Dearest friends, family & idle passers by, the news about the washing machine is good.

Steve the Dyson engineer arrived on schedule and gave it a thorough once over. For those not familiar with the Dyson customer service policy, it’s pretty cool. If the machine is out of it’s two year warranty period, the cost of a service is fixed at £55 for a vacuum or £85 for a washing machine – this includes all parts.

What’s less commonly known is that Dyson are constantly improving the design of their machines, so during a service call it’s not uncommon for components to be upgraded.

So, Steve not only cleared the blockage (which wasn’t a coin it was sludge), he also upgraded the soap dispenser, the lock, the coin trap, the filter, and the control software; and he’ll be back next week to replace the front panel, which has a small chip out of it. He even took this photo of the inside of our CR-01 and emailed it to me (after I expressed regret at not having a digital camera with which to take such a picture).

Now, you might think £85 for this kind of service is pretty darn good. I certainly do. So you can perhaps imagine my mild astonishment when Steve told me that because (a) the sludge build up was not something we could have avoided and (b) Dyson would have come to see me about the free upgrades soon anyway… the whole service was free.

So, a message to everyone at Dyson – you rock – have a nice weekend.