Maytag Neptune Washing Machine - bad smell and mildew buildup - upset with performance

Complaints.com received the following consumer follow-up message on August 26, 2002:

From: Jason Pierce [Email User]

RE: Maytag Neptune: Replacement set worse than the first

I recently wrote that Maytag agreed to replace my two year old Maytag Neptune washer and dryer set. This after two years of speaking with less than helpful customer no-service representatives. Yesterday the machine filled completely full, the door latch broke and began flooding my laundry room. Luckily my wife was right there when it happened and was able to hold the door closed and most of the water inside.

The machine was so full that it filled my 10 gallon Shop vacuum nearly one and a half times with detergent and water.

Complaints.com received the following consumer message on June 20, 2002:

From: Jason Pierce [Email User]

RE: Maytag Neptune Washing Machine - bad smell and mildew buildup - upset with performance My wife and I purchased a new side-by-side Neptune Washer & Dryer set when we moved into our house a little over two years ago. When the set was being installed my wife left the installer alone for about 30 minutes and when she came back she found her new dryer in pieces on the floor. The installer's answer: The dryer was broken and needed a new motor and some additional parts in order to make it work again.

When she told him that repairing the unit was unacceptable and he needed to simply bring her a new one, she was told that wasn't possible: Maytag didn't authorize him to make that swap. She persisted and he was able to arrange the new dryer a few days later. The new dryer was delivered, but not entirely installed, so I completed the process (I plugged it in) and....it didn't work. I called Maytag and they asked me some questions, I explained our recent history and asked if I could try to fix it myself? They talked me through the process and we found a loose connection to the control board. I tightened it up and we were in good shape. That was the beginning of our problems with Maytag and the Neptune Washer & Dryer set. Our washing machine was the next thing to have problems. We began to notice that our clothes were coming out of the washing machine smelling like a sour dog, mixed with the smell of the bottom of a very nasty fish tank.

When we complained to Maytag they told us that we weren't "freshening" our washing machine and so it was our fault. We were to, wipe out the initial mildew that was building up in our machine, switch to a detergent that they would send us a sample of, begin regular cycles of running bleach only through our washer and then washing our clothes with hot water and that would fix the problem. We were stunned we had never encountered these types of problems in all of our lives, nor these particular suggested solutions. We tried them as offered by Maytag, because they said "front load machines are different from top load machines", so you have a tighter seal, and that is causing our need to "freshen" the washer. This freshening process did not work. We soon had both the smell and the mildew back. My wife called Maytag again and was given the "your not freshening" routine. She assured them that she was and wanted something done about it. After much difficulty with the scripted call takers over the course of several telephone calls and several months, my wife must have used the key phrase that the person on the other end was able to find in the Maytag database that said: "send them a new, redesigned, boot seal".

We were shipped the newly re-designed boot seal and an installer came out to replace the old one. The new one had a hole in the bottom to allow water to drain out of it, thereby preventing mildew (yeah right!). Again we got the smell and mildew. Again we called Maytag. We got nowhere. It was now our fault. My wife tried again. Now tow years later, she was so frustrated that she asked me to call. I am lucky that Oregon has extremely strong consumer protection laws designed to prevent companies from selling services or products that do not do as advertised. Oregon is not above putting a company on notice that they were potentially in violation of this law and that if found to be in violation of that law they will be prohibited from operating in the state of Oregon.

It is a strong law and one that has a lot of teeth in it for the consumer. I spoke to a friend at the Oregon Attorney General's office about this and He estimated that a complete investigation of unfair practices, if legitimate could take about $10,000 worth of man hours on the part of the offending company just to explain themselves. As I said, I am lucky that I live in Oregon, we are not quick to jump to the Consumer Protetion laws to bail us out in these situations, but I felt that we had been patient enough when I finally realized it had been over two years. I contacted my local Maytag dealer where we purchased the problematic set and let them know of the history I had with the products and what I felt was reasonable: Fix them so that they work correctly. The Service Manager told me that mildew is common in all washing machines and that I was not really understanding the problem. Further he told me that this kind of visible mildew was common in all front loading washers, I new that this was not true because of other people that I know with these types of washing machines.

Since he was certain it was our fault, I was polite, listened to him and then got off the telephone with him. I waited a few minutes, called back and identified myself to the receptionist and she remembered me from a few minutes before. I told her that I did not believe mildew like ours was common and that this was a courtesy call before filing my complaint. She asked if I would hold on for a moment while she tried to find someone to help me. The General Manager for the store came on the line and asked me to re-tell my story one more time. I did and he asked until the end of the week to try to resolve my problems (it was Monday). He said that he would contact the Maytag sales person who has to sell his store Maytag products in order to make his living, and put pressure on him to get this resolved satisfactorily. I agreed to wait. Wednesday we had a message on our answering machine from Maytag Corporate Customer Service, from a man named Eric. I called Eric back this morning. He listened to my story, which I was getting very tired of telling, and then politely interrupted me with "can I ask you something?" I was shocked, I expected his next words to parrot what we had heard for over two years "are you freshening". Instead he asked, "would you be willing to accept a brand new Neptune washing machine to replace our current one?" But, "I cannot waive the installation fee, since that is charged by the local company". At this point I was both relieved and angry. We were getting what we thought we should have had two years ago, but we were going to have to pay to have someone deliver and install it. I said that I would accept that offer and although I was not happy about the local fee, I would be satisfied with Maytag at that point, assuming the new washer works. I told him that I would take up the delivery and installation fee with our local vendor. More than two years of difficulty, bad odor, mildew, rust, soap that wouldn't rinse, sneezing fits when we entered our laundry area and really incredibly lousy service we were where we should have been at the beginning of our complaints. We will never purchase anything from Maytag again. My father and mother in-law who own a Neptune, told us that they will never purchase a Maytag again. My father who owns a Maytag Neptune has told us that he will not purchase a Maytag again.

We own several small businesses employing over 200 people in Oregon, although we no longer own our apartment complex in Bend, we have facilities with lunch rooms, including dishwashers and refrigerators, our companies will never again purchase Maytag appliances again. All of the above, means that Maytag has cost themselves three households, five lunchrooms with dishwasher and refrigerators each plus an extra washer and dryer set used by one or our businesses for towels. No matter what Maytag's estimates of a customer's lifetime value is, that is a lot of business lost from one customer, simply because they chose not to deal with an existing design problem, that they new about.

Comment On This

Smelly washer works to clean the outside of the washer drum but does nothing for the visible rubber seal, gasket or the inner seals. I have been using smelly washer and while it did take care of the smell at first...the smell is back and using smelly washer is not taking care of it this time. I am now bleaching the rubber seal, gasket etc. I WILL NEVER BUY ANOTHER MAYTAG WASHER!

Comment On This

This is an industry wide problem. Smelly Washer Cleaner is a completely organic powder that is used to clear fungus from any clothes washer. It works by disallowing cohesive properties between organic and synthetic compounds. The cleaner is used by adding a small amount (1 tablespoon normally suffices) to a hot setting in your washer and allowing it to complete the cycle.

In order to remove fungus spores from towels and clothing use just one teaspoon of cleaner instead of detergent. Rinse and dry as normal.

This product is super simple and works great! Find it at www.washingmachinecleaner.com