This is almost always the pump. You can confirm by pulling the pump off the motor shaft. If it looks like this, then you need to replace the pump. Here’s help on removing and replacing the cabinet on this direct-drive washer.

Start with the simple things. Make sure the drain hose isn’t kinked. Been seeing a lot of this lately.

This is a belt drive washer. In addition to driving the transmission, the belt also drives the pump, shown here. Pull the belt off the pump and turn the pump pulley by hand. If it’s hard to turn or seized up, the pump is fried. You can buy a new pump here.

As long as you’re down there, better check on that belt, too. Also, a genuine manufacturer’s repair manual for this washer can help keep you from banging your head against the wall.

audblog audio post

Good question, thanks for asking! To gain access to the lid switch on this washer, you’ll need to remove the washer cabinet shroud.

With the washer cabinet removed, you have easy access to the lid switch (note: that’a typical lid switch used in these washers but there are several variations on that theme– use your model number to make sure you order the right one). You may find that the actuator lever is broken. If the actuating lever looks ok, then you should use your ohm meter to check the continuity of the lid switch. Many times, if the switch is bad, it will no longer make a clicking sound when you actuate it. Your lid switch can be replaced using one of the kits below, most likely the older style. But you can easily confirm this by feasting your Vulcan squinties on your washer’s lid switch.

Older-style Lid Switch

Newer-style Lid Switch

To learn more about your washing machine, or to order parts, click here.

Well, if you live in the New London, New Hampshire area, you could call me for a service call. But if you’ve gotten this far on your own (with a little help from my website), you probably wouldn’t want to pay for a service call.

You’re almost there, sounds like you’re doing something just a little bit wrong. Look at the base of the washer on the sides. You will see two extrusions or metal tabs that mate with slots in the bottom of the cabinet. The cabinet has a lip on the bottom front that goes under the bottom frame of the washer, shown here. Place the lip under the base, let the cabinet down to mate to the extrusions on the base. Line the back up to the cabinet and replace the brass colored clips that hold the back of the washer to the cabinet. Plug the lid switch back in. Put console back in place and install the screws holding console.

Now, go break open one o’ them brewskis. Grab me one, while you’re at it.

Yea verily, Grasshopper, you must replace the water inlet valve on your washer. To prevent this problem from occurring again, take counsel from this sacred Samurai scripture of Appliance Repair. Go in peace, my child.

It could be a timer problem, but I usually find the culprit is a bad water level control switch (also called a pressure switch or a fill switch). Look at this simplified schematic of the circuit in your washer that controls fill and agitate. You’ll notice that both the timer and the fill switch are involved in this action. I would start troubleshooting at the fill switch and make sure it’s doing its job by switching over from fill to run mode once the water level in the tub is reached. You can do this as either a continuity test with the machine unplugged or a voltage test with power applied to the circuit–your choice depending on your comfort with electricity. More help on making electrical tests here. The wiring diagram for your washer will show the exact terminals and wires to check.

If you’re still confused, post your question in the repair forum.

This is the infamous water siphoning problem resulting from your drain hose not being raised high enough. Observe:

Now go and do likewise.

You put a load of dirty clothes in your washer, start it up and walk away to watch Jerry Springer just like you have a thousand times before. Only this time, something goes wrong…very wrong!

After the booing and cheering on the Jerry Springer show stops, you hear an unfamiliar sound of running water coming from the laundry cubby just down the hall in your trailer. You set the bag of Doritos aside, grab your can of Old Milwaukee and grunt your way out of your Lazy Boy as you exhale the last drag of your Marlboro and shuffle down the hall to investigate. You don’t get 10 steps before your pink bunny slippers are sloshing through a huge pool of water. Now the bile starts burning the back of your throat and you feel your sphincter dilate as you prepare to do battle with the single greatest horror of your lifetime: a washer flood out.

Yes, it finally happened: your washer dutifully filled with water and then…it just kept right on filling, and filling, and filling… Turns out that the water level control switch in your washer decided to take a permanent vacation and so never told your washer to stop filling with water. Hi. Welcome to my world. Oh! But if only you’d listened to that nice appliance repair guy not long ago who told you that you really, really needed to have a Floodcontrol on your washer and that it was cheap insurance against a devastating washer overfill. But that money was earmarked for that Dish TV you’ve been lusting after for so long and, besides, you’re not sure you trust people who can throw around fancy words like "devastating." Damn straight! Well, Bubba, now you’ve got one helluva mess to clean up in your trailer, ain’t ya? Hey, newsflash: do yourself a favor and come git you some o’ dis.

And while you’re at it, go ahead and upgrade those cheesy 12-year old rubber fill hoses on your washer to the steel braided hoses. What, you’re gonna wait for those to burst and find water spraying out from behind your washer like a firehose on that ’71 Cutlass you got parked out front? Haven’t we learned our lesson by now? How long? How long? I say, how long must this bullshit go on? How ’bout when we do a job, we go ahead and do it right? Ok then, come git you some steel braided hoses, too.

I frequently get email from folks asking me appliance repair questions and I’m happy to answer them. I’ll pick out questions that I think can help others and answer them here on my homepage. Email addresses will always be blanked out and I may edit the original question for typos or clarity.

--- thanki < ********@*******.com> wrote:
> 
> I have whirlpool washer and just lately it doesn't
> perform well. After the wash cycle is complete it
> stops with water still filled and doesn't spin dry.
> Can you please help and let me know if it is
> repairable?
> 
> _______________________________
> The above message was sent when you were offline,
> via your LivePerson site.
>  
> Message sent from IP: 12.250.160.207

The first thing to check in a no-spin condition on any washer is the lid switch. The whole purpose of the lid switch is to stop the tub from spinning when the lid is opened. It’s one o’them safety thangs that I’m sure came out of a product safety law suit a long time ago where some goober opened the lid while the washer was spinning and stuck his arm in there and had it broken in five different places. His lawyer probably made $5 million off that case is now comfortably retired in the Cayman Islands while the poor schlump who had his arm broken off is a one-armed dishwasher at Doodle’s Diner.

A quick and dirty check of the lid switch is to slowly raise and lower the lid a little bit and listen for a faint clicking sound. This is usually a pretty good indication that the lid switch is working but it’s not definitive. A better test is to put an ohm meter on it and test the continuity of the switch. So how do you get to the switch to check it? Keep reading.

I’m assuming that you have the direct-drive style Whirlpool washer. If this is the case, you would access the lid switch by removing the washer cabinet. The lid switch will most likely look like one of the two pictures below. You can click the pictures for a larger view and to order the part.

Older-style Lid Switch

Newer-style Lid Switch

If you have an appliance repair question, go ahead ask ol’ Samurai. Your question just might end up here on these hallowed pages where you’ll have your 15 minutes of fame.

So your Maytag Atlantis washer finishes spinning the water out of your clothes and then squeals like a Burmese war pig in heat. Since you’re a fixit kind of a guy, you dutifully check for foreign objects between the inner basket and the tub. Nothing. You even check for restictions under the tub. Still nothing. Maybe you even replaced the thrust bearing but your washer still makes that awful squealing whenever it completes the spin cycle or when you open the lid during the spin cycle. Perplexed? Confused? Keep reading, grasshopper, all is revealed.

The problem is the brake. Usually, what’s happening is moisture gets on the brake rotor and the squealing is heard when the brake stator is applied to stop the tub from spinning.This moisture, by the way, drips down from the tub onto the brake rotor which could indicate a leaky tub seal. If you can’t see it actively dripping when you fill the tub with water, don’t worry about the tub seal.

Often, you can fix the squealing by cleaning the rotor and stator with a light sandpaper, such as emory cloth. If that doesn’t work or if the brakes are badly worn, you’ll need to replace the brake stator and rotor. If you need to replace ’em, do it as a set, don’t just change the stator without also replacing the rotor, or vice versa. And here’s a bonus tip: the brake spring exerts 200 pounds of force. If you try to remove the 5/16″ screws without using this brake removal tool, you could have a real mess on your hands…or in your hands.

The Cliff Notes version of the instructions for replacing the brake rotor and stator:

• Tip the unit back.
• Remove the main pulley.
• Attach the brake release tool.
• Remove the seven 5/16 screws holding the stator.
• You’ll need to pull the tub forward to get the stator over the lip it is caught on.
• Then unscrew the brake.
• Abadee, abadee, abadee, that’s all folks!

Awwite, go quiet that noisy washer down.

Slow-or-no-water-into-the-washer and flooding washer complaints just gotsta be in the top five most frequent appliance complaints I get. Thang about it is that it’s just so gawd-awful simple to fix that I’m reluctant to give away the secret to this great cash cow. Yeah, I know, I shouldn’t reveal this treasured trade secret that all appliance repair techs swear an oath to defend. What? You say you want me to tell you anydamnway? Well alright then.

Most of the time, your water flow complaints will be about either the cold or the hot water being restricted to near nothing. Sometimes, both the hot and cold water flow are restricted and the water just trickles in no matter where you got the temp control set at. Either way, 90% of the time, the problem is because of sediment built up on the inlet screen of the washer inlet valve.

Here’s a typical two-solenoid inlet valve. This is the most common, although some Whirlpool’s use a three solenoid arrangement, but the diagnosis and correction are the same. Most of the time, what happens is that sediment builds up on the inlet screen of the solenoid valve and restricts the water flow into the valve.

Now, here’s where you can benefit from my lifetime experience as a certified technical guru. There’s something I call the "cute plumber’s trick" where the unsuspecting appliance owner calls in one o’ them real hairy, stinky plumbers to fix their washer. Well, Buttcrack Bubba correctly takes a look at the inlet valve and figgers he’s being reeeel cute by just removing the inlet screen altogether. Most of the time, Buttcrack Bubba does this ’cause he ain’t even got a washer valve on his truck so it’s the difference between making something off the job ’cause he "fixed" it, or making next to nothing ’cause he didn’t have the part and he’d have to come back to do the repair. Buttcrack Bubba’s in, what we in the trade call, "the horns of an enema." Yessir, so he goes ahead and removes that screen. The customer don’t know any better; heck, all he knows is that water’s flowing to his washer again. It’s a freakin’ miracle!

What happens next, though, is a sad tale to tell. Y’see, after a while, the innards of the valve get so gunked up with sediment that the valve can no longer stop the flow of water when it’s supposed to (like, when there’s no power on it). You can see here that they’s a whole buncha delicate leetle bitty parts in there, da, comrade? Little, itty-bitty pieces of dirt and pipe scale can stick that plunger guide wide-ace open. So, water just keeps on flowing into the washer. Meanwhile, you’re outside playing with the dog, or changing a poopy diaper, or…whatever. Point is, the washer floods on you and makes one helluva mess in your house. All cause o’ that "cute plumber’s trick." Now, how smart was that to call in a plumber to do an appliance tech’s job?

Other times, problems with no water can be the pressure switch or a burned-out solenoid in the water valve. If there ain’t much sediment on the inlet screen of the water valve, you gotsta measure the continuity of the solenoid coil at the terminals. If your meter says there’s no ohms in the solenoid coil, that sucker is slap-open and it’s gotta be replaced. That’s the name o’ that tune, Hoss.

If solenoid continuity is OK, then you may need to measure the voltage at solenoid coil. This is a live test, meaning the circuit will have 120v on it, so you can get your hind quarters shocked off if’n you ain’t careful, Slick. If you ain’t getting 120v to the valve during the fill portion of the cycle, then you need to check the pressure switch, or fill switch.

Well alright then.

To learn more about your washer or to order parts,
click here.

Dammit! It happened again: you ran a load of wash and came back to find detergent suds all over the floor. What a frikkin’ mess! At first, you might suspect the washer as the culprit. But you’d probably be wrong. Oh, I know what you’re saying, “But I saw the suds pooled up on the floor right underneath the washer! I was there, you weren’t and, besides, I use my washer everyday so I know it better than you!” Ok, you’re starting to annoy me now. Press your lips firmly together for a couple minutes and you just might learn something.

Most likely what you’re dealing with here is detergent suds backing up in your washer’s drain stand pipe and running down all over the floor. Here are four simple things to do to prevent this problem from happening again:

• Make sure that your washer stand pipe is at least 36″ tall, measured from the floor to the pipe opening.
• Verify your drain pipe is clear of gookus and drains properly. A plumber’s snake is the essential tool for this highly cerebral operation. It’s important to remember that while a slow drain may pass clear water normally, detergent-laden water will not flow as freely and any restrictions in the pipe will cause the water to foam up even more, exacerbating the problem.
• You’re using waaaay too much detergent. If you’re following the idiot directions on the detergent box, you’re using 2 to 4 times more detergent than you need. Not only can this cause drain pipe sudsing problems, but it gunks up the innards of your washing machine and you end up wearing all that extra detergent on your clothes, including your skivvies next to your private parts. Might give a new explanation for that persistent jock problem.
• Install a Sudsbuster (stand pipe adapter).

Ok, you have your assignment, now get to work.

You put a load of dirty clothes in your washer, start it up and walk away to watch Jerry Springer just like you have a thousand times before. Only this time, something goes wrong…very wrong!

After the booing and cheering on the Jerry Springer show stops, you hear an unfamiliar sound of running water coming from the laundry cubby just down the hall in your trailer. You set the bag of Doritos aside, grab your can of Old Milwaukee and grunt your way out of your Lazy Boy as you exhale the last drag of your Marlboro and shuffle down the hall to investigate. You don’t get 10 steps before your pink bunny slippers are sloshing through a huge pool of water. Now the bile starts burning the back of your throat and you feel your sphincter dilate as you prepare to do battle with the single greatest horror of your lifetime: a washer flood out.

Yes, it finally happened: your washer dutifully filled with water and then…it just kept right on filling, and filling, and filling… Turns out that the water level control switch in your washer decided to take a permanent vacation and so never told your washer to stop filling with water. Hi. Welcome to my world. Oh! But if only you’d listened to that nice appliance repair guy not long ago who told you that you really, really needed to have a Floodcontrol on your washer and that it was cheap insurance against a devastating washer overfill. But that money was earmarked for that Dish TV you’ve been lusting after for so long and, besides, you’re not sure you trust people who can throw around fancy words like "devastating." Damn straight! Well, Bubba, now you’ve got one helluva mess to clean up in your trailer, ain’t ya? Hey, newsflash: do yourself a favor and come git you some o’ dis.

And while you’re at it, go ahead and upgrade those cheesy 12-year old rubber fill hoses on your washer to the steel braided hoses. What, you’re gonna wait for those to burst and find water spraying out from behind your washer like a firehose on that ’71 Cutlass you got parked out front? Haven’t we learned our lesson by now? How long? How long? I say, how long must this bullshit go on? How ’bout when we do a job, we go ahead and do it right? Ok then, come git you some steel braided hoses, too.

To learn more about your washing machine, or to order parts, click here.