whirlpool washer

I have a whirlpool washer LSR9434pq0 it fills normally and agitates/washes OK. Then when you think it is spinning it is really not. It is making a running noise but not spinning. If you lift the lid the clothes are very wet, like maybe it pumped out. When you close the lid it will spin out properly and then go into the rinse cycle. After the rinse cycle it does the same thing, the clothes are sitting in the machine very wet. If you lift the lid and close it , the machine starts again and will spin forever. I have to manually push the timer in to shut it off. Very seldom, one out of ten times will it shut off my itself. I'm thinking of replacing the timer. My wife had a serviceman come and he replaced the lid switch for $130.00. Why would opening and closing the lid cause it to work? Thanks.

You are very observant. The gearcase in your "direct drive" machine needs a pause to go from drain to spin. What you are hearing is the machine draining but not spinning. When you lift the lid, it turns the motor off, giving the gearcase a pause and forces it into spin. Normally, the timer is what does this, but any action which turns the motor off momentarily will do it to, such as turning the machine off at the timer, or even unplugging it.

Your post suggests two problems, which may be the same problem looking at it from a different angle. Let me see if I have this straight. If your machine goes into a drain mode but never gets a momentary pause from the timer, then you would replace the timer to fix the problem. I should add that this is a highly exotic problem. Very few timers simply miss the pause function, but it is possible.

You suggest a second problem, that of not advancing to off. If this is so, then a new timer would fix your problem is well.

I am going to add two things here. One, is that a lid switch replacement is for a specific reason, and I am thinking your tech didn't know what he was doing. Your symptom would have been "does not drain or spin" for the lid switch to need to be replaced. The second is that it is possible for the gearcase to not go into spin mode even when it gets the pause. If this is the case, then you have another problem with various causes. You need to listen to the machine during drain, and see if it gets its pause. But I am guessing this is not your problem.

Here is a rundown of the cycles:

Fill Agitate pause Neutral drain pause spin and drain pause fill agitate pause neutral drain pause spin and drain advance to off