Please can someone tell me how to determine whether my washer has a bad timer or a bad lid switch. The timer is a much more expensive part and I"ve read that timers rarely go bad and the timer is often mis-diagnosed as being the problem.

Here's whats going on:

My washer fills with water and agitates. It then stops. Does not drain or carry on with the remainder of the cycle. The timer doesnt advance and the machine sits completely silent and still. This problem did not happen consistently at first (eg only every 5th or 6th wash load), but now it is happening regularly.

So far, I have been able to get it to drain and complete the cycle by resetting the cycle. That is, I push the knob in and turn the knob a full 360 degrees back to the drain/rinse/spin portion of the cycle. After I do this, it takes a few minutes, but eventually the water drains and the cycle completes normally. The machine is very quiet during those few minutes. The first few times it happened I assumed the resetting of the cycle had not achieved anything and I walked away discouraged.... but, low and behold, about a minute after I walked away, I would hear it quietly start to drain and voila, the cycle completed without further incident.

A friend told me it must be a bad timer, but after reading several threads on this website and comments about timers rarely going bad, Im wondering if it's the lid switch.

I just did a load of wash and the machine again stopped after the wash portion of the cycle. This time, rather than spin the timer knob around to get the machine to resume operation, I merely opened the lid and took a chopstick and stuck it in the lid switch hole. The machine immediately began to drain. The cycle immediately resumed where it had stalled and completed properly. No one minute delay and the draining spinning really kicked in. It wasnt a slow sort of process like it is when I get it to restart by spinning the timer knob.

Greatly appreciate any help/advice. I cant afford to spend the $150 for a new timer - especially if that's not even the problem.

Thank you both for your help. You guys are great.

I will look to see if the switch or switch striker is just mis-aligned or damaged.

Hope to get a lot more years out this workhorse of a washing machine.