Bosch Washing Machine Programme Problems - But Still Washes Ok

[markptaylor]

Hello

I have looked at the common problems/troubleshooting section on this site, but the below problem appears to be a different one to those covered there.

We have a Bosch washing machine which has worked well for several years. We normally use the same program, 40 degree wash which takes 1 hour 10 minutes.

However, for a number of days, on this program it now:

i) just washes for 1 hour 10 mins (no rinse/spin etc). The timer counts down to 0.01

ii) then continues to wash with the timer on 0.01 for about 30 minutes

iii) the timer then goes to (approx) 45 minutes, and then continues to wash, spin, rinse, spin etc to 0.00, as if on a normal wash.

The washing comes out fine and the machine does not display any error codes etc. The problem is that each wash now takes approx 2.5 hours, not 1 hour 10 mins!!!

Any ideas? I have unplugged etc, and also tried using other programs etc to try and "reset" the machine, but no luck. Some sort of program board problem?

Any thoughts/suggestions gratefully received

thanks

Mark

[Andrushka]

Hi Mark,

Did you ever get a resolution to this problem? We have a 3 year old machine that has a similar issue with it counting down to 1 minute then continually washing.

Andrew

[Whitegoodshelp (Andy)]

I've received an email from Mark saying, "the heating element turned out to be broken. When this was replaced the machine worked fine again".

Thanks for the update Mark. If the heater goes open circuit it should give an error code, but these days they can exhibit that sort of bizarre behaviour. Apparently if one goes open circuit during a wash it causes problems with some error detection systems and no error code is displayed. I don't know why subsequent washes started with the heater already open circuit don't give the time out on heat error though. Must be a bug in design if that happens.

[Pistol]

My washing machine is having this exact same fault. During a wash the other day, our electricity tripped out. My wife reset the trip, and ever since the washing machine has exhibited this very issue. It doesn't heat up, and cycles either never finish, or get stuck on permanently 1 minute remaining with water still in the tub. Turning it off then selecting rinse and spin is the only way to get it to finish.

Before I order a new heating element, tear the thing apart and fit it, does this sound like the problem? I don't want to spend fifty quid then find it wasn't the element after all! I do have a multimeter so I could try to strip it down and test the element before ordering the element I guess, just means having the machine in bits for a while!!

[Whitegoodshelp (Andy)]

Hello pistol. You shouldn't order a part speculatively. It does sound like it could very well be the heating element, but the correct way to deal with it is to test the heating element with an appropriate test meter. If it is open circuit then it is faulty, but if not it could be something else. If the electrics tripped then a damaged or pop faulty heating element could definitely be the cause. So it's possible that both the sticking with one minute remaining and the tripping of the electrics are caused by the same problem, a faulty heating element. But if you aren't able to test the heating element to determine that it is definitely the fault the only option is to take a chance or get an engineer in to diagnose it.

[Pistol]

Thanks Andy, I definitely will be testing the element with a multimeter before ordering anything. My machine is a WAE24369GB/27. I don't seem to see that exact E-Nr on any of the replacement elements I've looked at so far; as long as the WAE24369GB bit is correct, do the last two digits matter?

 

I found this video showing someone taking a similar Bosch to mine to bits, that should help me get to the element to test it. While I'm at it, I'm tempted to replace the brushes in the motor - the brushes wearing down to nothing was what did for our last Bosch, and we've had this one for four years, doing quite a lot of washing with it. How hard is it to replace the brushes?

[Whitegoodshelp (Andy)]

I don't think they matter unless specified

[Pistol]

Right, got the machine stripped down last night and I'm pretty sure it's the element. Tested it with a multimeter on the resistance setting and it just read "OL". Tested the thermostat too, and that gave a reading. So I think that means the element is shot, correct? (I'm going to try and attach photos showing the test, just to confirm I'm right!)

I also took one of the motor brushes out and it looks pretty short to me, there's about 1.5cm left. So I think it would be prudent to replace those while I've got the machine in bits. Access to the other brush looks impossible without removing the motor - I think if I take the drive belt off, undo the bolts at the back, and drop the motor to the floor under the machine, I should be able to get in though.

 

 

Do you sell the parts I need, Andy? Heating element, motor brushes and I guess a commutator cleaning stick?

[Whitegoodshelp (Andy)]

Yes. Please try Ransom Spares. The link should be in my signature below every post. Can you confirm that it is visible for other members please? I have just made efforts to make it stand out a bit more.

You would need to take off the motor to replace the brushes properly and clear out the carbon dust. A com stick shouldn't be necessary, especially if the brushes haven't been allowed to wear out and spark excessively. However, the photo makes the brush look plenty big enough. But if it is only 1.5 cm it might make sense whilst you're at it. Try to make sure you use genuine carbon brushes. They are more expensive but cheap carbon brushes used to cause a lot of damage because they were too soft and created too much carbon dust. I don't know if they've improved recently but I would always use the genuine ones.

Regarding the heating element the reading across the 2 terminals should be something roughly between 20 and 50 ohms. If it is open circuit it has definitely gone.

 

[Pistol]

Well I guess it's clear what happened here. Don't neglect your hot maintenance washes folks!!

 

Glad I opted to replace the brushes too, compared against the replacement ones you can see they were about two thirds gone in four years - hopefully we'll get another four at least out of it now!

Did a boil wash this morning to flush the crud out, all seemed to go OK - thanks all whose advice I found invaluable!

[Whitegoodshelp (Andy)]

Many thanks for the update and the photos.

[Anya]

My washing machine is doing the washing-until-one-minute thing, but sometimes when I switch it on to do a wash, it doesn't come on. As well as the one minute thing. The only solution, is to turn it on to rinse and spin cycle at 1 minute. But I don't know what to do about the not-coming-on thing