Speed Queen AWN432S Top Load Washer…

We run a busy day spa and in the last two years had gone through 2 front loading Maytag HE commercial washers- in our case time is absolutely equal to money, and having these machines be down for a few days to a week at a time is a huge issue, so after the last one crashed and burned on us, with another one almost being dead as well, we decided to replace both of them with a single Speed Queen based on the warranty and reputation in the industry. The downside to one of these is that they do indeed consume more water. That said, in talking to our last repair person, they recommended running the HE machines with an extra rinse cycle to help to keep them from getting that musty smell that we inevitably get with the HE machines- we always left them open of course for air circulation, but it never failed that after awhile, the smell would be there. So with the extra rinse, the water consumption advantage of the HE machine is reduced. So the pros of the Speed Queen. Cycles are much, much faster- not sure if it would matter too much for home use, but perhaps if you have a large family it would. We are able to run a couple cycles an hour on this machine, so it keeps up with the demands of our busiest days without a hiccup. No smell. Like the washers in the old days, there's no gunk accumulation that starts to create the smell. Runs big loads with no issues- the anti-vibration setup really does work- the old Maytag advertised a capacity of 4.3, while this one advertises a 3.2 or so- we found with the Maytag that large loads created more issues for the washers, so I'd say we have about the same volume of sheets/towels/etc, without the machine complaining about it. It also has all manual switches- I expect better reliability out of them than we had with the Maytags- no error codes, no circuit board failures. It's just a simpler and more well built machine. Now, it is a little noisier than the Maytags were at times- but not much. So a little ding for that. Also there's no authorized retailer here in town (which is why we ordered it on Amazon) so a bit of a concern if we need to have warranty work done. I'll also say this- the first machine we got was damaged in shipping- just a couple of dings on the front, so didn't think it was a big deal until we ran it a few times- major leaks, so it had taken a harder whack in shipping than it looked like. Amazon was good about getting a new one out, and we were still able to use the machine while we waited, so not a huge deal there- but they do need better communication with their delivery folks. The exchange delivery when I talked to Amazon was that the delivery company was to also take the old machine away. For some reason they were under the impression that we were somehow going to ship the old machine back separately. Got it cleared up, but they gave my wife a hard time about it and I rather insistently persuaded them to take the old washer, as it's what Amazon agreed to.