Welp - My dishwasher crapped out

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

We noticed the dishwasher was running really silently this past Saturday. We called the repairman, who agreed with diagnosis that the wash motor had died. He also noticed that the control board was getting corroded from the steam, but it seemed to still be working for now.

Unfortunately, Whirlpool no longer makes this particular wash motor. (Boo!)

Fortunately, they may have one at his shop. (Yay!)

It’ll cost $200 to replace. (Well, that’s cheaper than a new dishwasher.)

Unfortunately, he gives the control board another six months. (Boo!)

He then said that if I wanted to replace both, I may as well drop the extra $50 and get a new washer. Mrs Magill and I are in agreement that we would rather not shell out $200 for a new wash motor, only to have the control board buy the farm in six months.

I guess I know what I’m doing this weekend… besides dishes.

2

If you’ve checked out the other new dishwasher recommendation threads on this board, including one I started, you’ll see Bosch is recommended above all others, which are mostly otherwise pieces of planned obsolescence these days. We bought a Bosch a year or two ago and have been very happy with its performance.

3

The new energy efficient dish washers take twice as long to run a load.

Not much you can do with a bad motor and dying control board.

Plan on the extra wash time. We start ours at bedtime. It has the whole night to do its job.

4

Remember to clean the filters.

5

My landlords replaced a malfunctioning old one (probably at least 20 years old, from what I could gather Googling the serial number) with a new one, and even though I suspect the new one is a “cheaper” model relative to the old one in the hierarchy, and does take longer to do a load, part of that is because I select the water-saving mode, and part of it is because it heats the water up to a higher temp than the hot water as it come in from the heater.

My electric bill did not change, and the new one is “better” in that it has a lot more choices of ways to run it, as well as ways to put in the dishes. It also has separate sprayers for the top and the bottom.

It’s like when, just a few years ago, I stopped driving a mid-line car that was 20 years old for a no-frills efficiency car that was brand new. The new car wasn’t as powerful in that it couldn’t go from 0 to 60 in a blink (although, I still beat out SUVs and older luxury cars from lights), and doesn’t have power windows, but it has a ton of things the old one didn’t have that are considered safety features, and kind of feel like luxury items to me, but come standard now, like a back-up camera, and a rear window defogger.

I could probably run my new dishwasher on settings that would make it do a load faster, but then it might show up on the electricity bill. It has a power-saver button, and I don’t know what it actually does (maintenance did not give me the owner’s manual, and I have not felt like Googling for one), and it’s set to on, which I assume makes it take longer, because the water pressure may be lower, and the spray arms may have less resistence, but the dishes look clean when it is done.

It also has a “rinse hold” option, and a “no heater” option, which means that if I don’t have a full load, but I want to rinse them in hot tap water, I can do that, and leave them for next day’s wash. Old one had no such options. That is probably a bit of an energy saver, and save detergent.

I splurge and buy those “pacs,” because for a long time, it was the boychik’s job to run the dishwasher, and when he was 8, we didn’t burden him with measuring soap. He just turned 16, and he is learning the settings on the new washer, but one thing at a time.

6

upvote

7

Our dishwasher crapped out about three years ago. Now it is just a thing in the kitchen that does not even hold/hide dishes.

The odd thing is, I’ve offered to get a new one a dozen times, and my spouse does not want one. I think she enjoys watching me do the dishes.

8

We settled on a Samsung top control dishwasher with aquablast 39 dBA.

It had very good reviews on a couple of sites. It also will open itself at the end of its cycle to allow steam to escape. The thing I like best about it is that 39 dBA noise rating. The old one was 57 dBA, which made turning it on at bedtime problematic - our bedroom is just off the kitchen, and a dishwasher that only makes about one quarter the noise is very attractive.

9

In any competitive situation, it’s important to accurately understand the other team’s motivations. Bravo for your insight. :wink:

10

This thread inspired me to look into dishwashers.

300 series Bosch front control 24 inch.

What if I just ordered it, and had it installed one day? “Whelp, there it is.”

11

I hear you. I’m stuck doing them, mostly because of my (highly accurate) observation that everyone else in this house is shit at handwashing dishes.

12

As someone who is allergic to manual labour and loves to see machines doing it whenever possible, I couldn’t live without a dishwasher. When mine became inoperative due to a broken latch assembly, my life was hell while waiting for the replacement part to arrive. While it’s true that no single item that a dishwasher cleans could not be done by hand quite easily, like a lot of things in life it’s the cumulative effect of all the little things that makes a big difference.

13

Some experiments work much better as thought experiments than as actual experiments. Just sayin’ :slight_smile:

Although if you can swing the dishwasher as the gift to yourself for Xmas, and get something even more costly and wonderful for your wife for the same Xmas, there’s a small chance she’ll let you live. Or if you’re really lucky, maybe even live it down.

14

As an adult, I didn’t have a dishwasher until Mrs Magill had gotten married, and I moved in with her.

I’d rather have a dishwasher, but I don’t need one.

15

While ours was inoperative, DH wanted to get some paper plates and plastic ware.