Kenmore Elite Washer won't stop filling on cold cycles

Washer Repair
1

Symptoms:

This washing machine won’t stop filling with water when running a cold water cycle. Once the machine reaches the appropriate water level per the water level switch, the agitator starts moving, but the water does not stop. It keeps on filling. If I unplug the washer, everything (including the water) stops.

Interesting notes:

  1. Once the agitator starts, and the water is continuing to fill, if I push in the knob on the timer to stop the machine, and then immediately pull it back out to resume the cycle, the water stops filling, and the rest of the cycle runs fine. Its as if pushing in the button resets something and when I pull it back out, its able to realize, “oh, I should stop filling the tub with water now”.

  2. When running the rinse cycle, the water DOES stop filling when it should (without having to perform my workaround of pushing in the button and pulling it back out).

  3. Hot water cycles work fine from start to finish. No problems at all.

Here’s what I have already tried

  1. Replaced water level switch:

I did this prior to realizing that the Hot cycles worked fine. Had I realized that earlier, I would not have bothered replacing this. But either way, having replaced it, I have a high confidence that this is not the problem.

  1. Replaced inlet:

Since I replaced the water level switch to no avail, I read that it might be a stuck inlet valve or solenoid. So I installed a new one, and no difference.

Here are my thoughts now:

Once the agitator starts moving and the water continues to fill, and since I can push the button in on the timer, pull it back out, and then all of sudden it works, I’m thinking its either a Timer issue or an Electrical issue.

If its the Timer, my guess is that won’t be too hard to replace, but I haven’t checked for prices yet, so it might not be cheap. Plus I’d really like to try to pinpoint that it actually is the timer that’s the problem before I replace it.

If its Electrical, my fear is that the problem could be anywhere in there. I wouldn’t have a clue as to where to start.

So my hope is that somebody reading this knows what I should do to at least test some things to try to pinpoint where the issue is.

Thank you in advance for any help / suggestions you might have.

2

Hi,

Being you have already replaced the water level switch and the water inlet valve about all that is left that it could be is the timer.

If you had a multimeter you could check to see if the timer is still suppling voltage to the water valve when it should not be.

3

Thanks for that suggestion. What would be the easiest way to do that? Would I have have to have the control console flipped up while the water is filling? How would I know which wires are supplying the inlet valve? Because aren’t there a bunch of wires connected to it?