Help Needed In Identifying Bolt

Take off the back panel and see if you can match it up to the bolt holding the drum pulley on, which I presume is still there. There's no way the bolt from the drum pulley can get inside the machine, therefore I suspect this was somehow accidentally introduced into the machine during manufacture. If you can match it up to the bolt still present on your machine you can argue that the fault has been caused by this part, which you couldn't have introduced because it is a Hotpoint part to hold the drum pulley on, which you couldn't have had in your pocket and must have been in the machine when purchased.

The only other explanation is the bolt was in the base of the machine from the start and something else caused the damage to the tub but if the engineer says it was the bolt then see if it's the same type that holds your drum pulley on..

:-)

Under the machine. It apparently was fired through the plastic tub (the bit that has the drum on the inside).

I walked into my utility room half way through the cycle, three days after buying the machine, to find the floor covered with an inch of water. I assumed that there was an issue with the hose connections at the back (after clearing the water out of the room), so pulled the machine out to find that there was broken plastic and this bolt head under the machine.

The engineer who came out to assess the fault claimed that there was nothing in the machine that looked like that bolt head and that I, or my partner, had caused the damage ourselves, by not checking our pockets and introducing the head of a countersunk Torx M8 bolt... so the retailer would not repair/replace/refund under the Sale of Goods Act.

Yes, I did :-) I still don't understand exactly where you found it. What did you mean when you said it came through the tub?

I don't know at the moment.

These appear to be used on a lot of different washing machines... If a domestic appliance service engineer from a major UK retailer (that stocks a large range of Indesit and Hotpoint machines) were to see such a bolt, would you expect him to recognise it as being from the washing machine?

Yes but has it come from your drum pulley? Is the pulley still attached OK? If it is from there the sheared bolt should still be in the drum spider thread.