Indesit Wixl 163 Machine Just Stopped

[colino]

Our machine is a few years old now and apart from its spin, "jumpiness" as referred to in your review, has been totally reliable - up until now.

A couple of days ago the machine just stopped. It appeared to be moving from the prewash phase to the main wash and just stopped. The door glass appeared to be warm, though not too warm, suggesting the heater was working fine, then I noticed the little "padlock" light was out. The only light on was the second one down green led for "wash".

Assuming this was a door interlock fault, I've just fitted a new one (surprisingly quick job - I should have known better) and reconnected the machine and it is still the same!

There doesn't appear to be any code available, the only light on now (as it's stopped mid-cycle) is the wash led.

Can you help?

Many thanks.

[Whitegoodshelp (Andy)]

If it isn't showing an error code it may be a problem with the main pcb. I would say it needs an engineer.

[colino]

Hi Andy, Thanks for your reply, but just wondering if this is a common fault on the machines that armed with a decent multimeter and soldering iron I can fix? I am a marine engineer (suitable in the amount of bailing out I had to do) so not averse to getting my hands dirty and working in a safe environment without doing anything daft if pointed in the right direction.

Many thanks.

[Whitegoodshelp (Andy)]

You could always have a look on the pcb's to check for anything obvious, but if you found anything blown you'd need to test components with a megga for insulation leaks, or work out what had blown it. Some washing machines can hold a nasty charge several minutes after being unplugged so don't poke around there until it's been unplugged 5 or 10 mins. Washing machine engineers don't normally repair pcb's they've always been trained to simply replace them, therefore unless we see a dry joint we don't repair them.

[colino]

Much obliged.

[colino]

Had a look at the pcb and as there are a number of obviously heat damaged components, even soot! I'll stop my investigations there and get another budget machine. As it is date stamped 26/07 internally, not too bad for almost six years hard work.