Many years ago I bought appliances for my new home from Hooker and had no problems, so when my old washer quit about 2 years ago this was the first store I went to. I was desperate and in a hurry (the laundry was piling up and my schedule was tight) and I thought this established, local business would be able to steer my in the right direction to get a great new washer and dryer.
I explained what I was looking for. I had pretty generous budget and wanted a good quality, high capacity washer and dryer. The woman showed me 1washer/dryer set and told me that was the best thing for me, absolutely, hands down. I walked around the store and asked about several other washers, but she actually went back to her desk and was suddenly kind of evasive. She didn't want to say much about any other washer except to make some disparaging comments, which seemed a little odd. (ie "Well some of these newest HE machines just don't use enough water to get clothes clean." Even though the machine she was pushing was also an HE machine.) But I thought she must know, so I went with her recommendation.
The first load I did took more than an hour and half longer than the appliance's manual said it should (3.5+ hours!) And boy was that machine loud. I hated it. I called the next day and told Hooker so. Over the phone the man told me these machines were supposed to have long cycles. That I should run the hot water first and that would help. (It did reduce the time a little, but it still ran much longer than it was supposed to.) He said it really was the best machine out there. It was the machine his wife had and she loved it. And what did I want to do, go back to the old style front loaders? Okay, I agreed. I would keep trying to make it work. And I did. To be fair, the clothes were coming out very clean, so I learned to live with the rest.
But it was still loud and ran forever. I mean, people visiting would ask, "My word! What is that noise?" And I would joke it was the airplane taking off in my laundry room. Finally, after 17 months (5 months after the warranty expired) it began making a knocking sound too. A little research showed me that the bearings or spider had gone bad, and that they had most likely been bad from the beginning which was why the washer was so loud and slow. Sure enough, shortly after the sound began the inner tub ground right through the outer tub and the washer was ruined.
It was then the weird, hard sell made sense, the insistence that only one machine could have possibly filled my needs, the assurance that the machine's problems were normal. I believe they knew the washer was defective but saw I was desperate and took the opportunity to sell me a lemon. That kind of nonsense would never happen at a big box store. It's a shame because I really do like to shop local, however Hooker is one local store I will never use again. read more