I was over at my sister's place last week. Her washing machine was acting up. It did everything normally but the spin cycle at the end (to get rid of the excess water before taking the clothes out).
She tried looking up solutions on the internet. She believed her washing machine/dryer was only 4-6 years old, but couldn't find anything on it (even from the G.E. site which is the brand she has). Eventually she decided to call a repairman which she found from the local free newspaper.
He came one evening with his young assistant and they looked at the machine for 20-30 minutes. They had to take the stackable dryer off from on top to access the washer below. We stuck it in my younger nephew's room.
After a little while he told us that they had to replace the control board (or something like that). It was supposed to run between $300-$400. He would get back to us confirming the price once he found the part.
My sister was a little bit suspicious because she thought he didn't take very long and didn't do all the tests she thought he might do. So after he left we did more digging on the internet to see what we could find.
There was one thing that we thought we might try - checking the filter to see if it was plugged (it filters the water before it drain out to the sewer). Supposedly if it's plugged and you unplug it it solves some of the problems similar to what we had.
We managed to open the bottom panel on the front of the machine by unscrewing a couple of small screws. When we did we found an instruction manual inside that was supposed to be only for repairmen. We don't know if the repair guy left it there or if it was put there by the manufacturer. In any case we decided to give it a once over.
It told us how to run the diagnostic tests for the washer. So we gave it a shot. Eventually the error code 43 came up - Replace the control board... just like the repairman said.
Still we looked for the filter to see if was plugged. Newer models have a panel in the front that you can pop open with relative ease to access the filter and clean out any gunk that might be stuck in there. Unfortunately my sister's model was different. And not in a good way.
To access the filter you had to unscrew a couple of screws and pull a rubber covering off. I don't think it's meant to be accessed for some strange reason. Instead unscrewing too many things I only undid one screw and tried to dig my fingers in to see if I could fish anything out.
It was very slimy and disgusting as I was feeling my away around blindly. I couldn't see anything because the gap I squeezed my fingers through was too small. I was just going by touch and it was not pleasant.
I did manage to find a half ground up sock. I guess it's true... washing machines do eat socks. There was also miscellaneous goop like hair and other bits of things that we dug out.
In the end it didn't make a difference. The spin cycle still didn't work (even though we got it to run in the diagnostic test).
My sister told me the following day (or two) the repairman returned with the control board and put it in. No luck... the spin cycle still didn't run. Who knows where we go from here.
No comments:
Post a Comment