Washing Machine Leaving Brown (rust?) Stains

[bjstare]

Title pretty self explanatory. Washer is a newish (2016) Samsung front load. Model WF42H5000AW/A2. The last couple months it has been leaving brown streaks, presumably rust stains, on some of our clothes. Wife says it happens intermittently.

I took a look inside the gasket, found it's got some rusty looking residue in it... is this the cause of the stains, or the effect of something else (both?)? The rust coloured residue must be coming from somewhere. I moved the drum around a bunch, and nothing seems loose or broken. Washing machine functions fine otherwise. Running the self clean cycle with vinegar, but I'm assuming this won't actually fix the source of the problem.

Anyone have words of wisdom? Hoping I don't need to buy a new washing machine to replace one that's only a couple years old.

(try and ignore how the skin on my index finger looks like a loose glove for some reason... not sure how I managed that)

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[ThePenIsMightier]

You're using Pure Cycle (TM) ?
Run that with half of an Affresh tablet in there and make sure you run hot water nearby that outlet prior to starting so it receives the hottest water (warm up its lines).
Repeat.
Clean the gasket area out with a rag soaked in vinegar before.
Run that stupid PureCycle cleaning cycle monthly in the future. Use Affresh with it every couple months.

[revelations]

you might have lost something made of iron in there.... check the filters

[bjstare]

Already checked the filter, it was gross but nothing metal in it. Did the self clean with vinegar. Still seems to be leaving marks on the latest load we did. Gonna try affresh next, see if it helps. I don't have high hopes though. Next decision will be whether I start taking it apart to try and find rusty/broken parts or just toss it and buy a new one.

[Jeeper1986]

im pretty sure rust doesn't grow on rubber, you need to to a tub clean every mouth on these front loader machines,,, I just found that out after 6 years of not doing it lol but mine doesn't have this issue but it started to make the laundry kinda smelly now the issue is gone after a tub clean cycle, normally takes about 1.15 hrs

[ExtraSlow]

im pretty sure rust doesn't grow on rubber, you need to to a tub clean every mouth on these front loader machines,,, I just found that out after 6 years of not doing it lol but mine doesn't have this issue but it started to make the laundry kinda smelly now the issue is gone after a tub clean cycle, normally takes about 1.15 hrs

Regular cleaning cycles are a good idea. As is emptying out the "sock trap" thing. I don't know what it's called, but every time I open mine it has a kids sock or two in it.

[bjstare]

Yeah, I'm aware rust doesn't grow on rubber haha. And I've run the cleaning cycle with vinegar, and with an affresh tablet. My cleaning cycle takes 4h fwiw.

Really not impressed with this. I'll probably try and take it apart and see what I can find before buying a new one.

[Mitsu3000gt]

You leave the door open all the time when not in use, right? If the water is trapped behind the seal though that probably won't matter.

[Perfect Dark]

Regular cleaning cycles are a good idea. As is emptying out the "sock trap" thing. I don't know what it's called, but every time I open mine it has a kids sock or two in it.

I was having an issue where the water wasn't draining properly in my washing machine....found out about the sock trap on a Youtube video and sure enough there was one plugging things up haha.

[ExtraSlow]

I was having an issue where the water wasn't draining properly in my washing machine....found out about the sock trap on a Youtube video and sure enough there was one plugging things up haha.

Weirdly, mine seems to drain pretty well even with sock stuck in there pretty much all the time.

[bjstare]

You leave the door open all the time when not in use, right? If the water is trapped behind the seal though that probably won't matter.

Yup, door is always left open.

[revelations]

Dummy check then - before going in too deep into the unit - look at the hot/cold hoses running into the unit, ie check they arent (somehow, remotely) the culprit.

Some of them have a metal mesh filter thingy that can go bad.

[bjstare]

Yeah I'm currently running another cycle with Affresh (cause why not give it a shot), but after that's done I decided I'm going to start with taking apart the easy parts (i.e. seal and hoses).

[masoncgy]

Pull out and remove the soap dispenser and check in there... sometimes you get quite a build up of detergent in behind there that will deteriorate and chunks of this get into the wash and leave streaks. I dealt with this in a front loader recently... however, never could get it completely cleaned up so just tossed the machine and bought a new one instead. I'd rather not have to worry about the clothing or having to re-wash loads, etc.

[revelations]

A CLR cleaning run can help remove rust stains too. Even if nothing found, you may have had something dissolve over time and coated the interior (outer shell) drum with scale/rust that is slowly leaching away.

[Swank]

Does the rust wash out or is it ruining clothes with permanent staining? I had something almost identical happen with our old washer however it didn't start happening until after washing a load of a new brown king sized sheet set. For a few months a load would randomly end up stained with brown streaks, fortunately it usually picked on towel loads or other sheets, I think only one garment was ever ruined. I never was able to determine if it was rust or brown dye that bled out from the sheets getting stuck in some reservoir, we ended up just replacing the machine when we found it was leaking a bit too.