My whirlpool top loading washer has a pullout knob and circular indicator dial on the timer. The dial has 3 cycles: Permanent Press, Knits/Gentle, and Regular. Each cycle beginnings with a fill and agitate region (includes high and low speed agitation portions of varying lengths depending on the cycle), then a drain and rinse region, then a spin and rinse region. In the drain and rinse region is a dot that you can turn to after a cycle is done to get an extra rinse and spin for soapy or extra dirty loads. The spin region may include high and low speed spins with spray rinse or full rinse sections depending on the cycle.
Now when we turn it on at any cycle it fills and goes into a high speed agitation, which it continues through the whole cycle until it turns off at the end. The indicator knob on the timer advances but there are no changes in the washing action.
However, after it stops at the end of the cycle, you can advance the timer knob to a spin region on any of the cycles and it will drain and spin through the spin cycle until turning off. But it doesn’t go through any intermediate spray and rinses, etc.
When the basket is empty of water you can also turn the timer knob to any one of the dots on the cycles and it will fill and agitate and eventurally turn off, but it never spins. Again the knob advances through the cycle but nothing else happens.
From what I have been reading in the answers, the best indicator of a timer problem is the spin not working in just one of the cycles. In my case the same thing happens in all of the cycles. And in all of the cycles I can get it to spin after completing a whole cycle, but the timer won’t activate any of the intermediate variations.
