No bearing on the future

Our washing machine has been making a noise like a jet engine recently so the call went in under the service contract.

This morning two excellent service engineers arrived and quickly diagnosed the bearings had gone.

To fix them required dismantling the whole machine then taking the drum apart, before finally taking a large hammer to the bearings to remove them.

They were telling me that newer washers don't last anywhere neat as long as this one has and they now replace the whole drum not the bearings.

All was going well but as they were putting it all back together something else broke, which had become fatigued by the effects of the worn bearings.

So more parts are on their way and they've told me the machine will be good for another 3 or 4 years at least.
Not bad considering it's already 11 years old.