Yup...in washers and DW's. Washers for spin-imbalance readjustment and for water heating. DW's for water heating.

For both types of machine, the timer can't tell in advance how long it will take to heat the water to target temp so it "holds" until the target is reached, then resumes. From load to load, the washers's timer can't know if the load inside will spin up OK on the first attempt or whether it will have to try again.

With mom's old Maytag TL, there isn't any added heat and an imbalanced load simply causes the machine to stop. Load must be redistributed manually and machine restarted.

No specific knowledge of your particular machine but above is common and typical. Which is to say, I suspect your timer is fine and your machine is operating normally, if annoyingly.

Oh, thank you, that explains a lot. I have been very frustrated to expect a load to be complete by x time, only to have it then take as much as an additional half hour. Guess I'll just have to adjust my timing accordingly!

And I got the model # wrong -- it's 7200.

If you have a sink next to the washer, run the hot water until it actually is hot before starting the machine. That way it will fill with hotter water and need less time to heat.