Bought a washer 4 months ago because my old one was a decade old and had a smell that wouldn't go away. Now, 4 months later, I'm getting the same smell in my washer. I've bleached it, used vinegar, wiped everything out. Is it possible there's a problem in the pipes? Could there be something that is connected to a bad shutoff valve at an upstairs toilet?

Two or three years ago my refrigerator died. I won't go into the entire story but I ended up with a brand new Whirlpool model WRF560SEYM French door model with water (only) in the door. It was a brand new model so there wasn't any user feedback available. Well, there is now a whole lot of user feedback and most of it is pretty bad. My own experiences are that the water dispenser is basically useless as the first six to eight ounces is at room temperature. The temperature settings, supposed to be digital, are not in degrees but in "snowflakes" (one through five) yet the temperature span at any particular setting can be as large as eight degrees or maybe more. Getting the refrigerator section to hold at 35-38 degrees is impossible. I haven't spent anywhere near as much time measuring the freezer section but I doubt it is any better. The biggest problem with the water dispenser is that the supply water first goes to an "isolation" solenoid valve and then to the internal water filter located in the refrigerator section. It then exits the box, goes down about a foot or so and re-enters the box to a heat exchanger to cool the water. From the heat exchanger it again exits the box and then goes to the lower left corner into a dual-outlet/dual coil solenoid valve assembly. When the water dispenser is activated both the isolation valve and the water dispenser valve are opened allowing the water to travel through the filter, through the heat exchanger, outside the box through the dual valve assembly and then through an external tube back up to the top of the box where it re-enters the refrigeration chamber and eventually comes into the door dispenser. For the icemaker it does the same only through the other section of the dual valve and then into the icemaker itself. This means that the pre-cooled water sits in the external piping and regains the ambient temperature. A few months ago I noticed that I would periodically get a puddle of water on the floor at the left rear corner of the unit. After some observations I found out that it was when the icemaker refilled that it leaked. Not wanting to futz with it at the time I simply turned the icemaker off by raising the bail on the unit. Although it was a pain, I used old fashioned ice cube trays for the next couple of months. About two weeks ago I again tried the icemaker just to see if maybe it had fixed itself. It seemed okay for a few days and then the puddle re-appeared. Finally, a few days ago I had had enough and decided to get to the bottom of it. I got my 1/4 inch socket set and then got down on the floor, no easy task for me. I removed the cardboard cover and didn't see anything obvious so I energized the icemaker. Then I saw it, the push-in hose connection on the icemaker fill valve section of the dual solenoid valve was spraying when energized. Well, to shorten the story, I did everything I could think of to get it to seal but to no avail. I thought, "Why not eliminate the silly filter, heat exchanger and water dispenser and just pipe the outlet of the isolation valve directly to the ice maker?" I'll add here that I never wanted the filter unit as I have a charcoal filter under my sink that I have connected to the refrigerator making the internal filter redundant. So I make the tubing changes and fire it up. It then decides to leak at the elbow connection through the back wall to the icemaker. But I let that go for a couple of ice cycles and then discover that it is obviously filling too high in the icemaker mold as it splashes water onto the ice in the storage bin, melting it slightly and then fusing into a solid ice mass. I know how to fix this, I need to orifice the water flow to decrease the outlet pressure and flow rate. BUT, I still have the very real problem of the wildly fluctuating temperatures. I want to keep my refrigerator section between about 35 and 39 degrees. The temperature in the refrigerator section is controlled by a shutter/damper in the air passage from the freezer section and the freezer temperature is controlled by thermostat controlling the compressor. The down side is that the entire unit is controlled by an electronic board called a Minotaur board. I have determined all the functions of this board and I want to eliminate it. I have some industrial relays that will use either thermocouple or RTD inputs and control to VERY close numbers that I want to use to control the air duct damper (and evaporator fan) as well as the compressor itself. I am also thinking seriously about adding a fan or two inside the refrigerator compartment as many of the complaints I have read were concerning uneven temperatures throughout the compartment. Now here is my question. I need to remove the plastic inner liner so I can completely remove the water filter unit, see if I can re-route the water dispenser tubing completely inside the compartment (solving the room temperature dispensing problem) as well as running the wiring for the thermocouples or RTDs. I see a screw in the side of the water filter cover but I don't seem to be able to do any more than loosen it and it does nothing as far as loosening the filter assembly or even the cover. I did find the wiring diagram and service notes when I removed the cardboard back panel but i can find NOTHING as far as an actual service manual on the Internet. Any help on this part is greatly appreciated. Again, the model number is (Whirlpool) WRF560SEYM