Help me wash my clothes again.

April 12, 2012 1:57 PM

I broke my washing machine. What part of it did I break?

I was washing some blankets the other day and I guess overfilled the drum more than usual and part of one the blankets got stuck on something over the top of the drum. I know this because it was a fleece blanket and it left a melted streak of blanket-stuff on the edge of the drum from the friction.

Anyway, as a result of this the machine will not drain (or do anything) after the rinse cycle. If I manually bail out as much water as I can (not all of it), the spin cycle will start, but then immediately cut off (and there's an electronic humming sound from the region of the cycle-select knob).

The machine seems to agitate fine.

I got the thing used from Craigslist for like $75 so I don't want to spend too much trying to fix it and I figure having a repair guy come and just look at it will be at least half that much. From looking online it seems like clutch assemblies are $160 so if it were something like that I would probably just get another one from CL.

It's an RCA top-loader and the model number is vbxr1060v1ww

Thanks!

posted by ghharr to Home & Garden (10 answers total)

Repair Clinic is a great site for figuring these things out. I don't really know much, but was able to work out that I had a broken pump belt. Got the part, looked at the sample diagrams, and fixed it within a week. Here's the page for Washing Machine Troubleshooting.
posted by saffry at 2:10 PM on April 12, 2012 [4 favorites]

Is part of the blanket missing? It might be plugging up the drain.
posted by twblalock at 2:11 PM on April 12, 2012 [1 favorite]

Here's a link to parts for your machine.

On some machines the top edge of the inner tub acts as the bearing that stabilizes the tub when it's spinning. If you've gummed this up or damaged it will be hard for the motor to actually spin the drum. I'd expect the motor control circuit has some overcurrent protection to prevent fires if the motor stalls.
posted by Confess, Fletch at 2:18 PM on April 12, 2012

I'd like to second Repair Clinic. Even if you don't end up doing the repair yourself, you'll know what you're talking about when the repair person shows up.
posted by wryly at 2:37 PM on April 12, 2012

Trust me on this, the folks at http://automaticwasher.org/ can help you. It's the online haven for hardcore washing machine enthusiasts and they helped us when our machine went awry.
posted by Calzephyr at 2:38 PM on April 12, 2012 [1 favorite]

I bet your drain got clogged, is all.
posted by small_ruminant at 2:38 PM on April 12, 2012

If you can find a local, independent appliance repair person in your town (NOT Sears or anything like that...small, local person) and give them a call they might be willing to chat about it over the phone. My washer broke earlier this year and the guy I called charged $60 for a service visit, but he and I speculated what it could be over the phone and he helped me decide if it was worth spending the money on fixing it or getting a new washer (it was...$60 for the service call and $60 for a new water pump is much better than $400 for a new washer).

If they aren't willing to chat about it at all, they'll make that clear on the phone. Then you can just say "How much do you charge? Thanks...I'll call you back if I want to schedule an appointment." then move on.

I also second Repair Clinic and AutomaticWasher.org...I did some research on those sites as well before going with the repair.
posted by MultiFaceted at 3:26 PM on April 12, 2012

Also, I watched the repairman replace the water pump. I TOTALLY could have done that myself if I had confidence that that's what the problem was. So if you can identify the problem you might be able to fix it yourself if you're handy and can follow directions pretty well.
posted by MultiFaceted at 3:27 PM on April 12, 2012

something very similar is going on with our washer. we called a repair guy and he said the timer was broken. He quoted us like $250 to replace it, so now we just wash everything on a different setting (delicates or permanent press), because those still work.
posted by daisystomper at 9:17 PM on April 12, 2012

Response by poster: Thanks for the help all. With some help from Repair Clinic I popped off the front of the machine and saw that all 4 of the washer tub dampening straps are broken. I think I'll call a repair place tomorrow and ask if those breaking might have done in a more expensive thing or if replacing them might fix the problem.
posted by ghharr at 12:25 PM on April 15, 2012