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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Very good article. Very useful.
One problem that causes a machine to jump violently is:
A broken Motor Speed Sensor Magnet. It fits onto the spindle at the back of the motor and rotates within the centre of the Motor Speed Sensor, which has two leads connected to it. The Ring Magnet pushes onto the spline of the motor spindle.
You may find that the broken Ring Magnet is on the kitchen floor under the machine.
The magnet is an essential part of the Motor Speed Sensor, and if it isn’t in one piece – it will cause the machine to jump!
Thanks Mike. The tacho magnet breaking or dropping off used to cause instant loss of speed control and a washer would freak out jumping all over the place. Fortunately manufacturers seem to have redesigned the circuitry so that the motor actually stops running if the magnet comes off. Not sure how many still allow a dangerous spin but it’s possible some might though there will undoubtedly be some old washers still out there that go crazy. The symptoms in such a case would be that the machine would appear to act normally, except that when the drum turns to wash it would spin constantly, pause for several seconds and then spin again. Each time the machine would thump about violently.
I ordered a new tacho magnet from Amazon – costing 10 euros + 10 euros P&P. It was the correct size except that it was a little loose on the motor spindle spline, so I used superglue to secure it. The Hoover CA230 works fine now, no jumping of the machine at all and very smooth running NB. The magnet had come off completely, but on this particular machine – the motor continued to run without it!
Thanks Mike. How was the magnet attached? The used to have a circlip that pushed on top of it.
Thanks a ton!!
This article has been a great help.
Good to know that i wasn’t the only one struggling with the violent spins :)
Hi washing machine drum is banging against the side even thou we have no clothes and just fill it with water to see if it has been corrected after leveling its feet have taken top off springs suspension s look fine! What could it be ? Thanks for any info !
Hi darleen, it shouldn’t be possible for the drum to bang on the sides without any laundry inside as it’s only the weight of laundry that can cause the outer drum to swing over to hit the sides. Even if the outer drum was leaning on one side there’s normally no movement in the drum without anything inside. Is there by any chance a drum weight that’s broken off? They can be fitted at the front of the drum and or underneath the drum as well as on the top.
The only thing I can think of is if the washer has lost control of the motor and it is spinning instead of turning at wash speed. That could cause the drum to move around when it has water inside. Is the outer drum definitely swinging and hitting the casing or is there just a horrible noise coming from it? Is the drum turning normally on wash or is it doing a short fast spin?
Hi I recently brought a new washer well Anyway its in a little space where washers go in my kitchen when its spins its so violent the whole washer moves banging on both sides of the cupboards and moved bk so iv panicked and stop it iv only used it twice and this is what its doing any idea ??
Hi Natasha, have you taken all the transit packing out? That would account for a new washing machine jumping around on spin and shaking about a lot because the transit packaging stops the suspension from working. Otherwise a new washing machine just shouldn’t do it because they have out of balance protection which should stop the washer spinning if it goes out of balance.
Hello, I have a Whirlpool Oasis washer that bangs very violently when in spin, i have just leveled it again, didn’t help. I have rebalanced and redistributed the load 4-5 times now. I bought these machines used, at first when they were in spin they would just make a loud spinning noise, i thought maybe the bearings were going bad, now almost everytime i do a load wether its heavy or lite, full or half-full it bangs violently. The suspension is all in good order, however, if i push the top of the drum down against the bottom it makes the same sound that it would when it spins. Any Ideas?