Washing Machine Repair?

[Dubbs]

We bought a cheap Kenmore washing machine 4 or so years ago. Around a week ago the agitator became wobbly and started making an awful noise during the spin cycle. In the last couple days it has stopped spinning altogether unless you stick with small loads. I'm contemplating if it's worth having a repair guy look at it or if I should just buy another cheap washing machine. Any appliance repair mags? Fix a cheap washer or just scrap it and buy a new one?

[haydukelives]

Could be that some part is just loosened itself or the drum is off balance.Im sure there are Kenmore repair repair forums on the web that will give you a good start. I just found a repair guy on CL who moonlights from his regular repair job and charges $20 for a service call. Also check your local laundromats to see if they have the same machine which will make them cheap repair experts.

[gatorboy]

Try fixing it yourself. If you mess it up beyond repair, no biggy.

[Todds]

Our front loader made a bad noise and died a couple of years ago. I popped open the front panel and saw lots of broken plastic on the floor under the machine. A major bracket on the back of the drum shattered.

If you choose the repair route it might be cheaper to get a Sears service contract (which includes parts) and then call them for the service.

[refried]

You may just have to tighten or replace the belt but mine did the same thing and needed a new clutch that wasn't available, so I ended up replacing it.

[Sublime]

I'd take off the case to see if you see anything major. All you have to do is take 2 screws out of from the control panel. Then it tilts up out of the way. After that you have to take out 2 clips on each side of the washer, then it tilts towards you and up to take that off. Then you have have a look to see if anything major is going on with it. If you don't see anything I would check the drive block which you have to take the agitator off to get to it. Mine was pretty easy just pop the fabric softener off and then there is a little bolt down in there that takes the whole thing off. Check to make sure it's not stripped or anything.

That's all I got. I worked on mine for a couple days it was pretty annoying since I had no clue what I was doing but I got the thing to work eventually. My local parts place was pretty helpful you should call yours and see what they say.

[Chainsaw_Willie]

Timely thread.

7 years ago I bought a lightly used heavy duty Kenmore washer for $250. It was probably 3-4 years old at the time.

Yesterday I smelled an electrical fire, ran to the back room and there was smoke pouring out of it and it was just making a clicking noise.

Fortunately it had gotten all the way through the wash cycle to the final spin cycle so the clothes in it were clean, just wet.

I'm guessing the motor burned up but don't know why, or whether it's worth tearing into it. Could the motor have burned up because the transmission or whatever it's called locked up? I suspect other wiring might be damaged too. If something like that happened, I can't imagine it's worth fixing. Similar washers new are like $600. The cheaper new Kenmores get terrible reviews.

[pointemstraight]

My parents had front loaders where the drum bearings went in 5 or 6 years, and the cost to replace the bearings were more than a new machine itself. I hate that we live in such a throw-away society where we deal with the throw away design on a regular basis because buying new 'crap' is so much cheaper. Le sigh. End rant. Hope you can figure out how to get yours up and running again!

[Danno]

FWIW, my kenmore machine stopped working last week. I googled and found what seemed to be the likely cause (bad switch), took a chance and ordered the replacement part, and then followed a youtube video to replace the part. It worked!

A $25 part and 30 minutes of my time was way better.

[milton]

Is it a front loading Kenmore? We just replaced ours with the same symptoms, repair was too much $$$. Wife claimed she smelled something burning too, but that might have been her cooking.

http://www.appliancejournal.com/appl...hers-fail-271/

[Chainsaw_Willie]

Mine was a top loader, and it definitely cooked something electrical - the laundry room was full of smoke and there was smoke coming out from under the lid when I opened it. The whole back of the house has that nasty burned electrical insulation smell. I was surprised the breaker didn't trip and glad I was in the house when it happened.

I really don't want to spend $600 on a washing machine but am seeing little choice at this point.

[Danno]

BTW, "Kenmore" is, as I understand it, a meaningless designation, as "kenmore" is just something else rebranded.

[Obstruction]

FWIW, my kenmore machine stopped working last week. I googled and found what seemed to be the likely cause (bad switch), took a chance and ordered the replacement part, and then followed a youtube video to replace the part. It worked!

A $25 part and 30 minutes of my time was way better.

Way back in the dark ages before the intraweb I did something similar -- except that my info source was Dave, a co-workers husband and a firefighter w/ a part time appliance business.

My dryer was making a squeaking squeeling racket and smelled a little like it was burning. So I take the back off to see whats up. Unfortunately because I am preternaturally stupid I didn't unplug the fucker.

The back slips while I'm removing it and falls so it connects two wires what ought not to be connected and sparks fly. So now I've got a dryer that would be noisy if it wasn't all shorted out and unable to run. I can see the soot and shit on the switch I burnt out and (after unplugging) I detach it and bring it to Cathy who shows it to Dave and he gets me the switch (about $8).

So I head back down to the basement and begin to set to work. At which point I notice that the lint trap is jammed full of lint and distorted enough to be interfering with the spinning of the works. This was the cause of the original problem. I clean the thing out cursing merrily and then put on the switch that Dave got for me and fire that bitch up.

Smoke, extreme heat and weird noises result. Every thing gets shut down and the plug gets pulled tout de suite. Finally we break down and call the appliance guy. He comes while I'm at work and my wife tells him the story. He goes into the basement works his magic and comes back up the stairs and says its all set. While filling out the paper work he's chatting with my wife and says "what does your husband do for work?" she replies and the he says "well ought to stick to it because he's got no future in appliance repair that switch he put in was the wrong part number."

It worked fine after that.

[Chainsaw_Willie]

BTW, "Kenmore" is, as I understand it, a meaningless designation, as "kenmore" is just something else rebranded.

Kenmore is Sears' house brand, same way that "Kirkland" is Costco's. Several different companies manufacture Kenmore appliances.

[Danno]

Kenmore is Sears' house brand, same way that "Kirkland" is Costco's. Several different companies manufacture Kenmore appliances.

You used a lot of words to say "This is correct."

[Cruiser]

I agree with the others who said to take it apart and try to fix it yourself. My old front loader wasn't draining properly so I took it apart and replaced the drain pump (some goddamned little metal piece of a broken kids toy somehow ended up lodged in it). It was a ~$150 part at the local appliance parts store and about 45 minutes of my time. But that sure beats paying someone to come out and fix it since the full retail on the part was like $250 before the cost of the service call.

[GiBo]

Excellent DIY resource for this.

http://www.repairclinic.com/Washing-Machine-Repair-Help

[Dubbs]

Well, I bit the bullet and called the repair guy. He's a neighbor it turns out and went to the same music festival we played last weekend. Small world! Anyway, he had that bitch apart in about 2 seconds and had discovered the bad part shortly after. I'm pretty mechanically inclined but after seeing him fix it I'm pretty sure it would have taken me most of the day to figure out what the hell was wrong with it. The part that was broken didn't really look broken due to being worn down to a smooth finish so quite possibly I may have missed it altogether. All in all $105 well spent.

[Chainsaw_Willie]

You used a lot of words to say "This is correct."

I have a lot of words to spare.

[Dubbs]

And as reward for checking out my washing machine thread I'll spam you with some beast of burden pov

[Telemahn]

I'm resurrecting this old thread to vent about my latest foray in to home maintenance and repair. I spent many years in the trades, and own rental properties that I usually end up doing all the work on. Today was a real fucking shitshow....

The Koreans have mastered the unfixable home appliance. I can only imagine this is to; make their appliances less repairable; sell disposable shit for $1,000 USD that they can produce for 1,000 South Korean Won; and frustrate, injure and possibly maim anyone who dares try to fix one themselves. Just a few examples I discovered today -

• 3 different types of fasteners on the outside just to get in the access panel.
• Access panel is utterly useless, it provides access to the sealed part of the back of the drum. You need to be 7 feet tall and 120# to have arms long and skinny enough to get to anything.
• Different type of clamp on every end of every hose or gasket fitting. Some that are super heavy spring type hose clamps that are almost impossible to remove and totally impossible to reuse.
• Meaningless error codes.
• Sheetmetal edges sharp enough to slice paper set at odd angles all over the innards.

Plus they get bonus points for throwing in a random combination of metric and SAE nut heads, you get to use all your tools and make extra trips to the shop.

If the shit were cheap I'd be Okay with it, but this pile of crap washing machine is about 3 years old. Is it revenge for fighting a proxy war that basically flattened every structure on the peninsula? That was 70 years ago, get the fuck over it already.

[SumJongGuy]

[XXX-er]

All my M/C are > 15 yrs old and they are all fixable, IME home appliances are not all that hard to figure out

[Vt-Freeheel]

9.5/10 Quality rant, gives me a good outlook for today

I'm resurrecting this old thread to vent about my latest foray in to home maintenance and repair. I spent many years in the trades, and own rental properties that I usually end up doing all the work on. Today was a real fucking shitshow....

The Koreans have mastered the unfixable home appliance. I can only imagine this is to; make their appliances less repairable; sell disposable shit for $1,000 USD that they can produce for 1,000 South Korean Won; and frustrate, injure and possibly maim anyone who dares try to fix one themselves. Just a few examples I discovered today -

• 3 different types of fasteners on the outside just to get in the access panel.
• Access panel is utterly useless, it provides access to the sealed part of the back of the drum. You need to be 7 feet tall and 120# to have arms long and skinny enough to get to anything.
• Different type of clamp on every end of every hose or gasket fitting. Some that are super heavy spring type hose clamps that are almost impossible to remove and totally impossible to reuse.
• Meaningless error codes.
• Sheetmetal edges sharp enough to slice paper set at odd angles all over the innards.

Plus they get bonus points for throwing in a random combination of metric and SAE nut heads, you get to use all your tools and make extra trips to the shop.

If the shit were cheap I'd be Okay with it, but this pile of crap washing machine is about 3 years old. Is it revenge for fighting a proxy war that basically flattened every structure on the peninsula? That was 70 years ago, get the fuck over it already.

[ticketchecker]

I'm resurrecting this old thread to vent about my latest foray in to home maintenance and repair. I spent many years in the trades, and own rental properties that I usually end up doing all the work on. Today was a real fucking shitshow....

The Koreans have mastered the unfixable home appliance. I can only imagine this is to; make their appliances less repairable; sell disposable shit for $1,000 USD that they can produce for 1,000 South Korean Won; and frustrate, injure and possibly maim anyone who dares try to fix one themselves. Just a few examples I discovered today -

• 3 different types of fasteners on the outside just to get in the access panel.
• Access panel is utterly useless, it provides access to the sealed part of the back of the drum. You need to be 7 feet tall and 120# to have arms long and skinny enough to get to anything.
• Different type of clamp on every end of every hose or gasket fitting. Some that are super heavy spring type hose clamps that are almost impossible to remove and totally impossible to reuse.
• Meaningless error codes.
• Sheetmetal edges sharp enough to slice paper set at odd angles all over the innards.

Plus they get bonus points for throwing in a random combination of metric and SAE nut heads, you get to use all your tools and make extra trips to the shop.

If the shit were cheap I'd be Okay with it, but this pile of crap washing machine is about 3 years old. Is it revenge for fighting a proxy war that basically flattened every structure on the peninsula? That was 70 years ago, get the fuck over it already.

As a landlord and son of Ol' Lonely the Maytag man I fully endorse this post