is as competitive as you’ll find anywhere and they can delay / multi-drop deliveries to suit. Top service.

PS No connection with Appliance City, just did us great deals with great service on three full kitchens now and each has been flawless.

Miele. Twenty-year old washing machine recently serviced by their engineer and new dampers added. Averages about one wash per day. The engineer had fixed a 40-year old machine.

I have found Siemens way better than Bosch.

I have a Siemens fridge which is excellent, keeps frit and veg crisp and fresh for ages. Not sure how it does this better than the 20 year old Siemens it replaced. But it does.

I have a Miele washing machine, came with £200 cashback and a 10 year full warranty. Washes really well, but it did go wrong a couple of weeks back, touchscreen would not always respond, needed resetting and gradually got more frequent and worse. Replaced under warranty. Only 2.5 years old.

Bosch fridge – been faultless since I bought it (over 10 years ago)

Siemens washer/dryer – been faultless since I bought it (8ish years ago)

Samsung washer/dryer – no issues with it for over 13 years before it broke down

All mid-range priced stuff but it’s lasted so well I’ve never seen the point of paying Miele prices – I would have if I was only getting around 5 years lifetime from them though

Given their decent Which? reviews I’d also look closely at John Lewis branded stuff for white goods in future

Point to note:
XTR = Dura-Ace
XT = Ultegra
SLX = 105

Anyway, Bosch is my go to. Works and seems to last.

We’ve had predominantly Bosch for the last 30 years. Just bought a new set of appliances for the new house: Bosch dishwasher, AEG induction hob and extractor, NEFF oven, Hoover washing machine and Hotpoint fridge/freezer. A lot of decisions simply down to what was available, but NEFF slide and hide oven is way better than anything else. Also, chose the AEG extractor for the way it is built-in to a cupboard rather than having an ugly hood – connects automatically to the hob too. Most of the appliances are built-in or hidden in cupboards, so trying to match is less of an issue.

If I was buying a new washing now, I would go for one of the Ebac’s.

7 year warranty and made in the UK.

https://www.ebac.com/washing-machines/our-range/

Apparently, they are designed to be easily repairable.

Great, thanks all

NEFF, which I think are a lesser(?) version of Bosch?

Not really; for ovens Neff is generally the innovative brand, and for all appliances Siemens perhaps considered a bit better than Bosch. Gaggenau is BSH’s premium brand. But as the sales person in a never-knowingly-undersold store said to us, for most BSH brands there’s a premium range made in Germany, a lesser range made in Turkey and an even lesser range made somewhere else. If you go for the premium ones it doesn’t matter which badge they have on, they should be ok. Our Neff oven is made in Germany, as are our Siemens washing machine and fridge, and they’re all fine. Our Neff dishwasher is made in Turkey, seems cheaply made, went very quickly went from being silent to sounding as though there’s a cow trapped in it and I’m not expecting a long life from it.

I question whether it’s worth the effort thinking about these things, I spent ages looking at washing machine reviews, brought a Zanussi based on it not being white, its lasted 10 years. I spent ages reading about ovens, eventually replace my 19 year old one with the same model as before, it’s crap compared to the old one, I spent ages reading conflicting reviews too!

It’s a white good, buy it, if you live in a hard water area if its water based it’ll suffer, use it, replace it when it dies, or starts to.

Bosch for washing machine and dishwasher, Beko or whatever else is cheap at the time for fridge and freezers

Who is you’re white goods go to?

Whatever got good reviews and is the cheapest on sites such as AO etc

What ever fits. New washer was a 10kg wash, but 54cm deep and 1400 spin, best we could get that fitted. Hoover in the end. We never use all the programmes. Had a cheap one that lasted a long time, but bearings were going and a pig to change. Given where the pipes are had to be 54cm to fit properly in a 60cm recess.

Not really bothered other than space is maxmised in the ‘unit’.

The problem with people saying that their Meile/Bosch/LG is working well after 20 years is that only shows they were well built 20 years ago and that doesn’t mean they are well build now.

If you want reliability, go for simplicity. A fridge which breaks down needing a software reboot? Really? My fridge has a compressor, a thermostat and a light. My microwave has a clockwork timer and a 4 position power switch. No touch screens, no internet connections, just simple stuff which lasts forever and costs pennies to repair if it does break.

Neff 20 year old stuff – only replaced because it was looking tired and ‘unfashionable’ – too much so for the new kitchen.

Replaced with ‘new’ Neff, ovens fine if your taste includes logos falling off straight away and hugely expensive warming drawers failing. Dishwasher is absolute junk – looks pretty with its timer projected onto the floor but has unique feature of not washing stuff very well.

Customer service – great if you want to pay 50% of the purchase price for an engineer to come out. Particularly great if you enjoy being patronised by a passive agressive **** at Neff HQ. NEVER getting a penny of my cash again.

Bosch washing machine and dishwasher

Our first Bosch dishwasher lasted around 15 years, so when it died, we got another Bosch. Then, because we were impressed, we got a Bosch washing machine. It started getting noisy in January this year (at 23 months old), I rang AO customer services, who told me to call Bosch, an engineer came out and said it was the drum bearings, but “it’s a 2 man job, so can’t be done until after lockdown”. I spoke to Bosch CS again, they would neither replace the washer or loan us one to use until ours could be repaired.

I called AO again, who arranged a party call with Bosch CS, who still wouldn’t budge. After Bosch had left the call, AO offered to replace the washer themselves, with a machine of the same value. The AEG replacement is doing fine.

Next purchase won’t be a Bosch, but it’ll be from AO.