German Engineering

by John

I am waiting for the water jet cutting so I can do the machining and welding on the seismic wave generator.

In the meantime, the washing machine at home had been sounding very noisy lately.  I say that with confidence, because my hearing is so poor I am told that I need hearing aids.  And the washing machine sounded like an overloaded cement mixer, even to me.

But despite the noise, the Miele front loading machine still worked fine.  But the noise when spin drying was painful.

Our Miele machines tend to be changed at 20+ year intervals, and this one was only 15 years old.

So I did the manly thing, and got SWMBO to point out which was the dryer and which was the washing machine, and I took the washing machine apart to diagnose the problem. My prediction was that the main bearings had disintegrated, because the inner drum seemed very loose.

I undid the cabinet torx screws, carefully disconnected wires after taking photographs to record positions, separated pipes and flanges.  And asked my neighbour to help me lift out the drum.  It took two of us because it is bloody heavy.

You might be wondering at this point how a retired gynaecologist knows about washing machine repairs.

Well, the truth is, that he doesn’t.

But the internet, and particularly YouTube has information about “How To Do Anything”.  Including repairing Miele washing machines.

So here we were.  I had found the source of the noise.

Miele - 1.jpg

This is the main shaft and aluminium casting which holds the washing machine drum.  It has broken into 4 pieces.

How, you might ask, as I did, did that washing machine work for several months with this?

I dont know.

Must be German engineering.

 

p.s.  I rather cheekily emailed Miele Australia to enquire about about spare parts.  Within 24 hours I had a polite reply that a replacement drum with attached casting and shaft was available, at a cost of $AUD750. (!!)

In the meantime, in fact before I had even started the teardown, SWMBO had gone out and bought a replacement washing machine.  She of little faith!

So the old machine sits there in bits.  I guess that it will go to the recycler.  But I am sort of hoping that a W828 Miele washing machine will turn up on Ebay, so I can use the parts to fix mine, just to see if I can put it all together again.