Miele W5872 - Injecting Water During Spin Cycle

[porkdumpling]

Hi there, purchased Miele W5872 and it is have troubles with spin cycle. After rinse, it starts its fast spin cycle but for some reason it machine seems to think it needs water and about 3mins into the spin, the washer starts to inject water into the drum. At end of cycle, clothes are still fairly wet. Does anyone have any experience of this or do they know what might a possible cause? Also, as a short term fix, I've been cancelling program after wash and then doing separate spin cycle where I turn water valve off. Is this a problem or could it damage the machine any further? Help much appreciated.

[Whitegoodshelp (Andy)]

I've not come across this. Another temporary work around would be to turn off the water valve once it starts spinning but that would assume you have easy access to the tap. Please let us know if you get it fixed and what it was.

[porkdumpling]

Done some further investigation.

• Even when water valve is shut, the machine still manages to inject additional water into the drum.....additionally, this water is soapy rather than clean water so I can only infer that there is residual water from the wash that has not been expelled during the drain phase. However, not sure how this would get "pumped" in.
• Called Miele and a few authorised Miele repair shops as well. Miele agent told me to run the maintenance washes and clear the drain outlet --- maintenance wash didn't help and drain isn't the problem. Other authorised service company suggested it could be problem with circuitboard / potentially needs reprogramming. Any ideas on how much something like that would be cost in terms of parts? Labour seems flat rate at £99. Is it worth calling out engineer to get them to diagnose the problem? Don't want to pay for generic advice, but would be willing for a thorough and well thought out diagnostic.

[Whitegoodshelp (Andy)]

If when you say with the water valve shut it still takes water in you need to check the tap is working properly and actually shutting off the water by unscrewing the hose from the washing machine. If the tap is turned off it can't possibly let more water into the machine unless it's faulty and not really turning off the water at all, which does happen with some types of tap.

If you still see water, especially soapy water, one possibility is water being thrown up during spin because it isn't pumping out fast enough. As Miele washers are designed for a long life it should be worth having it repaired. A Miele engineer should be able to quickly get to the bottom of it but double check the points I mention first.

[porkdumpling]

Andy, thanks for the pointers. I ran a few more tests and there were some interest results:

1. Ran an express wash with no clothes in and while trying to progress to rinse cycle it gave drain fault; F92 Fault Code.

2. With water valved closed - I placed waste hose into bucket rather than the waste outlet and during spin, the pump operates but no water is actually pumped into the bucket. When I cancel and try to a new spin cycle, water is expelled (which I believe to be the water the machine was trying to drain previously but is somehow "trapped"). So as you mentioned, looks like water either isn't being pumped out fast enough or at all, during the spin. Any idea why this water is syphoned / injected back into the drum at high speed? Doesn't seem re-inject this soapy water at the begin of cycle when drum is moving slightly slower.

3. After this, I tried to release water from the filter and there is a little build of water up but not loads. Filter may be likely, any idea how the filter unit could be damaged?

4. With water valve open, I ran spin cycle and while the pump was running, no water was ejected. However, shortly into the cycle the washer injected water into the drum as if it were starting a main wash ---- not sure if this is just a mechanism to separate close and re-balance OR if the washer is potentially incorrected programmed or sensor broken.

5. Noticed that the pump is constantly pumping but water does not necessarily exit the machine. However, when you cancel a cycle and then start again, the waster pump does appear to expel some of the water it pumped during the previous cycle.

6. Andy if this is microchip / circuit board issue, how likely is it that they can repair? And what kind of cost do you reckon it would be?

Thanks again for any advice or guidance.

[Whitegoodshelp (Andy)]

1: A drain fault implies that it may indeed be not pumping out properly

2: Pump running but not ejecting any water must be a blockage somewhere. The only other much more rare cause that springs to mind is if the pump sounds like it's running but in fact the impeller inside isn't revolving because it's broken, so the rotor is just spinning around (hence the noise) but it's not driving the impeller. However, this latter scenario should result in the pump failing to pump aot at all - ever - until fixed and not intermittently working OK. Check out this article and the links at the bottom of it (especially the one about not finding a blockage but pump still not draining) - Washing Machine Won’t Drain Water

Also

Make sure it doesn't have a circulation pump which is designed to pump water back into the drum.

If water isn't being pumped out fast enough a washing machine will normally refuse to do the fast spin at all. Sometimes though, if it is pumping it out but at just a slightly reduced level it may have removed enough water by the time it is ready to fast spin to allow it but then as soon as it spins excess water is forced out of the laundry which has nowhere to go so it gets thrown around the door glass and drum inside. This could account for it appearing to introduce more water, in such a scenario the "new" water has come from the laundry.

It may or may not be related to that though, this idea was sparked when you said the "new" water was soapy and that it came into the drum when the tap was turned off so if true it's the only explanation I can think of.

Unfortunately, Miele repairs can be horrifically expensive, which is the only downside to them as they are otherwise the best washers I've ever seen.

[rwg]

Just wondering if the original poster found a resolution to this issue. I have an identical problem with a Miele W1613 - ie

* The initial drain after a wash/rinse cycle works fine - in fact it seems to drain out fairly quickly

* After the initial water has been pumped out the pump continues running, making a chug, chug noise

* Water released from the washing when the spin starts tends not to drain out but splashes around inside the drum - the pump still running but obviously not removing any water

* Stopping the machine from spinning, waiting 30 seconds and then re-starting the programme gets the pump back in action and the water that has been released drains out correctly.

So far I've checked the pump filter and impeller rotation and the outlet hose - all good.

I can think of three possible causes so far

1) Something physically wrong with the pump so that it doesn't work as well as it should and fails to pump when there's a small amount of water rather than a full load to remove. Seems unlikely

2) A partial blockage between the drum and pump. When there's lots of water it will seep past the blockage and fill the pump chamber, then the suction of the pump draws the remaining water through the blockage. The smaller amounts of water released during the spin don't get through the blockage quickly enough to submerge the pump

3) The pump doubles as a recirculating pump and some valve is ending up sending the water the wrong way during the spin cycle.

Anyway, any feedback or suggestions of other possible causes welcome. Tonights job is taking the front off and seeing if I can check for #2 above by removing the pipe from the drum to the pump and seeing if there's anything stuck inside it.

cheers,

Robin

[rwg]

Ok, hopefully not famous last words, but problem solved I think. It turned out to be a bit of a mixture of 2) and 3) above.

The actual water outlet pipes from the drump to the pump to the drain hose were clear, but there is another pipe connected to the filter/pump housing on this washer. It goes from the top front left corner of the filter housing up the left hand side of the machine to a Y shaped junction on the left of the soap dispenser drawer. This pipe was full of crud - hair, soap scum, etc, etc. and pretty much blocked.

I think that at least one of the jobs of this pipe is to act as a vacuum relief valve for the pump, so that when it pushes water out of the drain pipe air can get in via this pipe to replace the volume of the expelled water. With it blocked, the pump would start to move the water, create a bit of a vacuum which would then force the water back down with none really being pumped out.

Certainly now that this pipe is clear the pump makes much less noise when it is running with the machine empty - ie the water already drained out and too little water left for it to remove any more. Also it will now drain out extra water added through the dispenser drawer in this state, which it wouldn't do before.

So far only tested in service mode component test - first test wash in action, so fingers crossed

cheers,

Robin

[Whitegoodshelp (Andy)]

Thanks for the update Rob.