Maytag Neptune Repair, The original


Maytag Neptune Repair

I love these machines. They have outlasted every other front load washer on the market and were made by Billy in Iowa, not like the ones on the market now days. It’s one of about 5 models out of all appliances that I remember selling when I worked for snake 1 appliances back in my college years. They were expensive and I didn’t think much of them at the time but they have proved me wrong. My attitude towards these is that any Maytag Neptune repair is worth doing provided the machine is in decent condition.

To appreciate the greatness of this machine you really have to think back to 1997. Maytag was selling Neptune, Dependable Care, Amana (Speed Queen), Performa, Atlantis, Magic Chef and probably a few others I can’t think of at the moment to compete with Whirlpool’s Direct Drive series. Pretty much every washer sold by whirlpool was a direct drive at the time under a different brand name. Fisher Paykel just came to market with their new “high efficiency” machine (that spun at 1000RPM) and Maytag had their Neptune out. It was like washer heaven thinking back. Back in that day I’d expect even the cheapest machine sold in the store to last 15 years, maybe longer with a repair or two along the way. These machines are 20 years old! That’s 2 new washers now. Many have come and go in the same time frame that this has been chugging away cleaning clothes. The old saying “they don’t make em like they used to” defiantly applies here.

About 10 years ago I started running into Maytag Neptune repair on occasion with bad control boards and door locks, or some other somewhat minor problems that could be easily repaired. Like most of the other machines out there at that time. The only thing I would condemn these machines for was a bad tub bearing. The proper fix for this (at the time) was to replace the outer tub, a $500 part that would require removing everything that mounted on the tub, reattaching it to a new tub and then having to reassemble the inner drum, front tub . . . about a 4 hour job I’d guess. It would have been expensive and I didn’t recommend it at the time and still don’t recommend it. The bearings however, have become a different story.

These were, and still are great machines

Time passed and the way I’m imagining it is that some guy somewhere who’s wife didn’t want a new washer (because she liked the old one) finally had enough of hearing about it. I’m imagining he had a neighbor, kind of like me (Ask Rhonda) and was explaining the situation over a couple of 6 packs in the garage late one night. I imagine the neighbor said, well I can’t repeat what I think he would have said but something to the extent of “I don’t believe this hum bug about needing a new tub, hold my beer and watch this”, and God bless him! They were able to successfully remove the old bearings from the tub match them up to replacements through a friend at ABC Bearing Co and install new ones! As time passed they made the information public through our “appliance nerds network” and that was that.

I have to say it’s not a bad repair to make. Time consuming, a bit. Intense, a bit, rewarding a lot. I don’t know anyone else that will make this Maytag Neptune repair but I have no problem doing it. I think it’s due to my background in the automotive industry that makes me comfortable with it as setting the replacement bearings in place does take a knack and a customized tool. It’s a mid size job, 1-2:30 hours depending on how long the customer takes to clean the washer guts but it’s a great machine and I believe it’s well worth it.

Contact us