So, almost all situations described in this thread would fall under legal warranty in the EU. Which is at least 2 years in the case of big appliances like washi

So, almost all situations described in this thread would fall under legal warranty in the EU. Which is at least 2 years in the case of big appliances like washing machines. Importantly, the warranty is between the buyer and the seller, not the manufacturer. They must either repair (within reasonable time), replace with equal or better model (at no extra cost) or give your money back. The point is that the buyer reasonably can expect a certain kind of functionality from the product when they buy it, such as a washing machine actually cleaning your clothes, not destroying them and functioning properly at least 2 years. If not, buyer and seller must come to a reasonable solution (it's all very reasonable). Although the seller tends to try to point to the manufacturer and sometimes manages to convince buyer to pay some of the costs, they shouldn't have. Anyway, Samsung would be pretty stupid if they didn't pay extra care to manufacturing quality of products sold in the EU because of this. This implies that other regions that do not have this legal warranty because the free market demands it, necessarily must get slightly-less-carefully-quality-controlled items. Avoiding Samsung because of this seems like setting yourself up for the next brand to screw you over.