Do we have any washing machine gurus here ?

Our ~15 year old Zanussi washing machine is developed an odd fault. It fails to rinse properly.

It fills, washes, empties, rinses, spins; but at the end of all of that there are still soap suds in the machine. If I run the rinse cycle a few more times the soap is visibly done, but I don’t know whether it really is rinsed at that point.

I’ve checked the filter (was a bit gunky, but not bad). I’m at a loss as to what to look at, we don’t really want a new machine, this is the first fault this one has ever had.

My Googlefu is failing me on this one.

This is the troubleshooting section of the manual for our machine, it has nothing to help on failing to rinse:

https://www.manualslib.com/manual/199490/Zanussi-Iz-12.html?page=19#manual

Wrong detergent (HE vs non-HE)? Have you been using too much in the past and it's built up? Maybe you could try one of those washing machine cleaners...

Same detergent we always use. And we use very little (less than recommended).

I will give some sort of cleaner a go though.

Yeah, folks use way too much detergent. Those cups are designed to make you waste the stuff faster!

Sorry, I don't know washing machines!

By "still soap suds in the machine", do you also mean the rinse water (with suds) is still present? In which case possibly the drain pump has a sock or underwire blocking the impellers?

EDIT: seems unlikely given the sequence you have observed, but still worth a check. Otherwise I might guess that perhaps the machine simply needs a cleaning (soap gunk builds up over time, and some washers have a special cleaning cycle and solvent to accompany that).

Another thought: perhaps the soap dispenser isn't being completely emptied at the appropriate time, which is generally during the initial fill cycle. If there were a build-up of gunk or some other blockage to the water flow to/from the dispenser area, then you'd get more soap inserted in later cycles, including each rinse attempt, until the dispenser was finally clean of soap.

No, it drains and spins successfully. But after all that there is foam left on the clothes and around the inside of the drum.

This machine doesn't have a special cleaning cycle that I'm aware of. I've run a couple of 90 degree washes to see if that would help.

I'm going to run some cleaner through it today.

The soap dispenser is completely clean, we use liquid detergent directly in the drum.

I did find some gunk hidden in the door seal which I've cleaned out.

Okay, So I think the next step might be to remove the tumbler ("drum") from the machine, so you can see what's happening inside the waterproof outer drum/enclosure.
EDIT: Mmmm.. that might end up being a lot more complex that what I'm used to, so you'll probably not be doing that.

Based on observations thus far, I would guess that perhaps the drain cycle is leaving water/suds in the outer drum/enclosure, but not so much that the puddle is visible in the inner drum.

So perhaps there's a drain level sensor or something that's not reading correctly, or (again, sorry) there may be a partial clog of the drain such that it takes longer than the timed cycle allows for.

There's probably 5-10cm or so of space between the tumbler drum and the outer drum, so lots of room for soapy water to linger if not drained completely.

Removing the tumbler drum will give you full view/access to the main outer drum/enclosure, drain and fill openings, etc. So easy to check for clogs and things, as well as to give it a general cleaning while access is good.

You'll have to google for "how to" do that, but it generally involves removal of the face of the machine, which can be held by some very strong spring clips or other mechanisms. Then the opening at the front will be large enough for drum removal. There is probably a very strong nut/bolt fastener hiding behind trim at the back/centre of the tumbler drum. Undoing that will release it for removal, though it may appear to be "stuck" and require some directed force for removal.

Best to just google it.

I did that just now, and found this link for an easy way to check the pump:
http://www.fixya.com/support/t1626607-zanussi_iz_12_pump_access

There are lots of other links for disassembly etc.

Great link for exploded diagrams etc of that specific machine:

Ransom Spares IZ12 info

The situation seems to be worse after having run some specialized cleaner through it, far more foam left at the end (and full to the top of the drum with foam during the washing cycle).

Indeed. I just took the top off to see how I can get the front off to get the door seal/bellows out.

Modern machine have a plastic front panel that seems to come of reasonably easily. Our machine has an all steel front section, which is bolted/screwed to the rear half of the machine (also steel) in many place (including a top bracing frame that has loads of electrics, valves etc mounted on it.

Unless there is some trick that I'm missing, getting a look at the drum would require very major disassembly (I'm wondering if the drum was inserted from below).

I can't see any disassembly details online for machines like ours.

My best guess at the moment as to what is going wrong is that it is adding way too much water. It is supposed to use ~40 litres through a whole full wash/rinse cycle.

It appears to be adding 150 litres of water to the drum during the wash cycle alone. It jets water downwards into the drum, so I'm guessing jetting the water for the whole cycle builds up loads of foam.

At this point I think I am just going to have to give in and spend £300-400 on a new machine. It doesn't seem sensible to start spending money getting someone else in to maybe repair a +15 year old machine.

I did find a view of some guy stripping down what looks like basically our machine.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RXOIi2nbjMo

Oddly, there are several videos on YouTube of our exact model running full washing cycles. I have no idea why people decided to video/upload that...

But it does at least show me the normal amount of water that should be in the drum (I can't say I often see our machine while it is running, it is tucked out of the way). Ours is definitely adding far too much water.

That looks to be a pretty well-built, high-quality machine. I think if you replaced it you would be hard pressed to get another 15 years out of the new one.

Perhaps you might try checking the air-pressure activation of the easily accessed water pressure valve, possibly replace it, and if that doesn't solve the problem, you might see if you can find a used control module, also easy to get at. You wouldn't have too many euros invested at that point, and it might well fix the machine for another 15 years.

tanstaafl.

Fascinating!

It really does look like a quality build. If you are happy with the machine, then I imagine a paid repair would be perhaps UK100 or less? Worthwhile up to even a bit more than that.

As others have noted, that fancy air pressure control gizmo looks like a good candidate for replacement, given that the pumps are all otherwise working. You could take a chance on swapping that for a new one (easy access for that), or just pony up for a repair person to do a diagnosis and replace whatever they discover to be failed.

I can't disagree with any of those suggestions to keep on working on the problem. But I've already been working on this out of action washing machine for a week now and I have far too many other things around the house that already need fixing.

(the local appliance repair people that we've tried in the past have been unreliable and if I call out one of the larger national companies I'll easily end up spending a significant proportion of the cost of a new machine)

I ordered a new £300 machine yesterday for delivery today

And yes, the old machine really is built like a tank. But also built to be a real pain to work on. I reckon it would take me a good couple of hours to strip it down enough to remove the door seal/bellows. And I fell at the first fence when attempting it, you need a hex socket with wafer thin walls to even undo some of the first bolts, they are so tight up against the metal work that none of my many 8mm sockets will fit on them.

Another example of seemingly deliberately hard to work on stuff.

To inspect/replace one of the pressure sensors you need to remove that top bracing frame. Which means removing just about every other sensor/valve (or at the very least unplugging them all (which was proving challenging when I tried).

But then you discover that the springs that support the drum also hook over the top of that frame, so you also need to manage to unhook/rehook them (which I think requires upending the machine first to disconnect the shock absorbers and I've no idea how you get the springs rehooked afterwards).

Yeah, it really did look like many repairs might be quite difficult. The pump at the bottom looked doable, but it still works.

You should do all right with a newer one. The old one is worth a bit of cash for metal reclamation, but it's likely mostly steel which doesn't tend to fetch a great price.

Over here, my beloved but now deceased wife cleverly got us a Maytag Bravos branded top-loader, but with the same kind of high-efficiency ratings as the more popular front loaders. So it uses little water (though more than a front-loader), and very little electricity to do it's thing.

It is also VERY accessible for repairs, as I have discovered through personal experience! So major bonus for me there.

Cheers

There's also a ton of front loaders that have bad mildew other build-up issues. My mother finally replaced her Bosch washer after hating it for 10 years and never getting it clean enough to where it wouldn't smell. She had to leave the door open all the time, too.

We've had a Whirlpool top-loader for the past 7 years and I love it. Holds a boatload of clothes so while I'm using more water and electricity I'm also not doing as many loads.

I don't know if this will help, but I've know there to be little filters in the connection to the water faucet. After some time this little filter can get clogged, resulting in the machine not receiving enough water to do a decent rinse. This is easily fixed by just cleaning that filter though. See here (this example is for a Miele, but you get the idea)

In this case it was getting plenty of water and I did check the inlet filter (it was completely clear).