servis M3814AL – motor doesn’t turn

Dear All,

I have a problem with my 3 and half year old Servis M3814AL washing
machine. The motor does not turn the drum. The machine will still run
through a wash cycle, (fills with water, pumps the water out, etc) but the
drum doesn’t turn at all.

This problem just occurred one day, there had been no lead up to it. The
only problem I have noticed is that on occasion the cycle would run a lot
more slowly than others (although this always seemed to coincide with
high temperature wash cycles; rather than the 30 or 40 degree cycles I
normally use)

So far I have checked the following:
* filters are clean
* belt appears to be tight
* looked for disconnected plugs – none found
* looked for blackened components – none found
* Appears to fill with water and empty as fast as it always did
* checked the motor brushes (lots – ~2 inches – left on them!)
* run the machine with the motor off the chassis, but connected to the
control module (no movement from the motor)
* checked continuity of the motor – is continuous
* checked continuity of a fuse(?) in the motor – is continuous
* Voltage across the motor brushes seems very low (~1 – 12 V) – I
assume that it should be in the region of 240V?

I have been advised (over the phone – by a servis engineer) that I should
call out an engineer who will replace the motor and see whether it fixes
the problem; otherwise, it will be the control module that is the problem.
He also said that it was unlikely that the control module was broken, as
he would expect the door would lock and nothing else would work…

Bearing in mind the high price of repairs and spare parts (and the fact
that I have no money!) I’m trying to do as much as I can DIY, and hoped
that somebody may have a suggestion as to anything else I can try to
narrow down between the motor and the control module (unless there are
any other likely candidates?)…

Hope you can help, thanks in anticipation!

Paul.