LG Steam Washer WD-14376FD is one of the newest models of LG washer series sold in europe. It is very similar to the TROMM trade name used by LG in other parts of the world. LG is using different numbering schemes for model numbers in different countries. But it is easy to recognise this machine from its picture even.

The machine in this review was bought for 799€ on March 2008 which was considerably cheaper than other brands with similar features. One of the best of these features is the 8kg capacity. With that huge drum, it is possible to fit a king size duvet inside. 1400RPM speed is a moderate speed however there is not so big difference between 1400RPM and 1600RPM according to manuals, only few percents of difference in humidity levels of the laundry.

It is easy to see the lengths LG went at the design of this machine, it surely looks amazing wherever one puts it. The controls of the machine are easy to use, just switch to whatever program you want and press play (yes there is a play/pause button). I have seen on several other washers in which one should go through several menus to set the desired settings.

However there are several cosmetic problems in the interface. For starters, the machine has a large LCD display however it mostly shows what is already appearent. While washing/rinsing etc. the display shows the preset RPM speed setting, temperature setting, number of rinses set, time left, the current operation (washing/rinsing etc.), door lock status, child lock status as well as a nice animation. What is interesting is almost all these information is redundant. One can see the preset program, preset temperature, preset rinse method and spin speed from the leds on front panel. The thing I wonder is why put such a large LCD display and not show the current water temperature, current water level current spin speed and direction etc. live. The conclusion is that the LCD display is a pretty eye candy. But not that functional after all.

Another thing to note about the interface is that once a washing cycle starts, all the buttons but the power and pause buttons become disabled. For example, if you want to enable anti-crease feature in the middle of the cycle, you would need to pause the washing cycle, enable anti-crease and resume. When you do that, you will immediately see that the washing timer resets itself to beginning, thus machine forgets that it was already washing until that moment and starts washing from the beginning.  As well as, after you pause the machine, if you leave it 5min or so paused then it shuts itself down and you cant continue anymore. This effectively makes the pause button quite nonsense.

One last inefficiency is the door lock does disengage after few minutes if you stop the machine in the middle of a cycle. So if you start a cycle and want to add more clothes after a short while, you would probably reset the wash cycle to beginning and have to wait few minutes for the door to become unlocked.

LG's Direct Drive engine is indeed very silent. As a matter of fact, it makes no sounds at all. However the machine is not so silent while operating. This is mostly due to water spray system of the machine. The engine which circulates the water inside the machine create much more noise than the main engine. This is also true for the drain pump at spin cycles however the machine pulsates the drain pump making it work in short bursts while spinning. As well as the machine is not very stable whie spinning, this might be due to wooden floor that this machine is located on however it is half the weight as well as half the price of a similar Miele washing machine (At the time of this writing the maximum capacity of a Miele was 6kg).

About the drain pump, it makes me wonder why they didnt use the water sensor to detect when to enable it instead of pulsating. The water sensor in this machine can detect any level of water. They could start the pump automatically when the water level rises while the machine is spinning the laundry instead of causing extra noise by putting the pump on and off periodically.

The washing performance of the machine is pretty good, clothes get clean in almost any program. The negative thing about the washing programs is that the quick 30 program  is only for less than 2 kg laundry when washed 30degrees or cold and spinned at 400rpm. This makes quick wash  program more or less useless. Why would you want to wash your clothes with quick program but spend even longer time drying because you used only 400rpm. As well as the cotton program can take more than 4 hours if 90degrees, medic rinse and 5 rinses used.

Medic rinse is one of the interesting features of this machine. The manual and the display gives wrong information by saying 'provides an additional rinse', however what it does is to warm the rinse water to 40 degrees to dissolve to detergent better while rinsing.

It is possible to enter the programming menu for the remote laundry monitor by pressing intensive and medic rinse buttons. The home code clear text will appear. however european models of this machine does not have the remote laundry monitor modem so this doesnt do much. It is as well possible to enter to diagnostics mode by pressing steam wash and temp buttons when the machine is closed and press power button, then release all. One can then go through diagnostic actions by pressing the play button. I cant be responsible if you break your machine while playing with this, please use on your own risk.

To wrap it up, the machine is not washing very fast, the steam wash is not making miracles and  how the display has been used is slightly disappointing. 

However, overall performance of the machine is quite satisfactory for the price paid. My feeling is that you actually get more than what you payed for.

    BUGS: (Yes, nowadays washing machines obviously have bugs too)

• When setting up a program, if you press 'Steam Wash' button, the rinse settings reset to 'Normal' and you have to set them back again.
• If you pause the wash cycle and add a setting like anti-crease setting, the timer resets itself and wash cycle restarts from beginning.