Speed Queen Front Loader Dead in the Water: Round Three

[pierreandreply4]

you should ask speed queen to exchange your washer

well its written in the legal warrenty that if the washer is a lemon your in right to ask speed queen to replace and exchange your washer aspecaly if the washer had 3 repairs and is in the lemon category

 

[askolover]

don't give up....as they say, "the squeaky wheel gets the grease"!

 

[mrb627]

Line Filter

Sounds like the line filter may be failing to clean the incoming voltage. Or there is a grounding problem causing static to build up.

Malcolm

 

[henene4]

Weired that the drain pump causes the MCU to fail. Or that the drain pump burns out at all. And that it overfills because of that.

Just so much about this screams 'bad electrical edesign' to me.
I mean, if the drain pump burns out one could imagine that an overcurrent causes the triac of it to burn out, but not that it basicly burns out an entirely different controll system.
And once the drain pump dosen't drain the machine anymore, it should not keep adding water.
And, for the absurd case they put everything onto one board: WHY?

 

[stricklybojack]

.
Ironically Speed Queen extols the ability of their machines to handle power grid voltage iregularities with built in protection. The last repairman even said as much and made a point to plug the machine into the wall directly rather than use the surge protector available in the socket below.

One theory is that the original board was early build and faulty...and was replaced with another faulty early run board...ahem, then another.
The board protects, controls, and powers the pump...seemed to be what the SQ tech guy told me on the phone.

 

[mrb627]

Well...

There is a line filter and transformer involved. It would seem that one or both of them could be causing this issue. I have essentially the same machine from 2009 and it hasn't had any control problems.

Malcolm

 

[stricklybojack]

.
Yes transformer! That thought had occured to me as well and i had forgotten. Is that on the motor board though? If so i have repIaced it 3 times now lol.
I was also told there is also an "upper board"..so even if the culprit is found would i want this machine whose innards may be functioning now, but have been exposed to excess/improper power since jump street?
The repair guys are not electrical engineer types as a general rule it seems, and *for some reason* SQ keeps okaying board replacements without further inquiry. On the second replacement i even told the service manager to make sure they (SQ) wanted to throw another board in this unit without a deeper look see as to what may be causing the problem. I was surprised to find out they were fine with that one AND THE NEXT board as well.
I suspected they know they have a bad design and/or quality control on these.

 

[iheartmaytag]

Slight drift:

RE: pumps and circuit boards

A co-worker had the pump go out on her F&P top loader, which in turn also knocked out the circuit board.  Repairman said it is a common occurrence. 

 

Another, non-washer related, the light bulb blew out in the Whirlpool Side/Side refrigerator here at work.  It subsequently knocked out the circuit board for the ice-maker. 

 

Something in the design is allowing a failed component to have an effect on the electronics of these machines.  I do know that when I bought my Maytag pair, and then later my Kitchenaid dishwasher, the sales person said the best money I could spend is buy a surge protector. 

 

[henene4]

I know that these kind of failures can occur. Happend to us a few weeks ago on the AEG of us.

BUT these motors should be - if I'm not mistaken - some kind of inverter driven contraption. They are brushless varaiable speed motors, aren't they?
If so, a TON of filtering and converting of line power is done before it goes to the motor. That involves a lot of delicate electronic components.

Now, for example, ELux in Europe does use inverters, but locates them on a different board then the main control structures.

But if SQ boasts about durability and serviceability, and knows about a pump burning out likely causeing some (fatal) feedback to the MCU, they'd take care of seperating the components controling the pump from other components, both physicly and electricly.

You can call everything serviceable. If it is is something else.

 

[DADoES]

 
<blockquote>Iheartmaytag: RE: pumps and circuit boards

A co-worker had the pump go out on her F&P top loader, which in turn also knocked out the circuit board. Repairman said it is a common occurrence.</blockquote> That's true but several years ago F&P issued a service bulletin and retrofit fuse kit to protect the board.  Replacement pumps include the fuse kit.

 

[panthera]

I think there is a reason

GE installed massive diodes on the circuit boards and quick-blow fuses just over the rated capacity on heating elements on their Twenty-Eight Hundred series dishwashers, adding extra protection for the motor running the detergent dispenser on the "D" version - the last one.

I've read nothing in the ensuing 30+ years to suggest that modern electronics are less sensitive to heat, humidity, corrosive vapors, static discharge, dirt, grease....

In short, Speed Queen has clearly neglected to protect some vulnerable circuit against one of the above - I'm guessing the idiots ran the pump directly off a marginally adequate transistor instead of using a proper solid-state relay or, heaven's above, a mechanical relay.

So - until they bite the bullet and accept their design failure, this machine is a very expensive piece of junk.

Good luck - I'd make noise everywhere possible until they cave and refund your money.

Use it to buy a mechanical Speed Queen. They're good.

 

[kb0nes]

modern electronics are better

Modern electronics as a generalization are more resistant to damage from heat, moisture and spikes etc. But of course there is cost cutting which leads to poor design which causes failures, likely far more often then fragility of the components.

I often run across electronics that survive FAR more then I ever thought they could. Our radio club used to have a 100w 144Mhz RF amplifier that was used on one of our repeaters. That amp would sometimes see 3 or more hours of continuous transmit time and it wasn't very efficient. Even with 3 fans on it there were about 5 times that it just quit working. The poor RF transistors would get so hot they would melt the solder and detach from the PC board! The fix was always to just solder the transistor tabs back to the board and it would work again. After the first time I switched to silver bearing solder, and it still did it although less frequently, that solder melts at almost 600 deg F. The transistors never failed.

As for the failures of this particular machine, I don't know enough of the story to be able to even hazard a guess at the failure mode(s). I will surmise that anytime I hear of the same part failing 3 times in succession, I have to bet there was a problem that was missed during service. The SQ electronics are as good or better then anything else on the market today. But it is sure appearing that the SQ customer service and the technicians available to Robert have been an enormous letdown. Speed Queen really needs to step up their game in this regard.

 

[panthera]

Phil,

It's true that we have enormously better electronic products/logic systems available today than before. Unfortunately, the people cutting corners haven't been upgraded in, well, basically ever. Big Clive did a 'tube about copies of a commonly used logic chip which didn't have diode protection - and were running inductive loads - just recently. 

 

You're right about SQ dropping the ball here. It reminds me of Maytag's reaction to the first reports of the massive Neptune and Amanananatag problems.

 

 

 

[stricklybojack]

.
And the hits just keep on coming...

Weeell just got off the phone with the local appliance repair outfit that did the most recent work on our SQ FL washer...
seems they installed the *wrong* pump.

The machine has been working fine...I knew something was up!

Yes the washer I hope to have loaded on a truck and waved goodbye to in the not too distant future will be getting it's third pump...to match the three replacement motor boards it has also received I guess.

To clarify, the washer currently and atypically ;-] works fine, but the shop somehow realized the tech install the incorrect pump for my machine and need to R & R it to receive credit from SQ.

{Sigh} No...you cannot make this stuff up.[this post was last edited: 3/17/2017-12:23]

 

[lotsosudz]

TV Station

If you do not receive a timely response from Allied, check with your local broadcasting companies. A lot of TV stations, have their own consumer advocate. Try them. Most companies do not want bad publicity, and will do anything to avoid media coverage that is negative. We have a local station that has one, and he seems to get immediate results, no matter what the circumstances may be!
David

 

[stricklybojack]

.
And now comes the message that SQ will NOT replace my machine but rather continue attempting to repair it...
until the warranty runs out in less than a year whereupon presumably they will simply stop taking my calls.[this post was last edited: 3/17/2017-18:56]

 

[criswan]

Snobby

Unfortunately Speed Queen thinks their product is better than it really is. Our experience with SQ is well documented here and tbh I knew as soon as you said that you were waiting to see if they would replace it, the answer would be no. They wouldn't replace our unit which was less than 10 days old and assembled incorrectly at the factory. They simply offered to repair it. I in turn offered to charge the dealer back for my credit card charge of $2k and the dealer ate the entire pair. I hated to do that to my dealer but even they agreed that SQ should have replaced a washer that was less than 10 days old and assembled incorrectly at the factory. I will personally never own another SQ product. Service and pride in your product goes further with me that cult following and perceived reputation.

 

[earthling177]

Well, I'm sorry you are going thru all of this -- no one deserves this kind of bad service.

On the other hand, thank you for letting us know. You can even point SQ to this thread. Let them know that a lot of potential customers saw this, and we all think that, while anyone can make a defective product every once in a while, it's the actions that follow that that speak louder.

They could have fixed it or replaced it. That would put people like me more at ease spending the cash.

There's still time for them to do it.

But me, I will remember this and how they treated you.

Best of luck,
   -- Paulo.

 

[speedqueen]

Very unfortunate, indeed. Everyone can make a lemon but they really should have replaced your machine. It is good to know that at least you have that MT dependable care as a backup. SQ is the the highest quality defacto, because all others have cut so many corners. Nothing to do with having the best design ever but due to having not changed it to cheapen. Even an old WCI could be said to have better quality than almost all on the market today.

Today you need someone who is not a washer tech but someone who can diagnose electrical problems like Shango066, RadioTvPhonoNut and Big Clive.

P.S. If you want videos on vintage TVs and radios they(Shango066&RadioTvPhonoNut) are the people to watch.

 

[askolover]

I'm surprised and appalled at all of this.  I'm glad we went the Miele route for now.....but when/if it breaks down I'm sure I'll be singing a different tune.