Front load washer

Yay! I just fixed mine about five minutes ago. After pulling my daughter's sock out of the pump yet once again, my washer would not start either. Sometimes I would hear what sounded like the drain pump kicking on but it would never get past just lighting up and never gave me an error message.

I checked the terminals like zeusfaber said, but it wasn't getting far enough along in the cycle to actuate the intake valves. I knew the intake side of the drain pump was clear as I'd just fixed that, so I decided to check the output side (grey hose that drains into the wall). Using my wet/dry vac I suctioned out the hose and the outlet on the back of the washer. For whatever reason, this did it. My washer works again.

Easy things first: Check the water hoses are all connected, the taps are on, and that the hoses aren't kinked. Everything after that involves poking around live terminals. If you aren't happy doing this, then don't be ashamed to call someone else in. Turn the power off. Remove the top panel from the machine. On the inside of the back panel near the top, you will find the fill valves (on a few machines, there is only the one). These are the items that the fill hoses you checked a minute ago plug into. Follow the hoses inside the machine from the soap dispenser back to the valves to identify which valve is the one which washes soap into the machine at the very start of the cycle. On the top of this valve are two terminals. Attach the leads of a multimeter to these, and select an ac volts range that will stand seeing mains voltage. (If you haven't got a multimeter, suggest you buy a cheap one from the local hardware shop - it will come in handy for all sorts of things once you have it). Turn the machine on and start a wash cycle. If the meter shows mains voltage across the terminals of the valve, and yet no water is flowing into the machine, you need to replace the valve. This is a cheap part to buy, and not difficult to do yourself. IF you don't find any volts across the valve, it's worth trying the other valves to make sure you haven't got the wrong one, but then it's beginning to look like a controller problem - at which point it's worth paying someone else to come in and look at it: Once expensive parts get involved, you either need to be sure you know what's broken, or be sure you can take unneeded, but briefly installed replacement parts back. Before removing your meter leads, don't forget to turn the power off. A.