The most common cause of when a washing machine jumps and bangs on spin is an uneven load. Occasional jumping around may not be anything to worry about if it isn’t banging too much. However, regular or severe banging on the sides should be a cause for concern.
This can cause expensive damage to your washing machine if ignored. A general rocking around of a washing machine on spin may just be caused by an uneven floor, or an un-level washing machine. If the washing machine moves slightly out of position it could just be because it is on a tiled or otherwise shiny floor and the rubber feet just slide around too easily.
When does it bang?
If the washing machine is banging around quite a lot the first thing to do is to observe when the banging occurs. If it’s at random parts of the wash cycle when it’s supposed to be just washing that’s bad news. It may have an intermittent fault that causes the motor to surge into a spin at random. This fault needs an engineer to diagnose.
Does it bang as soon as the motor begins turning?
If it jumps around and bangs as soon as the motor starts then the washing machine may have lost control of the motor. Some faults can cause the motor to only spin, and to lose all the slow wash rotation speeds. That could be something to do with the tacho coil and/or magnet in the motor. Check this article to see what a tacho coil is.
However, if it only bangs during a proper spin, especially when it just starts up or is dying down from spin, then the chances are it’s related to the load inside.
New washing machine?
If a newly installed washing machine is jumping and banging on spin, make sure the transit packaging has been removed. Transit packaging holds the suspension solid.
If the tub can’t bounce up and down then the movement created on spin is translated to side to side movement. The washing machine will move about and shake.
See the instruction manual for instructions on how to remove the transit packaging.
Are you loading the drum properly?
Don’t cram the drum full of laundry. Overloading is not good, but surprisingly, under-loading is more likely to cause out of balance loads. Likewise badly mixed items of laundry can cause an unbalanced drum.
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Before a proper spin the drum should revolve slowly for a couple of minutes. If a load is out of balance you can often observe the inner drum lurching from side to side.
You might even see it gently thumping the sides of the casing a few times whilst it’s trying to distribute the load prior to fast spin.
At this stage you may see large flashes of metal drum on each revolution. This would be where laundry has settled around the drum but there wasn’t enough to cover all of it.
If this happens the drum will be out of balance. It may refuse to spin, or if allowed to spin the drum could thump around and hit the sides of the casing. See the best way to load a washing machine drum
Loading washing machine correctly but still bangs & jumps
This is unfortunately a difficult fault to diagnose. It could be various things including a faulty connection somewhere on the motor or pcb, especially if intermittent. It can be caused by a part overheating, cutting out and then cutting back in causing loss of control. Or it could even be something like a faulty shock absorber.
If this fault isn't caused by the loading you really need to get an experienced engineer to look at it. Find a washing machine repairer on Whitegoodshelp
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WMUser says
It’s a good idea to check the levelling feet are not loose and making the machine wobble when spinning.
Andy Trigg says
Thanks for that WMUser. I hadn’t mentioned that because I was thinking of proper out of balance loads, but I’ve now added an extra sentence advising about levelling at the beginning of the “Recognising an out of balance load” paragraph because a lot of people may only be experiencing excess shaking and movement, which as you say can sometimes be down to something as simple as making sure the floor and washer are properly level.
Donna says
My problem its that my washing machine is leveled, but my tub isn’t.
Andy Trigg says
Donna: The tub should be held centrally in the machine with the suspension legs and top tub springs. If it’s leaning forward or to one side the suspension or top springs may have a problem.
Tony says
Hi Andy,
I have a similar problem to those above. The machine is a Siemens of 10 years vintage and the drum has recently started banging when starting the spin cycles. I had the back off yesterday and found that drum bounces on the shocks and that the shocks feel oily/greasy. Could it be that the shocks have stopped damping that is causing the “bounce”.
Thanks
Tony
Whitegoodshelp (Andy Trigg) says
Washing machine suspension always used to be just a greased metal rod set on big springs so free bouncing worked fine. If the load is balanced properly the movement should be turned into up and down bouncing on the suspension instead of side to side and banging on the casing. Banging on first part of spin which soon settles down is often caused by an unbalanced load – but if you haven’t changed anything and it’s banging on every spin it’s possible the suspension is worn. Without knowing how new suspension feels in comparison though it’s hard to tell.
tracy says
does using a spin clcle on the washing machine weck it
?
Whitegoodshelp (Andy Trigg) says
Are you meaning using it separately, without going through a wash cycle first?
tracy says
hi mysister says ilkl weckthe washing machine if I handwash my clothes then use justthe spin clycle onit……well I wecjkk it
or is it ok
Whitegoodshelp (Andy Trigg) says
No It’s fine, although I know why she might say that. A long time ago there were problems associated with just using the spin cycle even though washers were and are clearly designed with programmes to allow that. The problem was that they often had difficulty balancing hand washed loads and sometimes could start to spin an unbalanced load which caused it to bang about very violently.
Sometimes it would be so violent it could damage the washing machine – sometimes seriously. These days though (and for many years) washing machines have built in out of balance protection, which means if you try to spin a load that it can’t balance it should just refuse to spin instead of going violently out of control.
So hand-washed items can be spun, it’s just that they may not spin if the washer can’t balance them properly – washer won’t spin just one item or very small loads