ranger1 - The belt on my dryer wasn't at all difficult to replace, but different machines do present different obstacles.

The dryer belt doesn't come close to the alternater belt that I helped a friend replace on one of those rear-engine girlie cars (his daughter's). It took two of us, both relatively skilled mechanics, and about every tool in both our toolboxes, about nine hours.

(The service manual said put the engine on a jack and remove the car before starting, but we didn't have an engine jack.)

Most of the fancy settings on washing machines are there to keep the detergent makers' advertising departments happy. Except in unusual cases, the majority of the settings - and the advertising - should be ignored.

There's very little real difference in most of the "laundry products." If there was any significant advantage for one, they wouldn't need to advertise. They'd just tell you what it does. If you look at the $$$$ spent on advertising, it's pretty obvious that all it's for is "brand recognition."

Recent washers have removed the "warm rinse" and "hot rinse" settings, and make all final rinse cycles "cold." Since laundry detergents only "foam" because they think the customers think they should, nearly all of them add some "sudzicators," and they foam up more in hot water. But foamy stuff is harder to rinse out, and warm water helps keep the foaminess up, so cold water gets more of the residuals out of the clothes. Set on cold rinse and leave it alone.

There are very few kinds of "dirt" that are removed better with "extra hot" water within the temperature range you're likely to have available if you're using a fairly ordinary detergent, so a "medium" wash temp is fine for almost everything.

If you have an older washer, a "heavy duty" wash cycle might agitate more aggressively, but with recent ones the agitation is the same and the machine just continues to same agitation for a few minutes longer. Unless there's a reason to think that you need to use "more of the same," the regular wash setting will work just as well.

You do need to sort the things to be washed, and avoid mixing heavy things like blue-jeans, bath towels, and such with "dainties" since things get tangled up in the machine and the sheer weight of the (water soaked) heavy things can rip the things made out of lighter materials, or stretch them to fit Chongo instead of you (or her).

Most things sold by major retailers now are unlikely to fade much, or to bleed color into other things, but it's a good practice to separate darker colors from the "whites." It is possible that some things with very dark/dense colors may "bleed" and change the color of lighter stuff in the same wash, but this tendency usually goes away once the dark things have been washed (separately) a few times. You do have to apply individual judgements to some things with respect to fading/bleed.

A few things still are a little more "fragile" and need gentler agitation, and to avoid being pulled apart by tangling with other stuff - even stuff of the same kind - may need to be washed in smaller loads (and with more water in the tank to maintain separation between items).

There still are some things - mostly stuff that "ladies" wear(?) - that it's safer to wash in cold water.

The "additives" that are supposed to "make your detergent work better" are of questionable value, and testing doesn't generally show much benefit. The amount of help they might provide could depend on the specific kind/brand of detergent you use them with, so there's no way to argue with anyone who's found a combination that they think works for them.

For heavy soil, pretreatment of the spots by rubbing a little of your regular detergent into the "spots" and letting it soak in for an hour or so may work better than trying to "add something extra to the wash."

1. Separate heavy stuff from lightweight.
2. Separate dark colors from light/white stuff.
3. Normal agitation and Warm wash for nearly everything.
4. Cold wash for the very dainty stuff, and normal agitation for most.
5. Cold wash and delicate agitation for those few things what need it.
6. Cold Rinse for everything.

Some machines allow a separate "delicate spin" that you can select for #4/#5 items; but with many, if the wash cycle is "delicate" the spin cycle automatically is too.

Some machines allow you to select how much water to use for the wash cycles. More water helps keep things from tangling during agitation, so my recommendation would be to forget about the "small load" setting unless (a) you're one who likes washing each item as soon as you take it off (very small loads), (b) you have very limited water available, (c) water is extremely expensive or (d) you're supporting the community conservation efforts during a sever drought.

(Daddy ran a dry-cleaning/laundry shop for some years, and may have married my mom because she knew how to do it all and her six sisters didn't. They passed on a few hints.)

John