There's not many things these days that are as good as they once were.  I taught Industrial Electricity at the local tech center and one of the other teachers brought in a front-loader for us to repair.  It had a bad main bearing.  (You know, the one that the whole tub spins on.)

As it turns out, that bearing costs almost as much as a new machine!  We just kept the motor and scrapped the rest of it. 

One thing that's atrocious about the new machines...  they're "energy compliant" and are designed to use much less water.  They STINK!  Quite literally.  A lot of people think that their septic tank is venting back into the house but it's the washing machine!

Go to the grocery store and look at all the products they're selling to "clean" the washing machine.  HUH?  That's like having to clean a bar of soap.  Why would you need to weekly clean out your washing machine? 

Because they don't use enough water to rinse them out and they build up mold and bacteria inside of them - and they STINK to high heaven.  Oh, well.  That's life in the 21st century.

At any rate, I decided to buy a top-loader that doesn't use that incredibly expensive bearing.  There's no transmission either.  The motor drives the tub directly.  It's a "Maytag Commercial Technology" with a 10-year warranty.  But it still stinks if you don't run some powerful disinfect through it.

As far as the big quilts and things... yeah, it'll handle them - but for heavy duty stuff like that, I go to town and use one of their big Wasco-Mat outfits and save the wear and tear on mine.