what could cause this level of distruction

[samuelellis]

Yes im aware that question is like saying how long is a piece of string but its an odd question

We (by we i mean my parents) had an Ariston Margareta a40 washing machine for the last 6 years or so (the name of the thing always made me want a pizza when i walked past it) that appears to have lunched itself

The inner drum has appeared to make contact with the outer drum and tear itself to bits as according to my parents it was on the final full bore 1600rpm spin with a full load so a fair amount of mass and energy involved

My first thought was that a coin or something had got between the inner and outer drum (i looked in the gallerys attached to this site) but as everyone in this house is from Yorkshire there is no chance of a coin going somewhere without us knowing

My next thought was that the spider on the back of the inner drum may have failed in some way because
-it was used on only 40degree cycles (but NOT with liquid detergent)
-no maintenance wash cycles were run
-a month or so before it failed i was watching the lip of the drum rotate while it was running and it appeared to wave in and out if that makes sense

but the machine had made no odd knocking noises or anything up to the failure that i would have potentially expected if one of the spiders had corroded/snapped

sorry if Im not all that clear, washing machines arent really my speciality (even though i really admire the engineering that goes into the things, well anything mechanical really)

Me and my dad will tear the machine down to see whats happened but i was wondering if any of you guys had seen something like this?

btw – if it is the spider that corroded through/snapped do you want me to snap some pics of the damage as a warning photo to the benefit of a maintinence wash

[Dales-Electronic]

Re: what could cause this level of distruction

Samuel – If you can get some pics up to us obviously that would be very helpful. Its is not that uncommon for this to happen these days with the now faster spin speeds in a modern washing machine. In honestly, if you have got six years out of this machine then you have done better than most 😉

[helo_75]

ive seen this

and its the heater coming loose from its bracket that does it

rips the machine to pieces.. horrifying in fact

[samuelellis]

Re: what could cause this level of distruction

tbh it wasent a bad machine, not the quietist in its last few months (motor noise) but it seemed to wash reasonably well, has cost us 0 in repairs, didnt hang about too much balancing the spin and the wash times werent too bad, my parents replaced it with a hotpoint that as far as i can see uses the same programmer (all the cycles appear exactly the same) but with a bigger drum, better suspension and a quieter motor

i gues merloni machines are a bit like the old Jaguars built under british leyland, good but would be better if they didnt skimp and build the thing right (IE prey you dont get a friday afternoon machine)

[samuelellis]

helo_75 wrote:ive seen this

and its the heater coming loose from its bracket that does it

rips the machine to pieces.. horrifying in fact

really?

is this a common issue then as that is pretty worrying and im glad my parents were in the house when it did it so the power could be cut as the chance for shorting something out sounds pretty high

[helo_75]

its not common

[cockney steve]

Re: what could cause this level of distruction

as that is pretty worrying and im glad my parents were in the house when it did it so the power could be cut as the chance for shorting something out sounds pretty high

yes! that’s what the fuse in the plug is for 😀

You’d have to be extremely unlucky to get a shock before the various levels of protection cut in.

I’ve also seen spot-weld failure on a drum…..similar results to a broken spider.

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