door lock mechanism for hotpoint washing machine

Hi,

I have a hotpoint aquarius washing machine which is giving a fault, the door locked light is flashing, which indicates that the door is not locked.

The actual door was locking fine, no problems here but intermittently the machine was stopping mid-cycle or at the beginning of a cycle and after a number of tries it would work until two days ago when it has stopped altogether.

I took out the door mechanism and could see that the spring was not making the contacts when pushed so I was satisfied I found the problem, so I replaced the complete door mechanism with the exact same type which I got from a local workshop/wholesaler and it is locking fine as usual but the door locked light is still flashing.

I traced the cables to a pcb board at the front of the machine and off-hand it looks o.k but there was slight blackening on a little transformer but it looks o.k. continuity all over the tracks.

I brought the pcb to the same local workshop/wholesaler to be replaced and the guy there told me that if its not the door mechanism it probably blew the "programme switch",(this is before the pcb apparantely), he said this part cannot be got.... only from hotpoint themselves.

The guy telling me this is an appliance technician and I think he's not giving away info I dont see how a little door lock would take out a programme board( maybe blow something on the pcb alright)

I am now checking the connections on the supposedly new doorlock, there is 230v coming to it(I cant check it live) but when I move the spring back while its disconnected Im not getting continuity between any of the connections, but it has three wires.

So anyone out there know how do I test this switch when its dead, its a metalflex door lock? I would have have imagined it would just be a case of two wires making and breaking, but theres three wires one is neutral.

Or any advise on this problem in general, any help is greatly appreciated as I cant fork out 2 or 300 hundred on a new one and am too stubborn at this stage to get an appliance guy cos I am an electrician.

Thanks.