Are you going on service calls without having pre-diagnosed the appliance and problem, figuring you'll just fix it on the fly?

Unfortunately, those care-free, cowboy days of appliance repair are gone. With today's computer-controlled appliances, if you don't walk into the house with a game plan already in mind, you're gonna look like Bubba the Parts Changing Monkey instead of a Master Samurai Tech who will inspire customer loyalty and referrals.

You want to be that master tech, right? That’s what the Samurai Tech Academy is here for. Watch and learn the technique of a master. You'll dramatically increase both your first call complete (FCC) rate AND customer satisfaction. Both of these combined means increased profitability for tech owner/operators or increased compensation for tech employees.

This presentation is just one of the many expert appliance repair techniques we teach at the Samurai Tech Academy to help you become a Master Samurai Tech and increase both customer satisfaction and profitability through increased FCC rates.

If you have any questions about the Samurai Tech Academy that aren't answered on our FAQ page, please contact us by phone or email.

Read about our current offerings of online appliance repair courses. Take our sample course to get a feel for what it's like to learn appliance repair online at the Samurai Tech Academy. Finally, enroll in the course or courses of your choice.

Schematic diagrams are the go-to technical document when troubleshooting any appliance. Every professional technician should be fluent in reading schematics and using them to troubleshoot. But the reality is that most techs don't use schematics, either because they can't read them or they don't understand how to apply them to the actual appliance they're working on. Unless you're using the schematic to formulate your troubleshooting strategy, you're wasting time and incurring liability from moving an appliance when you might not need to. You're also guaranteeing that you will be obsolete as an appliance tech in the very near future.

This video reveals the elegant power of having Schematic Magic work for you:

You can do this, too! Learn how in the Fundamentals of Appliance Repair training course.

The point of the Fundamentals course is to teach you troubleshooting skills, NOT disassembly and parts changing skills. The appliance repair trade is full of guys who know how to disassemble an appliance and change a part but have no idea how to actually troubleshoot and diagnose what’s going on with the appliance. This is especially true if it’s a complicated circuit or involves a computer control board.

This is exactly the knowledge gap that the Fundamentals course is meant to address.

You can get disassembly and parts changing information anywhere. There are lots of YouTube videos out there that show you how to take stuff apart and put it back together. The service manuals themselves have lots of disassembly information. No need to pay for a training course to show you what you can readily find for free! At the Samurai Tech Academy you are going to build the troubleshooting and diagnostic skills you need to stand out from the crowd.

Just got back from an excellent United Servicers Association (USA) regional training session (RSTI) in Boston, MA. If you’re not taking advantage of the RSTI near you, you might as well give yourself a lobotomy. Whirlpool Corporation was one of the manufacturers participating in the training conference. Dave Shertzer, from Whirlpool Corporation, was the instructor and presented a first-class training session on the new Whirlpool Alpha platform steam dryers and front-load washers.

If you can’t make it to the RSTI near you, you can benefit from my personal training notes from Dave’s session in Boston. Just download the PDF, copy and paste the password from the September 2014 USA e-newsletter (also at the USA blog) and you'll be able to read my training notes just like you were there!

May 14, 2014

In this journey into Total Appliance Enlightenment, Samurai Appliance Repair Man shows you how to troubleshoot a problem with a newer Whirlpool front load, direct drive washer (one of the new Alpha2 platform washers) that acts like it wants to start but won't. This one had a couple of curve balls:

1. It wouldn't even run any tests in diagnostic mode because the CCU (central control unit-- main microprocessor control board) won't run those tests if it thinks the door is open. So although I could enter diagnostic mode, I couldn't get the machine to to anything.
2. There were no error codes either in normal standby mode or in diagnostic mode.
3. The problem was intermittent (which I didn't show in the video for the sake of brevity and clarity). On the first trip out there for the same complaint (no start) I pulled the DCS3 connector off the CCU and tested the door switch and it tested fine. How did I know to do that? I explain that in the video. Anyway, the washer ran fine upon reconnecting the DCS3 harness. I figured it was a bad wire harness connection so I tightened up the tines in the harness connector, double checked proper operation and left. A week later, I got a call back for the same problem, no start.

Watch with shock and awe as I ruthlessly hunt down the miscreant part and guide you through the troubleshooting process both on the machine itself and on the schematic diagram, demonstrating killa troubleshooting techniques that every tech should know.

Okay, that's the solution to one scenario that could be preventing the washer motor from running. But what if you check that door switch and it's good? What else could be the problem? Excellent question, my fine, young apprentice! Let's look at that:

Building top-notch troubleshooting skills, reading schematics, and understanding the technology used in today's appliances are core teaching points in the Academy course, Fundamentals of Appliance Repair. All graduates of the Fundamentals course are well-versed in these skills.

And here's the Tech Bundle Care Package for these new Whirlpool Alpha2 front load washers that I promised you in the video. You'll need to register here at the Academy if you are one of the remaining few who haven't already (it's free!) and be logged in to download it.