Product review (5 stars): Can't imagine life without it
I have owned this model for a few years now and cannot be more pleased.

I live with my boyfriend in a small upstairs apartment. One day while taking a regular trip to our gross, ghetto Laundromat I was shocked to see that the owners raised the prices on the washers to $2.00 a load! This might not be much compared to other cities but the laundromat was not upgraded in any way to warrant a raise in price so the next day I went to Sears and purchased this washer. We have not been back to the laundromat since.

I also have to tell you that my boyfriend works in construction and gets his clothes muddy, smelly, generally dirty and he has owns more clothing than me. This washer has never had a problem handling any of it. It has a great variety of settings; Heavy Duty, Normal, Permanent Press and Hand Wash. The two settings we use the most are Heavy Duty and Normal. The Heavy Duty mode runs for an extra cycle more than Normal. You can also change the water settings: High & Medium. (High = filled to the top, Medium = halfway filled.) There are also convenient places for you to put Bleach, Powder Detergent and Fabric softener so it automatically dispenses. Directions say to put regular detergent directly in the basket.

A normal cycle will run about 25-30 minutes and while filling it is pretty loud. Once filled, depending on how much water you have designated it gets much more quiet. If you put the water level on Medium without a lot of clothing in it you will hear sloshing. The washer also shakes pretty hard when it hits the spin cycle and should be considered if you are putting this on tile/hardwood. I recommend putting a rug under it - the area we use it in is all carpet.

I have read other reviews on this machine that people had to look for a special part or extender in order to attach the included faucet cap since you have to unscrew the one already attached to your faucet and screw on the one you receive in order to fit the tube onto your sink. Since we did not have this problem due to low-end fixtures so I have no comment on it but I'm just putting it out there just in case.

Our clothes come out pretty dry and since we don't have the matching dryer we hang all of our clothes and most of them dry wrinkle free. I will say that my professional suit-style clothes will usually need ironed after being washed and then air-dried.

One complaint I have is that the fabric softener area in the agitator is very difficult to clean. You pop it out of the agitator (we had to pull very very hard) and you can only reach so far in there to get any fabric softener goop out. I don't recommend Downy for the softener since it's slimy and leaves a ton of residue. What you pop off in the agitator also holds the little lint trap which looks like a basket. This is even more difficult to pull apart so we wash the lint trap with it still attached to the fabric softener holder. It's easiest to clean when the lint is completely dry.

I have had no musty smells from the washer in part because we leave the top open always. However, for the few months of usage there was a strong plastic smell from the drum. It didn't bother us and it eventually went away and the smell never stuck to our clothes.

I can't imagine still going back and forth to the laundromat, I will say I miss being able to dry my clothes but all of our clothes are completely air-dried after hanging overnight so it's not that much of an inconvenience. Once we move into a place of our own I plan on keeping this washer for washing other things like rags and stuff you generally would want to keep separate from washing your regular clothes in.

I love this little washer and would recommend this to anyone who would like an apartment size washer or hates their laundromat.

One thing I forgot to mention is that it comes with casters so you can move it around if necessary. I have no problems pushing it around on my low-pile carpet.