Just filled my washing machine. When I turn the dial to the start of the cycle and pull to start, the machine immediately starts agitating without filling. It should fill with water completely before the agitator starts.
Possibly, but not necessarily related: in the last few months, several times I’ve come to empty it and, although it has drained, it hasn’t spun the water out of the clothes. That usually happens on the “small load” or “medium load” setting and if I switch to the large setting, I can get the spin cycle to work. As is my wont, since this did not prevent me from washing my clothes, I ignored this problem and hoped it would go away on its own.
The machine is a General Electric “Commercial”. The manual says C138 on the cover and the model number is GTAP1000M0WW. I believe it’s the newer style, front access GE washer.
It needs to be recalibrated. The try keeping it unplugged for a bit then trying the cycle again, try to get it to complete a normal cycle, then unplug it and wait, plug it back in. Its really stupid but I’ve had two washing machines that have done the exact same thing you describe. One of them finally wouldn’t come to, then I had a sears tech come out and fix it. If it happened after you prematurely stopped a load of wash, then we are in the exact same boat.
Our Washer is a Sears 800. Just picked it up used.
It has a 2nd rinse feature. If I use the 2nd rinse the unit rums properly clothes come out somewhat dry.
But if I don’t the clothes come sopping wet and water in the bottom of the washer. I put it through complete wash cycle and sat with it the whole cycle. Right on start the machine started to agitating as it fills. then goes through all the cycles. But water is let back into the washer at the end of the last cycle.
From what I can find that is a top-loading machine with a mechanical timer. If it starts agitation right away w/o filling I’d suspect the water level switch or its circuit. the timer is supposed to wait for the water level switch to signal before it starts the cycle.
From what I have been able to figure out it may have something to do with water saving. It appears that the 1st addition of water is set by timer. As the machine agitates water is adsorbed by the clothes. The machine stops adding water and checks the water level. The more water is added. Check level until the machine senses that all the clothes have stopped absorbing water and there is a level. Then one last times addition of water. Not sure this is right but it is my swag.
Sorry for taking so long to reply. Because of the sleep/work cycles of people living near the machine, I haven’t been able to work on it. I still haven’t done much but it’s working now. All I did was flip the water level switch through its three settings a couple of times and then when I turned it on it started filling properly and it’s running now.
I think that gives credence to jz78817’s theory that the problem relates to the water level switch thinking the machine’s already full. Note that my other problem with the machine not spinning was also temporarily fixed by fiddling with that switch. I think the tub has to be empty to spin so false-tub-full-condition = no-spin?
I light of that, I’m thinking about ordering an new switch and maybe catching it before it fails for good.Looks like it’s in about the thirty dollar range. What do we think of that plan?
I guess it should have occurred to me that this part has more than one failure mode and the one I had was not the worst possible.
When I said, “it’s running now”, I should have said, “It’s filling now.” It didn’t stop filling until I stopped it after several gallons of water had gone on the floor. I think this confirms the bad water level switch theory and I’ve ordered a new one. Thanks again.
God forbid a towel gets bundled the wrong way, it’ll take 3 hours to do a load of wash:mad:… All that being said, I did have to have some water regulator thingy replaced once, so that’s probably it. Why do these things fail precisely?
Just an update for anyone in the future who googles up this thread. The new switch did not fix the problem. What did fix it was cleaning out the hose between the switch and the sender at the bottom of the tub. Not a big deal for me because the part was cheap but you could save a few bucks by blowing through that hose before you buy parts.