Model #GLTF1670AS0, I received a call from this customer the other day asking if I wanted to take a look at her front load washer. The catch was, she had already had a service company working on it and after several visits and parts later, they finally gave up leaving her looking again for a fix. Always enjoying a challenge, I made an appointment to visit here the very next day.

When I arrived, the washer was as it was left, in pieces, which is one of my pet peeves as a technician. Allow me to rant for a moment. If you take something apart while in the customers home, put it back together as you found it. I know many techs will say, "but I will need to take it apart again when I come back". I don't care. Leaving anything in pieces makes it much more easy for parts to become misplaced, it's usually in the customers way, and it simply looks unprofessional. Enough said.

Once I put the machine back together, I started my troubleshooting process by verifying the failure. A piece of advice, never start troubleshooting where someone else left off. Start over at the beginning or risk wandering down the same merry path they did.

Sure enough, the washer did nothing. No lights, no sound, but there was power to the unit as verified with the help of my trusty multimeter. And while it was still in my hand, I began tracing wires in and out of the timer following the wiring diagram to see where the circuit may be open. About 2 minutes into this process the door locked, and the water began to flow.

What I had stumbled upon was a loose connector. Either through dumb luck, or well practiced skill (I pick that one) I had found the wire leading from the timer to the door lock was not making contact. Thus the door was not locking and without the door locked, this washer wasn't going to do anything else.

Now what caused this problem is a mystery since the previous tech did change the timer, which would require unplugging and then replugging in this connector, but my guess is over the years of vibration from washes, the contacts become loose and intermittently began to fail. Then once the timer was changed, the contact probably expanded enough to fail all together.

The good news for the customer was it turned out to be a simple fix, and she was able to get going on that pile of laundry that had accumulated. The bad news for the customer is she lost some money to the other service company, and the delay created a pile of laundry.

I often times like to sum up things by pointing out there is a moral to most stories. Even mine. The original technician never really started troubleshooting the problem, but instead started by changing logical parts. This is a bad habit every (yes every) technician gets into when pressed for time, and really doesn't want to take the extra few minutes to verify their assumption.

You see, we technicians encounter many problems and it doesn't take to long before you have seen the same problems over and over again. So instead of troubleshooting each repair, it's easier and quicker to assume the failure is the same as the last 10 of these we visited. But my motto has been to always verify the failure, because it is much better to leaver the customer knowing you are ordering the right part to resolve the problem, then to HOPE you are ordering the right part.

If you are hoping to fix a broken appliance, it may be time to rethink your career, or as a consumer, time to hire a professional. I prefer to know I am going to fix a broken appliance. Always follow a good trouble shooting process, even it is going to take a few minutes more. The time you save in the long run will be yours to keep.



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