Why does my washing machine not spin?

Spin is the last thing a machine does and it depends on everything before it having gone right. The machine will not spin against standing water, will not spin a load it cannot balance, and will not spin at all if the programme did not ask it to. Working through those in order solves most cases in ten minutes and, importantly, stops you paying for a call-out on a load that simply needed spreading out.

Safety

What you'll need

• Towels
• A shallow tray
• Gloves, for the filter housing (optional)

Step by step

1. Look at whether the drum is still full of water.If it is, this is a drainage problem, not a spin problem — no machine will spin against standing water. Go to the pump filter, the waste hose and the standpipe, in that order, and stop reading about spin.
2. Check what the programme was actually set to do.Wool, delicates, hand-wash, rinse-hold and anti-crease settings all end deliberately with a low spin or none. So does a spin speed dialled down to zero, which is easy to leave set from a previous wash.
3. Watch whether it attempts a spin and abandons it.Speeding up, slowing, pausing, redistributing and trying again — repeatedly — is the balance sensor doing its job on a load it cannot balance. This is by far the commonest cause and it is not a fault.
4. Open the door and redistribute the load properly.Pull it apart item by item. Look for a duvet cover that has swallowed the rest of the wash, or one heavy towel bundle on one side. Spread everything evenly around the drum rather than piling it in the bottom.
5. Take some out if the drum is packed.A drum filled to the top cannot redistribute at all, because there is nowhere for anything to move to. Take a third of it out and run a spin-only cycle.
6. Run a spin-only or drain-and-spin cycle to test.This isolates the spin from everything else and takes a few minutes rather than repeating a whole wash.
7. Clean the pump filter even if it drained.Switch off at the socket, put towels and a tray down, and unscrew the filter slowly at the bottom front. A partly blocked filter lets the drum drain slowly enough that the machine still refuses the spin.
8. Check the machine is level and not rocking.Push each top corner in turn. Any rock at all, or a machine that has crept forward on a slippery floor, gives the balance sensor readings it will not accept.
9. Listen at the point the spin should start.A hum with no drum movement suggests the motor is being asked and is not turning. A high screech suggests a slipping or perished drive belt. Complete silence suggests the machine never asked for the spin.
10. Turn the empty drum by hand with the machine unplugged.It should turn freely with a little resistance. If it is stiff, grinds, or drops when you pull the top of it towards you, the bearings or suspension have failed and that is a major repair.
11. Note any error code before you call anyone.A code, or a blink pattern on the programme lights, plus the model number from the rating plate, turns a vague call-out into a diagnosed one. Balance and motor codes are usually in the UE, UB, E5 or F5 families.
12. Stop at the casing.Drive belts, motor carbon brushes, speed sensors and control boards are inside the machine. Diagnosing them is reasonable; opening the machine to reach them is engineer work, and doing it with the machine plugged in is dangerous.

Tips

• A load that always fails to spin on the same programme, but spins fine on another, is a programme setting rather than a fault. Check the spin speed stored against that programme.
• Front-loading machines will not spin with the drum full even briefly, so if you interrupt a cycle and select spin while there is water in it, expect it to drain first — that pause is normal.
• If the machine spins but the washing is still very wet, the spin speed is low rather than absent. That is a settings question, not a fault.

Common mistakes

• Repeatedly restarting the cycle without opening the door — The load is in the same unbalanced position each time. Every restart is another twenty minutes of the machine attempting something it has already refused.
• Calling an engineer before cleaning the filter — A blocked filter or a slow drain is the cause in a large proportion of no-spin call-outs, and it is a ten-minute owner job that costs nothing.
• Forcing the door to get at the load mid-cycle — The interlock is holding the door because the drum may still be moving or the water is above the door line. Forcing it breaks the latch, and on a machine full of water it floods the room.

If it doesn't work

Questions people ask