How to determine if a washing machine bearing is faulty

A bearing unit failure in a washing machine is one of the most important problems. As a rule, changing a bearing is difficult, since the machine will have to be completely disassembled and before doing such complex work, you need to be 100% sure of a breakdown. You can preliminarily determine whether a bearing is faulty by external signs without disassembling the machine, but to make sure that you have determined it correctly, you need to partially disassemble the machine. We will tell you how to identify signs of bearing failure in this article.

Diagnostics without disassembling the machine

Only a professional technician can 100% determine if a washing machine bearing is damaged without disassembling the machine. And if the bearing has just begun to deteriorate, then without disassembling it will not be possible to understand anything at all. However, there are several signs that may indirectly indicate this breakdown.

• Extraneous noise during washing and rinsing. During the spin cycle, extraneous sounds are more difficult to distinguish, so listen to how the machine works during the wash and spin cycle. What sounds can we talk about? Usually this is a clanging sound on metal, knocking, grinding, etc.
• The machine does not spin clothes well. Due to the destruction of the bearings, the drum cannot gain sufficient speed in the spin mode, which means the quality of this spin decreases.
• There may be a slight imbalance. If the bearings are destroyed, the balance of the machine may be partially disrupted, and it will begin to sway more strongly from side to side. The imbalance will be minor, so you need to be more careful.
• Pay attention to the edges of the cuff, if they are damaged - this indirectly indicates problems with the bearings.

If there is play, it means the bearings have already begun to deteriorate.

Now we spin the drum with our hands as much as we can. The drum should rotate freely, producing a slight hum. If instead of a slight hum you feel a beating, or even more so hear a clanging sound, there is a problem with the bearings. There are not so many reasons for the failure of these parts. This is either simple wear and tear or a factory defect, so draw your own conclusions.

Let us analyze it, check it, make sure

Partial disassembly of the washing machine and identification of direct evidence of bearing failure will help to verify the correctness of our preliminary conclusions. In this case, you will not have to disassemble the drum with the tank; we will try to make do with “little blood” for now. What are we doing?

• We disconnect the machine from all communications and take it out into the middle of the room.
• We go in from behind and unscrew the back wall of the case.
• Pay attention to the rear wall of the tank so that you can better see how to remove the drive belt.

When a bearing fails, in all cases a lubricant leak occurs, and parts without lubrication are susceptible to corrosion. Accordingly, what can we find on the back wall of the tank? And we can detect rusty streaks and traces of lubricant. If this is the case, it means the bearings have fallen off; you do not even have to put the machine back in place, since it cannot be operated with such a malfunction.