Rattling washing machine

mummysaver

My washing machine is making a fearful rattling noise on its final spin, I strongly suspect that it may be the bearings, does anyone know how easy it is to sort these out yourself?

Machine is about 15 years old, and when it needed a new door catch last year I thought about replacing it, but the engineer said that it would be better to keep my machine and repair it occasionally as firstly it was quite basic and simple, and secondly new machines don't tend to last very long!

So any advice on how to do this, or should I call an engineer?

Murphy_The_Cat

mummysaver wrote:

My washing machine is making a fearful rattling noise on its final spin.
So any advice

I could suggest that you sit on the washing machine when it starts to rattle and see if it turns into a strong vibration instead.

If it does, problem solved. One very, very happy mummysaver.

MTC

rizla01

Hi,

All depends on which machine you have as to how difficult they are to replace. Usually fairly straightforward and can be done by a competant DIY er most times.

Def sounds like bearings. Open the door and see if you can lift the drum up&down. If so then bearings.

£10.00 - £30.00 or so for the replacements last time I looked but may be more, again depending on make.

There are some top quality machines that need the bearings to be pressed into place but this would be Meille Etc.

I tend to keep my washing machine for 15 - 20 years BTW.

Hope this is of help.

mummysaver

Thanks Rizla, yes you can move the drum up and down, so guess I now need to buy some bearings! Just a mid range machine, so will up end it tonight when I have extra hands at home (I knew the children would come in handy one day!), and have a look and see whether I can get at the right bit easily.

Thanks for your idea Murphy! Sadly it still only rattles!

Murphy_The_Cat

mummysaver wrote:

Thanks for your idea Murphy! Sadly it still only rattles!

Thats a shame. .

You would have been very popular with your friends if you had been able to ask them to come around and see if they could fix it by sitting on it !!!

MTC

IvanOpinion

The drum should always move up and down ... it is only mounted on a couple of shock absorbers

We have broken the 'spider' at the back of the drum and it made a hell of a racket - we were told that it is the liquid detergents that can cause this. The part was cheap enough (I think it was about £12 + vat) unfrotunately it is was the cost of the chap who knew where to put it that became expensive giving us a total bill of £85 (inc vat).

Ivan

Fifer

I've also heard that the wire from underwired bras can become get stuck in the holes in the inner drum, or between the inner and outer drum walls and make a hell of a racket (like lollipop sticks in bicycle wheel spokes).

sneekymum

Underwired bras should be hand washed.

IvanOpinion

I will tell DW to handwash mine in future ... and to use plenty of fabric conditioner ... don't want any nasty rough bits on my delicate skin

Ivan

pdoff

our rattle was caused by money & razor blades from dh's overall pockets that he hadn't emptied!

Crispy_Ambulance

Ours sounded as thought it was going to take off it was so noisy and it turned out to be the counter weight at the front. It just needed tightening and then it was fine.