We originally bought a matching front load set from Sears, Kenmore brand. Came to about $1100 after tax/delivery.
We loved the washer. Thing was silent, and the clothes came out great. The dryer does a good job I guess, nothing all that fancy.
Fast forward roughly 4 years and we no longer have it.
First, the logic board went out on it to the tune of $350. We didn't buy an extended warranty on it at the time, so we had to shell out the full repair cost.
Less than a year later, it starts leaking water from time to time. Not every load, but somewhat frequent. I take the back off and get under there with a flashlight to see if I can see where it was coming from. I do notice that one of the flex brackets or whatever that hold the drum to the frame is busted. We had a repair guy from Sears come take a look. The main seal was shot. Now, this is something they warn against as a result of using non-HE detergent. As the suds in reg detergent deteriorates the seals. We used regular for less than the first year, then nothing but HE.
While arranging the check, the service people sold us a service contract for $180 or so and said if the repair was under $500, they'd fix it, and if over, we could go pick a new one.
Sure enough it was over $500. Unless fixed, it would continue to leak more and more.
With the 2 kids, we probably averaged 2-3 loads per day over the course of approx 4 years. So, pretty heavy use. Still, we were quite dissapointed in how short it's life was.
So we went back to sears and ended up with a Kenmore Elite top-loader. It is still a energy star / high efficiency or whatever washer, but doesn't require HE detergent (we still use it tho). It's much larger as well, which is nice as we end up doing larger loads, less frequently.