I’m well aware that there can’t possibly be anyone besides my wife and me who gives a rat’s ass, but here’s the story anyway.
About 6 or 7 years ago we were in the market for a new washer and dryer. Back then I had a better paying job and money to burn, so I let my wife choose any model she wanted. (Plus, it was her birthday present. How romantic.) With the monthly salary I was receiving back then, it was easy to be generous. She had her heart set on a combination washer/dryer that went for 80,000 yen, so I bought it for her with nary a whimper. It was an exceedingly kind and selfless act on my part. I wanted a separate washer and dryer, and the man in me wanted to put up a fight about it, since if one of them broke we’d still be able to use the other instead of having to replace a single, very expensive dual purpose unit.
Flash forward 2-3 years and the dryer stopped working. Since then we’ve been air drying all our laundry. I never complained, and the words “I told you so” never crossed my mouth.
Last week, the washer kicked the bucket. Somehow my wife found out–maybe on the Internet?– that Sanyo was admitting a defect in our model and was offering to repair it for free. The repair guy came to our house, did something, left, but it broke again immediately. The second time he visited he told us the motor was shot and we’d be receiving a replacement completely free of charge.
Let me emphasize that last point. Without any hassle at all they offered to replace our old and broken 80,000 yen washer/dryer that had only a one year warranty with a brand spankin’ new 110,000 yen model chocked with the latest technology for holy frikkin’ completely free, AND they hauled away the old one free of charge. Keep in mind that there’s no way I could have afforded to buy a new one, let alone pay to get the old one fixed, and as luck would have it, it turns out we’re given a better model than the original on Sanyo’s dime. Right now, I could not be happier. Normally I hate doing laundry, but I’ve already gone through two loads tonight. If I didn’t have to work tomorrow I’d stay up all night tossing load after load of my entire wardrobe into the machine.
I must say, the next time I buy a home appliance, I will definitely give whatever the Sanyo version is of said appliance some very serious consideration. I owe them a big one.
Very good deal for you. If that happened here, we’d probably have been lucky to get a coupon for a discount on a new model.
So that’s a washer and drier in one unit? That sounds very cool, and I’m curious how it works. What model is it, I’m curious to dig up more info about it. How big of a load can you run at once? And what is that on the side – a vacuum, or a rinsing hose?
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The hose on the side is to suck the used bathwater out of your tub into the washer to be recycled. But we don’t tend to take baths in our house and it’s too far away from the washer anyway. If you wan to wash clothes in hot water that’s the only way to do it–washers are connected only to a cold water faucet in Japan.
It’s a Sanyo Sanyo AWD-AQ100, and can wash 9kg or dry 6kg. It has an “air wash” cycle that uses negative ions instead of detergent to kill germs and deodorize, and an “ozone steam” setting to remove stubborn stains.
I see on the web page that the model is no longer being manufactured, which means it’s probably a leftover model from last year, but hey, so what.
What amazing service! I guess it pays to be generous. Looks like a little tidbit of good karma came your way.
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Wow, that’s customer service! I’m impressed!
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Wow thats awesome customer service (looks for sponsored by ^_^ jk)
fyi: 110 000 Japanese yen = 1,059.96 US$
Is that why you recommended the Xacti on Twitter? (-;
We have a Sanyo too – looks similar. It sure wasn’t free, but it’s been great. Don’t think we’ve ever used anything other than bat water in it. The drier seems a bit of a waste of energy, but the air wash is great if we forget to wash the kids’ school uniform!
Friday night and I’m writing about washing machines, surfing too much?
I’m trying out Twitter, and just started stalking, I mean following, you. Hope you don’t mind.
@Paul: I recommended the Xacti because I know two bloggers who use it and are very happy with it. (Tajee and Kevin Cooney). It didn’t occur to me that it was made by the same company as our dryer until you pointed it out.
Go right ahead and follow me on Twitter.
I was just kidding. I actually use the waterproof Xacti. Crappy photos, but I’ve been very happy with the video and sound quality. Sturdy too, important when you have kids magnetically attracted to playing with the most expensive thing in the room.
Have a good week.