Whirlpool Dishwasher Leaving Bits of Food on Dishes

This was an interesting one that I eventually figured out today. Customer complaint was that her dishes were not getting clean she also mentioned that her rinse agent dispenser was not emptying – she never had to fill it as it was always full. She mentioned this as an aside, but her main complaint was the washing issue.

As a tech, sometimes the solution is in the details … it’s the little inconsequential stuff that can put you on the right track when working out a problem like this. This is why the best diagnostic tool in your kit is often your ears. It took me a long time to learn to close my mouth in customers kitchens and just listen … let him/her talk out the problem they are experiencing. Sometimes you have to wade through a lot of gunk to get to the good stuff … lol, but more often than not, the solution is in the description of the problem. In this case, the customer mentioned the rinse agent as she was going out the door. Thanks goodness she did as this is what I found:

httpvh://youtu.be/G5aqMvREfDE

So – for this one, the soap and rinse agent dispenser is activated 100% of the time when ever the door is shut on this dishwasher.

This creates two issues:

1. The dishes are not getting clean or dry.
2. There is a potential fire hazard here – if that door stayed shut long enough and the wax motor stayed energized long enough, it could begin to overheat and melt down. As it was, it was too hot to hold my finger on for longer than a second or two and that was just after 10 minutes of activation. Imagine how hot it would be after being activated overnight!

I will replace the electronic control on this one and verify that the dispenser is working normally again. If anything further shows up, I’ll report as an edit here.