Inside a washing machine the drum and its outer tub hang on springs and dampers, free to move several centimetres in every direction. That is what lets the machine absorb an unbalanced load. In a truck it is the opposite of what you want, so the assembly is bolted rigidly to the cabinet for shipping. The bolts pass through the rear panel with spacer sleeves, and they are one of the last steps of an installation and the first step of a removal.
Taking Them Out
Do this before the machine is connected to anything and before it is pushed into its final position, so you are not working blind behind a live appliance. The machine should be unplugged, the supply taps still closed, and standing where you can reach the whole rear panel.
- Unscrew each bolt fully. They are usually long, and they will not come out until they are clear of the sleeve.
- Withdraw the bolt together with its plastic or rubber sleeve. Leaving the sleeve in place still restrains the assembly.
- Fit the supplied blanking caps into the empty holes. They keep the cabinet sealed against draughts, noise and water thrown up from the floor.
- Count what you removed against the installation instructions for your model, because the number of bolts differs between models. Missing one is a common outcome.
- Keep the bolts, sleeves and any spanner supplied. Tape them together and put them somewhere you will find them in six years.
Only then level the machine on all four feet, lock the feet, connect water and drain, and finally connect power.
What It Looks Like When They Are Still In
The symptom arrives at the first spin and it is unmistakable: a hard, metallic hammering, the whole cabinet moving, and a noise level nothing like the machine's normal running. Some machines will also fail to wash properly, because the drum cannot move as intended. Stop the cycle, and do not run it again until the rear panel has been checked. Running a machine with the suspension bolted solid loads the tub mountings, the bearing housing and the cabinet with forces they were never meant to take.
The Half Everyone Forgets
The bolts are not packaging. They are installation hardware, and they go back in whenever the machine is transported. That includes a move to a new house, a trip to a different floor of the same building, and being taken out for a kitchen refit. A machine carried on a dolly or laid in a van with the drum free to swing can arrive with the suspension damaged, the tub off its mountings or the counterweight fixings loosened, and none of that is obvious until the first spin in the new location.
If you no longer have the original bolts, they are available as spares against the model number, which is one more reason to keep a photograph of the plate.
Related Symptoms Worth Separating
Noise and movement on a new installation are usually transit bolts or levelling. Noise and movement that appear later on a machine that was quiet for years are a different question and usually point at the suspension dampers, the springs or the bearings. Knocking that arrived immediately after a house move is the classic sign of a machine transported without its bolts. Say which of those three descriptions fits when you book an Asko washer repair, because it separates an installation job from a mechanical one.