A few years ago, when there were no tumblers availabe yet in the US
market, I had imported a French-made washing machine (Brandt) to the US
for energy and space-saving purposes. The machine was designed to work
in 220V/50hz and N. America has 110V/60hz. And as a mechanical
engineer, I was naive to think that as long as I had a 220V outlet in
my house, the worst scenario would only be that the machine runs a
little faster (20%) which amounts to 24 minutes in a 120-min wash
cycle.

Well, as it turned out, the machine runs a lot faster. The timing knob
finished a 120-min cycle in something like 6 minutes. The wash, drain,
rinse and spin all were cut short within each function. To this day, I
am still puzzled and not able to solve the problem. If anyone could
shed any light on this subject, I would greatly appreciate it.

The only other possible cause would be a defective timer which could
have been assembled with fewer gear sets than ought to be. But without
knowing for sure the root of the problem, it doesn't make sense for me
to invest another $100 to buy a timer from oversea with no English
service manual available.