Today I took the dryer apart to see if I could fix it. While there was a lot of lint on places in the dryer, the exhaust was clean. The heater element works and the dryer gets plenty hot. Plenty of air is circulating. The problem is the dryer turns off before the load is dry.

I went looking for a moisture sensor. Some dryers have a sensor in the exhaust air stream that determines how much moisture is in the air and when that gets to a certain point, the dryer control unit decides that the load is dry enough and proceeds to the next stage which, depending on settings, might be a cool-down stage or shut off and buzz.

Other dryers have a couple of metal strips inside the dryer which, if the clothes are still wet, make an electrical contact. If, after a period of time, the electrical contact is not made, the dryer advances to the next stage.

There doesn’t seem to be any metal strips inside the dryer. The parts diagram doesn’t list a moisture sensor. So what to do next?

On the web page for Sears Parts Direct is a button labeled, “Talk to a Parts Specialist”. I clicked on the button.

A window came up and asked for my phone number along with a button that scheduled the phone call now or sometime in the future. I selected “now” and my phone immediately rang and I was connected to a call center. Based on the accent, the call center was probably in the Philippines.

I explained my problem and asked which part needs to be replaced.

“I’m not qualified to give technical advice,” she responded.

“Well, what do you do as a parts specialist?” I asked. She replied, “If you tell me what part number you need, I can order it for you.” Singularly unhelpful as, if I knew the part number, I can order it online from the web page and don’t need to talk to anyone. She offered to connect me to someone for technical support, though, and I said, “Connect me.”

The call transferred somewhere else, but still with the same accent. I explained my problem again. “I’m not qualified to give technical advice,” she responded. After some discussion it was clear that nowhere in the Sears call center customer support operations was technical support available.

She referred me to managemyhome.com. I went there. On the front page was a box with a button: Ask a question. At the bottom of the page it said that managemyhome.com is brought to me by Sears.

So, I typed in my question (limited to about a hundred characters) in the box labeled “Ask us your toughest question. We can handle it”, and pressed the “Ask It” button. The next page displayed asked me to sign in or sign up if not already registered. I went through the registration process which included a captcha as well as an email response process. But, when I finally got logged in, the question disappeared. I had to re-enter the question, limited to 100 characters.

Pressing the button brought up another page with several more boxes to fill in. That submitted the question. I’m supposed to get an answer in 72 hours, not counting weekends and holidays.

Is all this intended to force me to call for an authorized repair person?

It’s time to go put the dryer back together again.