Avoid Tumble Dryer Motor Start Rip-Off

a&akay

Tumble dryer motor wouldn't turn when the timer dial was turned on, which it normally does (White Knight). It just made a low buzzing noise. In deep do-do with OH as much bedding to dry for Xmas guests' arrival. I though I would try to start it manually by defeating the door close switch with a small screwdriver and turning the drum by hand. It kept going once started. I found on a help site that this was likely due to the motor start capacitor being U/S. All the spares' sites were quoting £23.79 for one, which is about 10% of the price of a new machine for a very small part. Maplins' one (8 microfarad for my machine) was £3.50 and delivered the next day. It was fitted in ten minutes after turning off at the mains. Make a sketch of the connections and the cable colour in relation to what looks like a minus sign on the connection end of the capacitor before you start.

Deluks

Good info, but do you have a link to the help site that gave you the advice? We have a white knight and I might need to fall back on this if it ever goes wrong.

OddjobKIA

i am on second white knight this sounds good
please post link

a&akay

The link is here. I believe it should work for most tumble dryers, not just White Knight (WK), look in the servicing booklet to see if a capacitor is present. For those with a WK (mine is a gas one but this doesn't matter) the access panel is likely to be the bottom left hand panel as you look at the back of the machine. The plastic exhaust duct behind it lifts out to give plenty of access room and the nut holding the capacitor (old and new) is 13mm. You don't have to remove the nut, just slacken enough to pull it off the holding bracket (away from the motor) as this has a slot not a hole. Google for Maplins and type in capacitor in the search box and then on 'motor run' when the types come up. For those with a non WK machine, the capacitor size will be stamped on it allowing you to get the correct one from Maplins. Maplins show a picture of theirs to compare it with the one you remove as a confidence measure to show you are getting one with the correct number of connections. Don't worry over the exact length and diameter too much as these will probably vary slightly.