Well our Cabrio Agi is almost 2 years old. The warranty is completed. Now we have noticed a black grease that is leaking from underneath the wash tub onto the floor.

Could this be the transmission?

Is this worth fixing?
It is quite an expensive machine $800.00 approx.

Any ideas would be appreciated.
Thanks.

As for your black grease, that's a little more perplexing. The only thing I can think of is maybe one of the suspension parts is leaking. If it is, it might still be okay, and if it's not, replacing it won't be nearly as expensive as replacing a transmission.

What in the world could this be?
My husband says it is thick oil - not grease - to be exact.

Any help would be very appreciated.

There is one other possibility. Grease is used between the steel plates that bolt the motor stator to the outer washer tub, and it's possible that this is what you are seeing. Grease is used so that the motor stator can actually float back and forth, which minimizes noise transmission. If your husband is handy with tools, the motor rotor is fairly easy to remove with just an allen key wrench, and then he'll be able to see what's going on.

Whatever you do though, please make absolutely sure that he unplugs the washer first. This is extremenly important, because the motor is driven with very high voltage, and not unpluging it would be extremely dangerous.

Does this seem premature for the seal to be leaking? The machine is going to be 2 years old in April.

In your opinions is it even worth fixing this? In this economic time about all we could afford to replace this with is a BOL top loader (349.00 or so). I would be ok with a BOL top loader and I could live with it lasting only a few years. But the Cabrio was $800.00 plus and only lasted 1 1/2 years.

Thanks for your rapid replies.

You can find a service manual at http://www.servicematters.com. Look under Technical Reference, Technical Library, Job Aids, Laundry Products.

One good thing is that the Cabrio is pretty simple, so it's easy to work on if that's what your husband wants to do. Like I said before though, make sure he unplugs it first.

One other thought. I definitely think that the seal should last more than two years, so if it's a problem I'd give Whirlpool a call and complain about it. Sometimes if there's an obvious manufacturing defect, even if it's out of warranty, a manufacturer will still help a customer out. I don't know if Whirlpool has ever done this though.

One last question if I may. Does the washer make a grinding noise when it's spinning that it didn't make when it was new? If yes, then your seal and bearings are shot. If not, then it's highly likely that your bearings and seal are fine.

However, looking up one of the Cabrio models at SearsParts, the bearings and seal are not shown separately in the diagram, and the parts listing has an item "tub and shaft assembly" which I assume includes the bearings, seal, and drive shaft.

The machine does not make any new sounds, no grinding, nothing.

The only reason I even noticed it was because a drop of grease splattered out past the bottom of the washer and landed on the unfinished concrete floor. This is what led me to get a flashlight and actually look under the washer. The splatters of grease were not an oily type residue, it was dried on the bottom of the washer. To clean it off I needed to use vinegar and water in a spray and a clean cloth. This has lead us to think that it may have been going on for quite some time.

So, who knows what is going on or how long it has been going on. We shall do an exploratory on Sunday and post pictures.

We did call Whirlpool twice and we got the same drill both times. Your warranty is up....would you like to schedule service. Only $81.00 for the first hour and $19.00 for each additional 15 minutes!

The problem is the part is $250 plus tax here in Canada and it will take a week or so to have it shipped in.

After talking to various appliance parts dealers/servicers we are leery about fixing it. They say these machines are hard to work on and that there may be more wrong than what we believe it to be.

This week at our local furniture store they have a recession buster special a Maytag Centennial with a stainless steel wash tub for $399.00. Do we bite the bullet and just go get a new one? It will be painful to bring the Cabrio to the dump....

As far as being leery about more stuff that's wrong, you would be replacing the outer wash tub, the bearings, the main shaft seal, and the main drive shaft. I don't think there's anything else that could be leaking.

From what I see here I'm not so sure that I can see any evidence that the seal has gone. The reason I say this is that what we are looking at is the lower bearing, not the upper bearing, and it's the upper bearing that would go if the seal is bad.

The upper bearing is vented with a hole that's drilled in the side of the aluminum casting, so if the seal is leaking, water would leak out of this hole down onto the spinning motor, and then all over the rest of the washer. This hole should be clearly visible at the bottom of the ribs around the hub in the last picture. Would it be possible to get a picture of it?

I'll try to add a picture.

One more try.

It's a shame because when the seal goes it takes out the bearings and the drive shaft all at the same time. That's probably why Whirlpool sells the wash tub, the bearings, the seal, and the drive shaft all as a single replacement part, because they want service technicians to replace everything all at the same time to make sure that the repair is good.

This is actually very surprising for a three old washer because the main seal is a critical component, and manufacturers will usually over design it in an attempt to avoid flooding people's homes, because they pay out millions of dollars a year in flood claims.

I'm guessing that the problem didn't start with the actual seal. I'm guessing that it was installed incorrectly at the factory, because if it wasn't properly seated it could possibly start to leak like this in a fairly short time. One way to check for this is to take the inner wash basket out and check the positioning of the seal in the bottom of the outer wash tub. If it's crooked in any way, then it's a manufacturing defect.

The appliance store called and the replacement tub and shaft assembly is in. We're going to pick it up today.

My husband probably won't start the install until Saturday. I think, I mean I know it's going to take him the better part of a day to replace it.

Thanks again for everybody's help in diagnosis.

lulundave

Obviously the washer absolutely has to be unplugged. This is essential.

The two metal plates that sandwich the motor stator in the center hub area have a graphite like grease on them. Don't wipe this grease off. It's intended to allow the motor stator slip when the motor supplies torque. The actual motor torque is transmitted through the plastic ribs that connect to the center hub in the tub. These ribs are more flexible than a solidly bolted connection so the motor can't transmit sharp shock loads into the shaft bearings, and then into the basket where it would create noise that's amplififed by the inner wash tub. Because of this the bolts that attach the motor stator to the tub should be nice and snug, but not so tight that the stator is locked up tight. You don't have to worry about them working loose because the bolts are thread forming and they are squeezed into place when threads are formed in the aluminum bearing housing.

Take extra special care when installing the RPS motor sensor. It needs to be snapped in properly to avoid F code errors.

Don't forget the Gray motor shield. This is needed to prevent a fire hazzard if the motor connections corrode.

The grey motor shield has small rubber spacers that keep it from rattling against the bottom of the outer wash tub. Don't leave them out.

Make sure that the wiring harness is properly routed with all the proper tie downs, and that it's not pulled tight anywhere. If the wire harness get pulled, or is allowed to flap when the washer spins, the wire strands inside could fatigue and break, causing more F error codes.

Make sure that the suspension assemblies are properly attached the outer wash tub, and to the gussets in the corner frame of the cabinet.

Unfortunately, it still doesn't work!!! We now have the F51 code. We removed and re-installed the RPS - it eliminated the code, ran for a few minutes and then showed the code again. There is no other position that the RPS can be clipped into.
Everything is nice and tight. The wash tub freely turns.

Any ideas?

The next thing to consider is whether any of the water and grease that leaked from the seal got splashed onto any of the connections. I suggest cleaning the wire connectors and terminals with rubbing alcohol to make sure. Try wiggling the connections too to make sure that the connections are good.

Thirdly, inspect the RPS carefully to make sure the circuit board is properly seated inside its plastic housing. This circuit board has special magnetic sensors that have to be properly aligned with the magnets in the motor rotor.

And finally, carefully inspect the surface of the motor rotor magnets for any small pieces of metal that might have gotten stuck to it. These magnets are very powerful, and it's very easy for them pick up metallic debris when you remove the motor rotor.

Lastly, make absolutely sure that you unplug the washer first before doing any of the aforementioned work.

What we did notice after repair is how smooth sounding the washer is. We had forgotten that it made the jet sound whenever the wash tub spins. We had just become accustomed to the way it used to sound and had forgotten how it should sound.

My husband is quite proud and I am happy that we saved hundreds of dollars repairing or buying new.

Happy Spring Break in our household now! Let the kids get dirty, play outside..........finally.

When I inspected the shaft seal on the old tub, I found it was hard and discolored. It also had a slightly loose fit to the shaft itself. The upper bearing would hardly spin and was full of rusty water/ grease.

The lower nut on the shaft (above the rotor and stator assembly) was found to be very loose. Only finger tight. At first I thought that if it was tightened it would help the upper seal, but I don't think this is true. But I do think that the looseness of the nut may have contributed to vibration in the shaft and bearings allowing water to pass the seal. I'm not positive on the cause of failure though.

I also found that if you install the Rotor Position Sensor and allow the machine to perform the automatic diagnostics check prior to doing anything else, this includes turning the machine on, it will "find itself" and clear the F-51 error code.

Here's some pics. The shaft is the only place in the entire tub where there was build up of ??? on it. Don't know what it is.

Dave

Also, I'm not seeing any evidence of leaking past these lines either, so this suggests that leaking between the seal and the shaft wasn't a problem.

The next most possible leakage path is between the seal and the outer wash tub. Is there any evidence of leakage in the sidewall of the hole in the outer wash tub?

-Roger