[sg23]

2 1/2 year old Whirlpool front loader rarely spins at full speed on spin cycle.

It will occasionally still get to full speed on a load of kids clothes which are all small items. In that case it goes through what seem like a lot of rebalance/spin slow/spin fast retries before it ultimately takes the spin all the way up to maximum. I assume because the items are small the load balances well.

When I do a load of adult clothes or towels, it goes through the same retries but is never able to take the spin all the way up to max. I 45 minute cycle (according to the front panel) actually takes 1:10 to complete. I have tried taking half the load out and running just a drain/spin cycle and it goes through that doing the same thing - many rebalanaces/spin slow/spin fast/repeat but never gets all the way up to speed. I tried 6 towels the other day, which is not that much stuff. I tried putting 3 towels from that finished load through a drain/spin. Then I tried 4 thinking it could not balance only 3 towels. In every case, it would not spin all the way up.

It was not always like this. In the past, when I noticed it not spinning all the way up because it was too full, I was able to split the finished load into two and run a drain/spin cycle and it would go all the way up. This was the case even for towels. Now the half loads I am trying aren't quite as large as those I ran through, let's say a year ago.

I've read through many forum posts here and have not found this exact behavior so I have no idea where to start. I am pretty handy but if this is going to be a ton of work, I may just bite the bullet and have a tech come out.

It's not the end of the world. The clothes are almost as dry as they used to get in our old style upright belt driven machine. I have a feeling this is costing me a lot of electricity because the dryer has to make up for it.

[sidfink43]

The question here is do you have a mechanical problem or a controller/electronic board problem.

There should be tech notes under the top which will show you how to put the machine into test and diagnosis mode and how to test various components. Concentrate on the motor control unit.

[sg23]

Originally Posted by sidfink43

The question here is do you have a mechanical problem or a controller/electronic board problem.

There should be tech notes under the top which will show you how to put the machine into test and diagnosis mode and how to test various components. Concentrate on the motor control unit.

When you say "under the top" do you mean I have to figure out how to get the top cover off the machine?

[sidfink43]

Yes, but that is one part of the job that is easy. Three screws in the back hold it on, take them out and the top will slid back and off.

Unfortunately that may be the only easy part.