We purchased our neptune washer in 1998 and again it is broke. This time the washer will not spin. What will it take to fix it, since there are no maytag repair man around here?
It has burned resistor r11 in the machine control circuit board. This resistor circuit controls the door lock wax motor.
This is the 3rd time this has happened. We are still having problems with the mold. Which recently noticed that class action lawsuit, which covered our machine but never once received any notification about it.
We have complained numerous times to no avail.
We are currently thinking about trying to rebuild the board $250 part, and just replaceing the wax motor. Has anyone actually done this or have any suggestions?

I would suggest with all the trouble you have had with your maytag washer, it would be much better to dump it, than to keep throwing money at it. I rarely say that, but its just my opinion.

Jake

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One would think when you purchase something for $1000 plus it would last more than a few years.
We would either go to the laundramat or purchase another front loader at $1000 plus. Maybe these companies should start standing behind their products instead of taking the consumer.

You bought the Maytag 1st generation front loader back in 1998, thats the ones with all the problems. The ones made today and much better, all the problems have been fixed. Its a shame Maytag didn't find all these issues before they went on the market back in 1998, I agree with you.

Thats probably why Maytag has now been bought out by Whirlpool.

Jake

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Ah Jake, I don't think that Maytag can get better. They have serious internal problems. First, their electronic engineers do not know how to design for the real world. I would guess that they are kids who just graduated with enough know-how to made things that work. They have not learned to make things that survive through continuous use. Also, they are incapable of seeing what is wrong with their designs. Numerous people have by now informed Maytag that its choice of parts have been inadequate for the use they are expected to perform. Maytag just doesn't get it. They also refuse to put fail-safe devices like fuses to protect their expensive components if there is a spike or surge on the line, or a short. Maytag, now made by Sanyo which also bought the Whirlpool name, is bottom of the line mass consumer market quickly design and get it out to market fare that lives off is reputation earned from what it produced 25 years ago.

The other major problem at Maytag is that they do not know how to react to consumer problems. They have never dedicated a group to find out why some of their products are failing and to suggest to their repair people and the public generally how to fix the problem. Rather, they go into a shell. No repair person who takes a course from Maytag will find out anything about what goes wrong with the products. They just learn a checklist (if x happens replace part 'b'). They are not taught about the source of the problems. No one at Maytag has come out to correctly state that they placed inadequate parts in their machines yet numerous electronic engineers who have published their findings on the web have indicated this, usually because their own machines have failed. But, not a word from Maytag.

I have the R11 wax motor failure issue with a MAH3000AWW serial 33118985UY. I had a service tech out who diagnosed the problem but did not have the parts. If I decide to throw more money at this boat anchor I have to replace the circuit board anyway so why not try and replace the resistor? Does anyone know what resistor it is. Mine is fried and I cant tell what it is from any pictures. I can justify spending $20 for the wax motor if I can fix the board but I have a problem dropping $350 on an 8 year old unit with a history of problems. Thanks.

Fixing it requires:
1) replacing the wax motor because that is the culprit. Maytag uses a resistor to heat wax to drive a piston to lock the door. The problem is that the resistor gets too hot and carbonizes the wax so that too much current flows through both the resistor and the carbonized wax.
2) replacing all resistors, triacs and transistors that are burned out by the excess current. Luckily the board clearly names each one. However, except for the one resistor which will show itself as fried, the only way to test the other parts is to remove them first. Since all of the parts cost less than $10 (if you shop carefully), one might as well skip the testing step and just replace willy nilly.
3) put a .5watt resistor between the wax motor and its power supply (the brown wire). In future, If the wax motor carbonizes again, the fuse will blow to save the main board components.
Parts:
The main resistor to blow is always the R11. The triac Q6, located right next to it always blows when it does. You can find the others by seaching google for "maytag neptune wax triac". You will also find a list of suppliers. I just created a list from a similar search (which I no longer have) and went to my local electronics store - all of the parts were stock items. The washer now works ok exept that it does not turn off the wax motor when the timer reaches the off position. I have to manually press the stop button each time. I have not been able to find a solution for this.

The original R11 resistor is a 3.9K ohm resistor, 1/4 watt, carbon film type. I've seen a few people recommend upgrading to a 1/2 watt resistor. Q6, a triac, is also probably blown, it's a MAC97A6, 400 volt. I've seen two different recommendations for replacements, both 600 volt rated parts (MAC97A8 or NTE5657). If you're going to attempt to repair the board, defintely replace the wax motor in the door lock mechanism. Also make sure traces on the back side of the board weren't affected by the R11 and Q6 meltdown, otherwise you'll have to solder a jumper between the broken traces to repair the connection.

Yes. I jumped the traces on the backside of the board when I noticed that one of them was lifted from the board. In total, I jumped two. The rest seemed ok. It may be worth mentioning that what is needed for this repair is a good soldering iron, a good magnifying glass, and steady hands. Luckily, I was once deeply involved with making hifi equipement from bare schematics as a hobby. So, the fix cost me no more than a few inexpensive parts and about 1 hour soldering time. The was far better than buying new parts and the washer continues to work great.

I found the links and all of the info I needed to save myself $300 and make the spousal unit happy. Thanks for the replies.