I experienced two types of problems with Wharfedale woofers. Firstly, the tinsel wires leading from the connection post to the speaker cone goes open. Normally they wouldn't, but I guess Wharfedale tried to save a farthing by making these wires too short. They fatigue and go open.
That's not the reason
I had Denton speakers (same as Linton, but smaller cabinets), my tweeters died within a couple of weeks (during a party).
Being a service engineer and in the UK I contacted Wharfedale directly (and actually spoke to the head of the company, a very nice man - who's name I can't remember now), he told me that the reason was that they selected the wrong crossover frequency for the Linton/Denton, and far too much mid-range was fed to the tweeters, this meant they snapped their wires (excessive cone excursion). He arranged to send me both a new pair of tweeters, plus a pair of new crossovers, at the correct frequency this time
Around that same time, a friend of mine had built his own speakers using an official Linton kit, everything except wood
He was telling me his had died, so I explained the reason - and he rang Wharfedale while I was there. The guy in service told him he was using too powerful an amplifier, to which my friend replied it was actually a Wharfedale Linton amplifier, specifically designed to match them
Next it claimed it was because he was playing them too loud, so they weren't covered by warranty - so I took the phone off my friend. I asked the guy his name (and wrote it down), then asked him if he knew who Mr. xxxxxx was, he replied "the boss", to which I replied why was he telling customers all these lies when there's a modified crossover unit for this exact fault, as the original ones were incorrectly designed, and should I mention his name to Mr. xxxxx and how unhelpful he was.
Needless to say, two days later, two new tweeters, and two new crossovers
All a bit historical now, as Wharfedale ceased trading years ago, and the name is now used on 'reasonable' quality imported units, but nothing like it used to be.