My Kenmore electric dryer (estimated age of 13 years per a website that estimates appliance age per their model number and serial number (MF3850493)) seems to be shutting off when getting hot. Dries for about 20 - 25 minutes after sitting for a while..dries for only 1 - 5 minutes if it has only has rested for a few minutes. Trying to figure out if I should even bother getting it looked at for repair or just buy a new one. Sears will repair it for about $200. Thanks.
Sounds like your motor is failing, overheating and then when it cools off it will run again briefly.
I would not pay Sears $200 to fix a machine of this age, but if you want to try it yourself, here is the motor,
Good luck,
Hello, I recently replaced the high limit thermostat for a dryer that would shut off after about twenty minutes. If you felt the top of the dryer, it was very hot. The thermostat showed continuity and seemed good, but would have probably also shown continuity well above 250 degrees. Anyway, that solved the overheating shut down. I have also ran accross dryers that were so stuffed with clothes that socks and tank tops fell out of the drum and into the motor shaft near the fan. They were wound up and the motor would start and run for a few minutes then overheat and stop until cool
[QUOTE=ranway;310838]Hello, I recently replaced the high limit thermostat for a dryer that would shut off after about twenty minutes. If you felt the top of the dryer, it was very hot. The thermostat showed continuity and seemed good, but would have probably also shown continuity well above 250 degrees. Anyway, that solved the overheating shut down. I have also ran accross dryers that were so stuffed with clothes that socks and tank tops fell out of the drum and into the motor shaft near the fan. They were wound up and the motor would start and run for a few minutes then overheat and stop until cool[/QUOTE]
Sears model 11066912691 has same intermittent run stop condition. Cleaned out all lint. How can I check if the high limit thermostat is faulty or if the motor is bad? Must be some way to tell if some thermostat is faulty. Thought these mostly impacted the heater element and not the motor. I know th emotor has a thermal feature but hate to replace the motor if it was just the high limit thermostat.