Help me diagnose my Kenmore washer spin cycle..

[gearjammer]

I have a standard top loader Kenmore washer...circa 2000. Fairly often it will just skip the high speed spin portion of the cycle.

Could be either of the two high speed spins...usually though it's the final....of course the clothes are soaking wet as a telltale....When it does this...the motor runs..but the tub just does not spin. By pushing in the knob on the timer/selector [turning machine 'off'] you will hear a loud snap and the tub turns slightly...sounds to me like something all of a sudden, is engaging...

then if you pull the knob back out the machine works properly.

I don't have the expertise to determine if the problem is in the timer...[ or a relay?]or the transmission is just stuck. Either repair may be a bit pricy. And on a $400 machine, 7 tears old, should I perform either repair?

 

[DADoES]

Assuming it's a neutral-drain design, try to catch it in the act .. watch it for the entire load (or several if necessary) and notice if the motor pauses TWICE after each agitation period, when the timer turns from agitate to drain, and again between drain and spin. If it sometimes does not do both pauses, then the timer *may* be the problem. The pauses are required so the motor can reverse from agitate to drain, then to shift the tranny from neutral drain to spin. If both pauses *always* occur, then it's a tranny problem.

My mother's KitchenAid toploader is doing the same thing, but not (yet) very often. She's not much for wanting to watch it to determine the problem. I ran it through one load and it worked OK .. so in her case I'm leaning toward the tranny acting up intermittently.

 

[coldspot66]

Sounds like the timer is bypassing the 2nd pause from drain to spin. That pause is necessary to engage the transmission into spin. A new timer should solve the problem.

 

[xyz]

I have seen this problem several times. Most of the time it is a glitch in the timer but not always.Have seen some machines that only did this on occasions so it is a tricky thing. Roper machines are notorius for this but we all know that Roper is the same thing as Kenmore more or less. I once had a roper and for the love of everything good, I never could get it right. Even after changing timers and capacitors (thinking I may have a bad one that worked occasionally), changing motor, etc, I finally scrapped it out. Never could get it right.

 

[gearjammer]

to Clarify...the EXACT time it skips the spin cycle is when...after it drains and spins out the excess water..it sprays a second shot of water WHILE it spins...sometimes while it is spraying this second shot of water...it doesn't spin...it only get the clothes all wet again...motir runs like its spinning but it's not. It just sits there and makes noise. Again..if you catch it while it doing this and push the knob in and pull it back out..it 'snaps' and engages..and all is well...grrrrrrr

 

[DADoES]

Everything stated/suggested previously still applies.