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My AEG Electrolux Lavamat LN79689 (PNC 914526692/00), bought last spring, seems to have a few peculiar issues with its Jetsystem (not sure if AEG calls it that like Zanussi does, but I’m thinking of the water recirculation mechanism).
When I start the machine, it fills the tub with water (it tops up one or more times if there’s too little water left after the clothes have absorbed some of it), and then after about 10 minutes or so the machine automatically pauses for a few seconds. I assume the pause itself is normal, as the machine resumes the cycle every time. However, every now or then, even though drum movement is resumed, the recirculation pump is not reactivated, so the clothes are no longer showered with water.
In these cases when the recirculation pump has stopped, pausing and resuming the machine manually has no effect, the recirculation pump is never reactivated. The only thing that helps is to turn the programme knob to “off” and to restart the entire washing cycle, in which case the first thing that happens is that the washing machine tops up with water (as if there were not enough water in it already), and the machine proceeds with the cycle without problems.
My question is basically, is this behaviour normal? Is the recirculation pump perhaps deactivated because the machine senses there’s too little water in the tub for the recirculation pump to work satisfactorily? Or does it suggest that there’s something wrong with the machine?
Another issue is that during the rinse cycle (shallow rinses), the recirculation pump tends to make a “growling” sound. Oddly enough, if I pause and resume the machine, the noise disappears and the pump sounds normal until after the water has been drained from the tub and it has been filled with new water, then the “growling” sound reappears, and I can then pause and resume the machine again for the pump to sound normal. The water pressure of jet itself seems to be unaffected by whatever issue is causing the noise, although I’ve occasionally experienced that it may take ages for the initial water trickle to become a steady jet (running a couple of deep rinse cycles with an empty drum has helped in that regard). Does this suggest any problems with the jetsystem, or is it normal for the recirculation pump to be noisy during shallow rinses?
Re: AEG Lavamat, Jetsystem issues
It could be a duff recircultion pump, they are known to go noisy, but you’d have to strip it out to find out rather than us guessing at it.
You can get stuff in there, grit and small particles, that get into the pump and make it squeal or shriek. But, usually when they go faulty they are faulty and simply don’t work from my experience with them, they don’t tend to be intermittent or erratic.
HTH
K.
Re: AEG Lavamat, Jetsystem issues
Most high end machines don’t have such systems in them, I wonder why that is? A chocolate fireguard comes to mind. 😛
Re: AEG Lavamat, Jetsystem issues
I will paraphrase what someone told me at a product launch many years ago about Jetsystem…
“It doesn’t really do anything or add anything, but the customer sees water being sprayed over the clothes and thinks it’s cool and is doing something.”
Nuff said.
K.
Re: AEG Lavamat, Jetsystem issues
Or as that well known expert on domestic appliances Abraham Lincoln was supposed to have said,
“You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can not fool all of the people all of the time.” 😉
Re: AEG Lavamat, Jetsystem issues
Thanks, kwatt, iadom (and Abraham Lincoln :D) for feedback.
kwatt wrote:But, usually when [recirculation pumps] go faulty they are faulty and simply don’t work from my experience with them, they don’t tend to be intermittent or erratic.
That’s what I suspected as well, which is why I thought that it might not be the pump per se that’s at fault, e.g. the water level is too low for the pump to be activated (and the low water level is a symptom of a different problem). Is this plausible, that the pump may not be activated during certain conditions, and that the machine is programmed to act this way?
kwatt wrote:“It doesn’t really do anything or add anything, but the customer sees water being sprayed over the clothes and thinks it’s cool and is doing something.”
I suppose that “someone” didn’t represent the manufacturer (Electrolux)? 🙂
Anyway, if a machine is designed to use the jetsystem feature, will a non-working pump negatively affect the washing or rinsing performance of the machine?
I see the recirculation pump part (I think it’s part no 1325100335, which replaces 1325100103) is not particularly expensive, by the way, so if it should fail, would it be easy for a layman to change it? (Though perhaps that would void the warranty?)
Re: AEG Lavamat, Jetsystem issues
You would likely not notice any effect on wash performance at all.
They can be a pig to get to, you need to split the cabinet and get into it, not the easiest job in the world but not the hardest either.
If you want the pump let me know and I’ll have a snoop about as there may be alternatives available.
K.
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