It won't agitate or spin with the door open, so you're on the right track. A typical problem in this area would be a bad switch, but since the door won't stay latched I would bet on the latch, so would try it while manually holding the door shut, either by pushing on it by hand or propping it with something of sufficient weight.

 

just to be clear - i am not seeing a physical latch. I guess i assumed that the latch was internally engaged by the magnet on the door activating the magnet on the front right corner of the open machine. am i missing something here?

i can hear a clicking when i close/open so i assume that is some sort of latch engaging, but i am able to open the door when i have the spin engaged (even though its not spinning) so i think what you are suggesting is that the latch mechanism is firing, but the actual latch is not engaging (maybe the piece is broken or bent or worn)... i'm just not sure where that actual latch is. i assume i'll have to take off the front panel to investigate this

thanks for your thought, and other thoguhts are appreciated

 

I said latch only because you said it's not locking, so thought maybe there was more to it than ones I have seen. But sounds like that's working the way I would have otherwise imagined, so would check the switch. You can check it with an ohmmeter, generally simple "open" or "closed", and the fact that it's clicking is not conclusive.

 

thanks - i got around to popping the face of the machine off and saw this

this black tube coming from the area of the latch and connecting to the bucket is severed. i'm not sure what it is - it does not appear to be electrical - but anything severed seems like it could be a suspect...

thoguhts?

and thanks again!

 

ok - back from kids' soccer practice and taking a real look and immediately realizing that the black tube in the pic above is just some sort of tether/shock absorber... open to other ideas

 

If you can hear the motor running, that doesn't sound right to me. I would expect an open lid or defective switch to shut everything down and stop the motor. It sounds more like you might have a broken belt or failed transmission.