Rather than call a repairman, I looked on line to get a replacement part. AppliancePartsPros.com had clear diagrams of the washer's major subassemblies from which it was easy to identify the broken baffle. AppliancePartsPros.com offered the part at the lowest price I could find online. That price seemed very high for a simple piece of plastic, but I know no alternative way to fix the problem. i ordered the part. It came in a couple of days when I was not home. My wife told me by phone that the part had come and I suggested she should try to install it. She installed the baffle in a few minutes and now the washer works perfectly again. It took a bit longer to find and order the part on line than it took to install the part. Whirlpool should certainly engineer more durable baffles, but this is no fault of AppliancePartsPros.com.