LG repairs in Shellharbour

Check the paperwork first

We would rather lose the job than take your money for something somebody else should be paying for.

LG has, at various points and on various models, backed the motor in its washing machines and the compressor in its fridges with cover running considerably longer than the rest of the appliance. Terms change by model and by year, so we cannot tell you what yours has, but the pattern is common enough that it is worth ten minutes with the receipt drawer before you book a repairer.

The same logic applies to an ordinary factory warranty that has not yet expired. We work for ourselves rather than for LG, and calling us to a machine the manufacturer is still standing behind can undo that arrangement. If you are inside that window, LG's own channel is the right one.

After it lapses there is nothing left to forfeit, and that is precisely the point at which an independent starts being useful to you.

Direct drive moves the failure somewhere else

LG's washers connect the motor straight to the drum instead of running a belt to it. Fewer moving parts, less noise, and one genuine consequence: the parts that used to fail are gone, so the parts that fail now are different ones.

In practice the motors themselves are rarely the problem. What we attend are the things around them — the large bolt securing the rotor working loose, and the sensor that tells the control board where the drum is sitting. Both produce symptoms that look, to anyone standing in front of the machine, exactly like a motor that has died.

That is the practical reason to have it diagnosed rather than acted on. A motor is an expensive assumption to be wrong about.

The two codes that usually cost nothing

Fill and drain complaints dominate the LG calls we take, and a decent share of them clear without a part.

A drain complaint means water did not leave in the time the machine allowed for it. Start at the pump filter — small hinged flap, bottom front — and put a towel down before you open it, because the drum is still holding whatever did not go out. Coins, hair clips and the occasional underwire live there.

A fill complaint means water has not arrived. Check the tap is fully open, then the small filter screen in the inlet where the hose meets the machine — around the lake that screen picks up sediment and scale steadily.

If both of those are clear and it still complains, then it is worth a visit. Half the time it doesn't get that far.

Fridges: the one worth paying to diagnose properly

The inverter and linear-compressor fridges are the exception to everything above, and they need saying carefully.

When one of these runs but never gets properly cold, the possible causes span an enormous price range — from a fan or sensor at one end to a sealed-system fault at the other. There is no way to tell from the symptom, and there is no way to tell from the front panel.

This is the fault where a proper diagnosis earns its keep. Guessing at the cheap end wastes a callout; assuming the expensive end writes off a fridge that had a twenty-dollar problem. Our page on fridges that run and run covers the checks that are worth doing yourself first, and the coil cleaning that fixes a surprising number of them near the water.

What we charge to come and look

The $125 assessment covers the visit and the diagnosis. It is payable whether or not you go ahead, because it pays for the technician's time either way. If you do go ahead, the repair price comes first and the work is warranted.