Whirlpool Roper Heavy Duty Super Capacity Washer Review

This appliance is a Whirlpool, but it is the Roper brand, which is the lowest quality brand under the Whirlpool name. So, yes, it's cheap, which is probably why my landlord put these in my townhouse. The clothes dryer is a total piece of junk, but this washer is average.

This is another Roper appliance that claims it is heavy duty with an extra large capacity. I don't know what they are comparing this washer to. Maybe those old stacked washer and dryer combos people put in a little closet. The old ones. The new front loaded stacked washer/dryers are actually extra large capacity. This is a normal average sized agitator washer. It's kind of gimmicky to eliminate the large washload size and stick extra large in there. Lots of companies do it without making the basket any bigger. Roper isn't the only offender.

It's got three washload sizes: small, medium, extra large. When I wash clothes, I have only thought of loads as small or large. I wouldn't be able to guess what constitutes a medium load, and whether it would fill up with enough water to effectively wash the clothes, so I never used medium. It's got regular, heavy, and permanent press cycles. 

The weird thing is that you can't pick which temperature you want on a dial. On the normal cycle, 14 minutes is heavy, 12 minutes is regular, and then there's 10 minutes. If you pick heavy or regular, it's warm water, no matter what. The 10 minute cycle is cold. You can't pick to have the whole wash be cold, which is ideal for dark colors. We just turned off the hot water spigot, so it had to go all cold. Also, when bleaching whites, a hot water wash is preferable. There's no option for that. The whole permanent press cycle is warm.

That may not matter to you because of the cost of this appliance. I don't own it (I don't even use it anymore), but my husband works at Lowe's, so I know more about appliances than I care to. It does an adequate job at washing clothes, and that's what it's meant to do. This is a fine no-frills washing machine at a low price point. Much better than schlepping your clothes to a laundromat.