Dishwasher Repairs: 2010-03-25
So we have this 2.5 year-old Kenmore dishwasher built in under a counter in the kitchen. For nearly a year now, we’ve been unhappy with its performance. The unit fills okay, and while running, we hear lots of water sloshing around for the entire run period of each part of the cycle (rinse, wash, rinse, rinse again). Each time it fills, the water sounds like it’s circulating well, the whole time, until the system pumps it out. Yet the dishes aren’t as clean as we’d prefer.
Our complaints are:
- Around a quarter of the dishes in each load remain quite dirty after even the heaviest duty pots-and-pans cycle ends.
- More often than not, the glasses come out cloudy; not crystal clear.
We contracted a repairman to investigate what might be the matter. He did the following:
- Removed the jet arm and verified that all openings in it were clear.
- Removed some other pieces underneath the jet arm pedestal and verified that all channels were open.
- However, he did find that some food was clogging a strainer that filters the recirculating water. He removed the debris.
But we still get dirty dishes.
I know about rinsing plates, bowls, and pots off before dish-washing them. We do. In fact, I can accept the occasional dirty plate. But the cloudiness on the glasses? Not so much. It’s as though the rinse agent dispenser doesn’t dispense. I suppose I could manually verify this by pouring in some agent by hand when the rinse cycle begins. Any appliance repairmen out there who know how to test the rinse agent dispenser on a Kenmore?
The only other possible problem I can think of is that some-thing’s wrong with the water pump, and that though it sounds like copious amounts of water are being hurled at the dishes in there, perhaps it’s not pumping as strongly as it should.
I really hope we don’t have to replace this thing already; this would makd three dishwashers in five years. Grrrrrrrr. At $500 a pop, you want to avoid frequently replacing these if you can.
I’ll keep you posted on our progress with resolving this one.
April 22nd, 2010 at 11:06 am
We discovered that the rinse agent compartment was near empty. Upon filling it back up, the dishwasher leaves dishes much cleaner, for the most part. However, glasses placed in the center of the top rack aren’t cleaned as thoroughly as those positioned closer to the outer edges. We’ll keep this in mind when loading the dirty dishes in the future.