abrogard

Our good old Electrolux ecovalve 1087 switched off during its usual cycle today. Now I've got it back to starting a new cycle and it won't start. Just sits there. Delicates/cold/500/quickwash - timer lights up, 27 minutes as usual, starts counting down (it is at 25 now) but no sounds, no water coming in. Appears dead. So I suppose it is not operating the input valve solenoid, for a start. So with no water coming in it'll never go to the next stage will it? I'm thinking. So that could be the only problem - failed solenoid. Would that be right? Is it something I could fix?

Because there's two little hoses feeding different compartments I can isolate the problem a bit. Because one hose works: the 'prewash' compartment, I can say that all water feed up to these two hoses must be okay. So the problem has to be in the path of that second hose - the valve part unique to it, the hose itself, the soap compartment. So I tried pricking out the holes of that soap compartment and they seem quite clear, no blockage. It didn't help. I will have to take the hoses off and see if they are blockd and try to stick a wire into the soap compartment from the hose end and wave it around a bit, see if something has blocked it inside there. It would be good if the solenoid for this input valve was cheap but they sell only the complete 'input valve' which comprises the two sections - the bottom hose and the top hose - it's all one. And no separate solenoid parts to plug in. Actually I guess under $100 to get a fully functioning washing machine again isn't too bad. Still it rankles to be beat.... I'll check the hoses when I get a chance...

Yep, I checked the water line and all's okay. I see what you mean. ALL the water that goes into the machine goes through that soap thing, one way or the other. But it has three compartments as best I can make out. All above the soap tray. And the water spurts down from holes in the roof above each compartment: prewash, soap, softener. And the water just isn't spurting down into the soap compartment. You can see that. The soap is untouched. Just a little wetted and gone at the far end, the interior of the machine. Made me think the water was supposed to be flooding in from the back. Not so. What I do now is pour hot water into the soap tray during the filling operation and we're getting good washes out of it. There appears to be two solenoid type switches or valves where the water comes in. I guess the 'three compartments' are effectively only two and it switches from one to another. So I guess one of those is no good. The top one I'd say, because that feeds the central compartment which is the one above the soap channel in the soap tray. Either that or the electronics are gone haywire and they're not sending a signal to the switch. I wonder if I can get one of those switches to try it out? They look to me like maybe they just pull out. Anyone with experience of these things can confirm that? Seen switches like that before? Here's the pics, try the 'slideshow' (top left above the pics) shows them to best effect I think: https://picasaweb.google.com/abrogard/Washingmachine?authuser=0&authkey=Gv1sRgCNy04ryop-3NTQ&feat=directlink Postscript: I've located the part. I think. Part number 3792260-72/5 'Inlet valve' all one thing, both inlets. $78. They know how to charge don't they?

I should have mentioned we've been using the machine for about four years quite successfully. This is a recent development. The water pressure has always been sufficient previously. In fact I find the pressure excessive many time (in the garden when I switch on the hose). They didn't say they couldn't do anything in quite that way. They wanted me to book a service call at $170 plus parts. They were saying 'they in the office' or 'they, the Electrolux company' couldn't do anything. But a serviceman would. (or it's a foregone conclusion I'd be paying for nothing?) My point is they could make a service manual available to me at the very least. They could make a database of known faults available to me as you have done. They could supply an educated 'pointer' as to likelihood of cause of fault, as you have done. So to say they 'couldn't' do anything was either a major error or a lie and I take it to be a 'company policy' lie. And their policy is to direct all help requests to paid servicemen who probably pay for the franchise and are sold it on that premise: that the company will direct everything to them. A poor sales practice, I think. Anyway it is good news if the main probability is that it is a supply fault, rather than some pumps or valves inside the machine that I'd have trouble getting at. Though for all that it is difficult to see what to do. The input hose - it only has one, the cold - is less than a metre long and has no kinks. As I said, everything is as it has always been and it always used to work okay. And now no fabric conditioner taken in... well, that seems significant to me somehow, though of course I know nothing of how they work. Wish I did. That's why I'm here. p.s. I did think of leveling the thing. It might have wandered across the uneven floor and got out of level but that's not so. Fore and aft perfectly level, side to side a little bit down on the side away from the soap tray. and what about a workaround? Can I pour water in to wash the soap into the machine at some point in the cycle, having the soap drawer half open or something? I was hoping to find it's a common problem caused by 'hard' soap buildups and pouring hot water in or something might clear it. Not so, it seems.

I'm in Australia with an Electrolux front loader - it's a 7kg 'Eco Valve', model EWF1087. I don't know if they're sold in England, hopefully they are or the same thing with a different name, perhaps. The trouble is the soap is not being efficiently taken out of the soap drawer. It takes some and merely wets the rest. After the wash there's a claggy lump of hardened soap powder in the drawer. I noticed today, for the first time, that fabric conditioner is not being taken in, either. Any help would be much appreciated. Electrolux are majorly unhelpful. The 'regret' they 'can't help'. Just how stupid do they think we are, I wonder.