LG Domestic Appliances

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The LG (Lucky Goldstar) Group who's current slogan is "Life's Good" is a large South Korean conglomerate which produces electronics , mobile phones, petrochemical products and of course washing machines and fridge freezers as well as a host of other things.

Created in 1947 by Koo In-hoe as Lucky Chemical Industrial Corp. the name LG comes from an abbreviation of "Lucky Goldstar", the company's name for many years until 1995 when it was rebranded. Before changing their name, many electronic products and microwaves were sold under the brand name Goldstar, while some other household products that were only available in the home Korean market were sold under the brand name of "Lucky."

LG started to make washing machines in 1969.

In 1989 LG (Goldstar) opened a microwave oven plant in the UK having previously opened one during 1988 in Turkey.

Recent introductions to the market, in what looks to be a bid to move the brand upmarket, are the Steam Direct washing machine which allegedly uses steam to enhance wash performance and the internet fridge freezer which has a screen on it to access the internet.

UK Whitegoods has officially asked for the test results and data to back the claims made for the new Steam Direct washing machine and LG and their PR company have failed to provide any evidence to back the claims being made. The steam function can also only be used on certain cycles, notably not the common cycles that a UK consumer will use.

Although LG are a massive global company and do have a reasonable worldwide share of the applaince market, surprisingly, LG's UK market share was a mere 2% in 2010.

Retail Prices

As with most new entrants to the UK market LG (Goldstar at the time) started off at the lower end of the price band and with marketing and brand building have slowly come to place themselves firmly in the middle segment of the washing machine and fridge freezer market. Having said that LG's American styled fridge freezers do tend to be extremely competitive on price and operate in the lower portion of that segment.

Recent attempts have been made to move the washing machines into the upper market segment to compete with Neff, Meile and Siemens by using new features and designer paint finishes such as the Steam Direct which is slated to retail around £950.

Domestic appliances are only a tiny part of the vast LG corporation and it is often remarked by industry figures that it seems neglected in many ways.

LG Spares

As a rule, spare parts are generally not that badly priced for LG products, if you can get them and, if you do get them, if they are correct. However there are some notable exceptions to the pricing mainly being electronic, motors and bearing assemblies. Spares and technical support can be abysmal for this brand and a lot of relatively expensive spares can be delivered incorrectly through no fault of the person ordering due to inaccurate information from LG.

With spares returns, even when it is LG's fault, difficult at best and more often close to impossible repairers and spares suppliers can be very reluctant to order any spares for the appliances.

Contrary to the advertising it often appears that life isn't so good if your LG appliance breaks down with the above as well as long lead times on non-stock items, sometimes weeks on end, if ever as spares make their way from Korea. However we now have direct access to many LG spare parts meaning that we can get them considerably cheaper and considerably faster than ever before.

On the Direct Drive machines replacing the rear bearing spider can prove a very costly repair and they do fail regardless of what you may be told. Bearings on most LG washing machines seem to be a weak point.

So whilst we can gt LG spares at UK whitegoods with reasonable ease please bear in mind the above.

Aftersales Service

LG aftersales service is one of the most nomadic contracts in the industry having been serviced in the past by Electrolux's Service Force, then ISDAL (Independent Service, Domestic Appliances Limited) and now by repaircare.net with agents on every network complaining of poor spares and technical backup for the products since their introduction to the UK market.

Service arrangements currently seem to be split between different service providers.

Needless to say that due to these factors LG is not highly regarded within the repair industry with some repairers refusing to touch the appliances due to these issues. Many independent repairers will however gladly repair a broken LG applaince for you and you can search for one of our approved engineers from this link.

Repairbility

Again due to the issue with spares LG is difficult to repair with only limited technical information available and little, if any training available. Where training has been made available it has been geographically restricted not allowing a full force of trained engineers in the UK only adding to the reluctance of repairers to deal with the brand, even as agents.

There has been many complaints from engineers about leaking soap drawers and instability problems, for which LG has released a fix although they don't like to admit it due to the advertsing campaign which showed a coin blanced on the lid of a washer on spin. This doesn't happen in real life in our experience.

Many of the electronic control boards seem also to be sealed in resin giving no option to repair them, you can only replace them and all we've encountered thus far are over £100.

Also it has been noted by several retailers and repairers that teh LG washing machines seem very prone to premature bearing failures.