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Hello DIY Community,
I am looking for some advice on how to perform additional maintenance tasks on my over 10-year-old Bosch washing machine. Besides cleaning the filter, gasket, and dispenser regularly and running a deep clean wash cycle with bleach after every 30 washing machine cycles, what else should I do to keep the machine in good condition and extend its lifespan?
I replaced the carbon brushes, as suggested in this forum.I would appreciate any tips or advice on maintenance tasks or checks I should carry out regularly on a machine of this age.
Thank you in advance for your help!
Only thing I do is descale my machine once in a blue moon, I’ve got very hard water and it used to blow the element after 2 – 3 years and seized up the filter, before I started doing that.
And I do check for play in the drum bearings once in a while, although that didn’t give me any warning with my current machine as the inner bearing seized due to rust from leaking seal, fortunately my zanussi is old enough that it doesn’t have a sealed tub.
Other than worn out brushes. If in a hard water area you want to check the pressure switch`s air trap for blockages that would/coulld cause two things 1) the machine overfills and you get somewhat moist to say the least! And 2) a pin hole blockage of gunk gives you a near miss 1) and if not that the machine on pumping out the water the air in the pressure chamber is not released quickly enough = the pressure switch still thinks it has water in the drum so will not spin..
Plus the 2 feeds from the valve to the jet nozzles – if one of those gets block up there is a high risk that the pipe blows off its dispenser nozzle and if so water then sprays all over the pcboard and nukes it = bye bye machine!.
Check the suspension damper legs for wear. If worn out the machine tends to jump about and the tank can hit the chassis. To test for worn out dampers = take the lid off, (having turned the power off) and push down on the top concrete weight, if it springs back up very fast due to the top springs the dampers are shot.If you want to know more on dampers I`ll need your exact model number.because some you can repair but most you have to replace and the ones you have to replace can be very involved and not easy to do.
Noisy pump is common = only a matter oif time until fails. – quite common. Some of the really cheap replacement pattern pumps are utter rubbish and so best avoided.
Check and clean door seal, common place where they fail as a hole = leak is dead at 6 o/clock on the flange bend = a tiny hole of course not to confused with the seals drainway holes somtimes that little hole is caused by a consequence of worn out dampers due to the seal rubbing on the front concrete weight.
You do not tend to get much trouble with the inlet valve/s, the tank to dispenser hose, or the sump hose, nor the suppressor nor the pcb (unless very unlucky) nor the heater unless hard water area if as Mels mentions use a descaler – white vinegar is useless, so use citric acid just do not mix it with bleach.
Advice: do the minimum as far as spending money. The drum spider will corrode and when that happens the machine is a gonner and that can happen whether you have soft water or otherwise. Or put it this way if that happens with 1300 quids worth of Miele (which are overated in my view) it will happen with a Bosch, when? Who knows, totally in the lap of the Gods.
Should the heater fail do not buy an expensive genuine bosch one as the pattern part is more or less the same but repackaged and sold a lot cheaper.“a pin hole blockage of gunk gives you a near miss” That should`ve read as: a pin sized hole through the blockage of any gunk gives you a near miss……………….
Hi Andy
Thank you for your comprehensive response. What a list!
I will work through it.
The machine’s FD number is 9210 602123 (Bosch WAE 24271FF/32).Obviously these are somewhat easier to do unless your model has a riveted metal base = a pain in the arse.
For the round section replacement of a replacement and so on for the possible flatten rectangle jobbies as above is now 11047540 but they are a finger burning, least via Bosch website, £66.67 EACH.
Suggest if that ever becomes a problem you go to the Bosch website to check. You`ll also notice that there is a kit on Ebay of 2 dampers and a pair of plastic push in sprigots – these were the previous incarnation of 11047540.
Changing any of these round section dampers is a major undertaking.
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