How to determine the year of manufacture of a washing machine?

When equipment is purchased in a store, it is easy to find out the year of manufacture of the washing machine. The machine comes with documents that indicate the date of assembly. In addition, you can ask such a question to the sales manager - there is no point in the consultant lying to you. It's another matter when the car is purchased second-hand. Often, documents for used washing machines are lost, and the seller can only give an approximate year of manufacture. It’s good that you can determine the date yourself by carefully examining the device.

Sticker on the body to help

Every washing machine has a nameplate. This is a sticker containing basic information about the device. It must be attached to the machine body at the factory.

The nameplate indicates the serial number, model of the washing machine and other characteristics, including the date of manufacture.

Depending on the model of the washing machine, the markings may be located in different places. On some machines the nameplate is located on the back, on others on the front, behind the hatch door. To find and inspect the information sticker, you should:

• turn off the power to the washing machine;
• close the valve responsible for the water supply;
• Move the device away from the wall and inspect its back wall. Most often, the nameplate is glued to the back, below, on the right side.

When the marking is on the front of the case, you can not touch the shut-off valve, but simply open the machine door. The nameplate is located on top of the hatch; you don’t have to move the washing machine to study it.

Carefully study the information on the nameplate. Find the “Date of Manufacture” column and look at what is written on the right.Most washing machine models indicate the month and year of construction, simply “11.2014”; this data is not encrypted in any way. Therefore, there will be no problems finding out the release date. If most of the information on the nameplate has been erased and the dates cannot be read, you will have to find out the necessary data in another way. Another option is to look at the model serial number. There, among other information, the year of manufacture of the equipment is encrypted.

The code on the nameplate will help

Another way to find out when the washer’s “birthday” is to interpret its barcode. This is an individual combination of numbers and letters, where basic information about a particular machine is encoded. The SM serial number is written down in the machine’s registration certificate, warranty sheet or on the nameplate. It's not difficult to find him.

The main difficulty is that you won’t be able to find out the year of manufacture of your washing machine just by looking at the barcode. The code needs to be interpreted. Let's see how to correctly “read” information from the serial number using the example of a Samsung washing machine. Let's say the combination is: S/N Y44P5ADD600226W, where:

• the last W is a control letter, it is not written in all cases;
• five digits in front of it – “00226” – the individual code of the machine;
• the seventh character from the edge (if there is a control letter) – “6” – is the month of assembly. The numbers 1 to 9 represent the months from January to September, respectively. October is encrypted with the letter “A”, November – “B”, December – “C”;
• the eighth character from the end (if there is a control last character) informs about the year of assembly of the machine. So, behind the letters Y, L, P, Q, S, Z, B, C, D, F, G, H, J, K, M, N are hidden the years from 2005 to 2020;
• the first characters (there can be from three to seven) are the factory code, where the device group, location and line of its assembly are encrypted.

Using the example, it is easy to determine that the Samsung machine was assembled in June 2013. Serial numbers of models of other brands are read in a similar way. Having this information, it will be quite easy to find out the release date of the washing machine.

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