The Bosch WAN28201GB: A Case Study in Enshitification

We bought a Bosch WAN28201GB washing machine in January 2020. It was not a budget purchase. Bosch still trades on the memory of German engineering as something conservative and built to last. John Lewis advertised the machine at the time with a five-year guarantee, and we therefore assumed we were buying a serious domestic appliance rather than another disposable piece of modern consumer junk.

In February 2023, barely three years after purchase, the drum bearings failed. The machine had not been overloaded. It had not been neglected. It lives in a dry and clean laundry room. It was treated carefully and maintained properly. There is no plausible explanation here involving misuse. This was simply the premature failure of a supposedly premium machine.

The next stage of the experience was revealing. John Lewis slithered away from the five-year guarantee that had appeared on its website at the time of purchase. Bosch itself required a week of increasingly firm correspondence before it would finally agree to honour its own warranty and send engineers. The engineers then informed us that the bearings themselves could not simply be replaced. Instead, the entire drum assembly had to be changed because the machine uses a sealed tub design.

This is where you begin to understand the reality of modern appliance manufacturing. The failed components are, in themselves, comparatively cheap bearings and seals. On older machines, these could be replaced at minimal cost. A competent engineer could repair the machine and it would continue working for years. Modern manufacturers, however, increasingly build appliances in ways that transform simple wear components into catastrophic economic failures. A small bearing problem becomes a £300–£400 repair because the entire assembly must be replaced. This is not progress. It is enshitification.

The term is ugly, but it describes what has happened to much of modern manufacturing. Brands build reputations over decades by producing durable and repairable goods. Once consumers trust the name, cost-cutting begins. Components become lighter. Assemblies become sealed. Repairability disappears. Customer service deteriorates. The prestige pricing remains in place, but the underlying product quietly decays.

Bosch is not alone in this. The entire appliance industry appears increasingly infected by the same philosophy. Washing machines that once lasted fifteen or twenty years are now quietly treated as semi-disposable. Manufacturers still talk endlessly about efficiency ratings, smartphone connectivity, and eco programmes, but durability and repairability have plainly become secondary concerns. The engineering priorities are no longer aligned with the interests of the customer. They are aligned with shortened replacement cycles,and keeping repair costs high enough that customers give up and buy another machine.

The absurdity of the sealed drum design is especially revealing. Engineers did not suddenly forget how to make replaceable bearings. This was a conscious commercial choice. A £20 bearing replacement has been converted into a major assembly replacement costing hundreds of pounds. The machine is technically repairable in the same sense that a crashed car is technically repairable. The economics are designed to discourage it.

What makes me still more irritatated is that this failure has now happened twice. Bosch replaced the entire drum assembly after the first failure in 2023. Now the bearings have failed again only a short time later. At that point, you can no longer speak of isolated bad luck. It begins to look like a design philosophy.

Meanwhile, Bosch continues charging premium prices on the strength of a reputation largely established by older generations of products that were built to standards this machine manifestly does not meet.

We have therefore decided to abandon Bosch entirely and buy Chinese instead. Ironically, the Haier machine we are considering also uses a sealed drum design. The difference is psychological as much as technical. Chinese manufacturers still appear interested in building market share and customer loyalty. They offer aggressive warranties and competitive pricing because they still need to persuade customers to trust them. Bosch, by contrast, increasingly gives the impression of a company extracting the remaining value from an inherited reputation while steadily lowering the underlying quality.

There was a time when German domestic appliances were associated with durability and engineering seriousness. This machine feels instead like a case study in the modern economics of enshitification: premium branding wrapped around disposable engineering, with the customer left holding the bill once the warranty period has safely expired.