LG Dryer DLG0332W Heating Issue

[aseahb]

I think I've got a deceptive repair man on my hands and wanted to get a second opinion, so to speak. I am having issues with my LG DLG0332W dryer only heating sporadically, though it does light sometimes. It sometimes heats up right away, sometimes not until half way through a cycle, and sometimes not at all. It seems the longer it has been running (even cold) the less likely it is to light.

When running it with the front panel removed, I see the ignitor is lighting up, though it seems to dim too quickly sometimes and stay lit longer others.

Normally I would repair this myself, but since LG parts are not readily available, I decided I'd have an LG authorized repair man take a look in hopes he'd have in stock whichever part is bad, if that were the case. He came out and *without even opening the dryer or turning it on* immediately said I have a bad gas valve and already had the invoice written out. Yeah right. So I asked him if he was even going to open it up and test it or anything and he begrudgingly did. I watched him place his OHM meter on Valve 1 and got a reading of 1.8 and that was all he did, no other testing at all. He told me this is way too high and should be well below 1.0. Because of his attitude and unwillingness to evaluate anything else in the dryer, I told him I would not be authorizing repair and sent him on his way.

In reading the service manual, it indicates the following:
When measuring terminal resistance on “Valve 1”,
“Valve 2”, Value is more than1.5 ~ 2.5kΩ?
(Measure after Off )
If the answer to this is YES, it indicates to replace the gas valve. If NO, it indicates the Harness and Controller.

So if he read 1.8, that seems to be well within acceptable range, or am I totally missing the mark here? He himself stated that replacing the valve may not fix the whole problem and I may need a new board as well, but he wouldn't know that until he changed the valve, he said there was no way to tell which was the problem. Sounds to me like he does not have a copy of the service manual... even I with my minimal experience can see that it shows how to test each.

Can someone shed some light on this for me? I am tempted to order a new ignitor and just change it out in hopes that's the problem, since it's a cheap part and will probably go out eventually anyways.

[JWWebster]

A lot of them gas valves is being replaced on them machines lately, part # 5221EL2002A

[aseahb]

But my question is, the reading he got on the test does not seem to indicate that there is anything wrong with the gas valve, does it?

[Repair-man]

Here's the problem with gas valves in general...they all have 2 or 3 coils which operate the valve. These solenoid coils have very delicate windings in them, about the size of a human hair (saw one in half if you don't believe me). When the coil fails, there is a minute hot spot in one of the filaments inside the coil. It may make intermittent contact the first few ignitions but open circuit after that.

Most reputable brands have easy to change coils instead of forcing you to buy the whole valve. Welcome to LG. Life sux.


Gas Valve Assembly Part # 5221EL2002A

[aseahb]

Yeah, this is my first and last LG for sure. Sticking with Kenmore where at least I can go down the street and buy parts for it.

Thanks for the explanation of the coils, so if this was the issue, what would I look for diagnostically? How would I test for that in other words?

[Repair-man]

The way we do it is to clip our meter leads at the valve terminals and put the dryer back together with the leads tucked between the front panel and the cabinet so we can actually monitor the voltage to the valve during operation. After watching the meter during the various heat cycles, we can tell whether the valve is getting power or not when the discrepancy occurs. Make sense?

[MajorApp]

 Watch out for KENMORE appliances made by LG.