New Washer/Dryer Advice Please

[DesperateHousewifeToo]

My washer/dryer decided to go bust on me yesterday (and the oven broke two weeks ago. Arrrgggg).

So am looking for a new one (it is 10yrs old and I don't think economically viable to fix it). What features do you find useful in your machine and any recommendations for specific machines?

Thanks in advance..

I've got a Zanussi which I've had a couple of years, and been happy with. It's got a 6kg wash load which is helpful.

I like being able to specify things separately - this one has a setting for the wash (cotton/synthetics/delicates/etc) but then lets you change the temperature and/or spin speed as well if you want.

You can also set it to just do the rinse & spin, or just the spin, from any type of wash.

The dryer part also has settings for "iron dry/store dry" which just keep going till it gets to the right dryness, instead of haveing to set a timer which I did on my old one.

Yes. being able to separate all the components of the cycle sound a good idea.

A friend of mine has just done a huge bag of washing for me. It makes me realise how rubbish my machine was as she did twice the load I could have done, it smells much nicer and is much dryer just from spinning.

Not many zanussi's on the websites I've looked at so far- mostly hotpoint.

I had a Hotpoint washer/dryer before this one, and it was not very reliable, but that may have just been bad luck!