Got a Samsung Washer Explosion Story?

September 9th, 2016. By LucyC

Is the day to day grind getting you down? Fed up with doing the laundry? Try out a Samsung washing machine—it could put a little Kaboom in your life, and your walls and possibly send a family member to hospital. That’d liven things up!

Yup—Samsung has allegedly cornered the market in exploding, top loading washing machines. Unintentionally, of course. But they’re not really owning the whole issue, well, actually, no part of it all. So, a consumer fraud class action lawsuit has been filed. I know, I know, hard to believe. But Samsung cannot not know about this.

A superquick search on Google (that’s the search where Google finishes your sentence—so you know something’s going on) turns up not one, not two—but dozens of reports of these machines literally exploding. If you’re having a hard time imagining that—just wait. And these reports go back to 2015—possibly earlier. People from across the US–one of the latest out of Bandera, TX—have posted their experiences on You-Tube, local news stations have covered the phenomenon, and CPSC is collecting first hand reports. And amazingly enough, this doesn’t seem to have prompted any action at all—not even a recall.

One news source, applicanceertailer.com, ran the headline: “Samsung washing machines now exploding in the US.” What ? So they had finished their run in Europe? (who writes this stuff?)

One woman counts herself lucky, as she admitted watching her machine at work—literally standing over the glass lid—before it blew itself up. Actually, to be accurate, it blows its sides out, shakes the walls, causing shelving to jiggle and ornaments and pictures to fall. People have thought it was a canon going off, or an earthquake. But there are far worse accounts.

To quote the Applianceretailer.com story…

“The washing machine claimed to have “suddenly and without warning” violently exploded as it completed its final minutes of high-speed spin cycle.” Didn’t know the washing machine could speak as well, but hey—wouldn’t put much past these things.

The article goes on…

“The [Consumer Product Safety Commission]  report reads, “The washer lid flew off the machine and slammed into the consumer on her lower back, causing the consumer to collide into a cabinet, where she struck her head, neck, upper body, chin and jaw.

“The entire washer lifted as much as six inches off the ground, spun 180 degrees, striking the consumer, damaging the wall and side of the dryer.”

Holy crap. Not to make light of the situation, but that sounds “Exorcist” worthy. Maybe they’re not defective, but possessed?

The article sites another two CPSC reports, one in which a consumer experienced not one but two explosions “that were felt across the entire house…”  The story states that “A safety health and environment professional reported that “all technicians, safety professionals, engineers and laymen were completely impressed with the level of carnage.” Well then. An unfortunate choice of phrasing, but we take their meaning.

The other report indicates that the entire machine exploded and burst into pieces. “The entire top of the unit separated and flew into our hallway, and the unit continued to spin violently around the laundry room, ripping holes in our walls, dryer, cabinets and flooring.” Ok—that’s impressive. At some point you might start to wonder what you put on your Shreddies that morning.

So, no recall, several lawsuits, and some pretty alarming stories.

Wonder what happened to the clothes?

If you’ve experienced your own, personal Samsung exploding washing machine event—we’d love to hear from you.

Tags: Class Action Lawsuit, Samsung

This was posted on Friday, September 9th, 2016 at 11:52 am and is filed under Class Action, Consumer Fraud . Feel free to respond, or trackback. Read our comments policy.