Whirlpool washer fails to drain/spin

I can add relatively little to the excellent writeups already offered by others for lid switch replacement in this washer, but diagnosing the problem is not perfectly well outlined in all.

In my case, it was very straightforward. The starting symptom was failure of the washer to either drain or spin in any cycle (regular, delicate, hand wash) although it agitated fine.

A little thought revealed that both drain and spin depend on the lid being closed, no matter which cycle is selected. This tended to exclude a timer problem (which might be only on one of the cycles) or a pump problem (since the machine should still spin normally if you advance the timer manually). I can't guarantee this is perfect reasoning, but it worked here for me.

It therefore made sense to look for the lid switch, which is on the right side of the opening to the tub and is tripped by a nylon pin that sticks down from the right side of the lid.

Feeling just under the metal top plate of the washer at the right side of the tub opening, it was immediately obvious that the switch assembly was very loose. Its top completely broke free from the two screws holding it in as I felt for it. This left the switch, which still worked perfectly well, hanging in midair so the lid pin couldn't trip it. I suspect this is a fairly common mode of failure.

Seeing this allowed me a temporary fix for several days until I received the replacement part. I simply tied the switch closed using a nylon zip tie to make the machine think the lid was closed. Using a second tie, I reattached the whole switch assembly to the metal top plate so it didn't drop anywhere it shouldn't go. How to do this will be pretty obvious if you look at where the lid pin goes through the top plate.