I thought it would be worth asking the 'hive mind' what else I could do before I turn my back and walk away from this WU404 Maytag JetClean dishwasher....
Recall this dishwasher was "included AS IS and not working" when we bought the house in St-Lib back in August of 2015. It was original to the house, a 1988 or 1989 model and I've done a few repairs to it over the years. When we moved in the detergent cup trip mechanism was shot and it was scaled up to all hell from years of use with horrible hard H2O. I managed to get the machine working reasonably well after a detergent cup transplant and a damn good cleaning of the wash arms and microfilter. More recently, the water valve (already a replacement) gave up on me and was flooding the tub. No problem - got that swapped out in a jiffy and again, all seemed fine.
The latest issue cropped up in November of last year. I noticed that plates, in particular those loaded on the left hand side of the rack, had finely ground food residue on the rear of them. I didn't give it much thought because I had my own plate full emptying out my 93-year-old father's old apartment after he moved to a managed-care facility and I have a fabulous 1962 KDS54 in the kitchen in addition to the 'Tag.
Last week, I took the wash arms and pump filter apart again and cleaned them; not much gunk in them and the load of dishes I ran through seemed to clean just fine. I ran the machine last night and not only did I have the fine residue on the plates on the left side of the upper rack, it seems that the detergent didn't "wash out" of the dispensers...
The question I have to ask myself is, "Is it time to give up?" My Hubby, Chris, just loves this dishwasher (probably 'cause it's not a top-loader...LOL) I suspect that either there isn't enough water getting into the machine or the pump is just not moving water around as vigourously as it should.
The water supply lines to the dishwasher got changed in 2016 when we had a new tile floor put into the kitchen (as a 'future-proofing' move for the eventual replacement of this machine). Could the new water valve that I put in be providing too low a flow? If so, why did it take over 6 months for this problem to crop up?
Or could the main pump be just plain worn out? The machine has not had an easy life - it shows signs of hard use and I am sure the previous owners didn't handle this dishwasher with kid gloves...
I just _happen_ to have a restored 1963 Whirlpool SKU70 dishwasher patiently waiting in my basement in St-Liboire and it just _happens_ to be turquoise to match my range and refrigerator.... I also have a 1963 GE SD203 that I have never used in storage down in Ogden, also turquoise.... So you can see what direction I am leaning in... LOL
But for Hubby's sake, is there anything I can do with the Maytag machine??
(apologies if the pictures appear sideways, they were taken on my phone)
[this post was last edited: 1/12/2021-10:08]
Recall this dishwasher was "included AS IS and not working" when we bought the house in St-Lib back in August of 2015. It was original to the house, a 1988 or 1989 model and I've done a few repairs to it over the years. When we moved in the detergent cup trip mechanism was shot and it was scaled up to all hell from years of use with horrible hard H2O. I managed to get the machine working reasonably well after a detergent cup transplant and a damn good cleaning of the wash arms and microfilter. More recently, the water valve (already a replacement) gave up on me and was flooding the tub. No problem - got that swapped out in a jiffy and again, all seemed fine.
The latest issue cropped up in November of last year. I noticed that plates, in particular those loaded on the left hand side of the rack, had finely ground food residue on the rear of them. I didn't give it much thought because I had my own plate full emptying out my 93-year-old father's old apartment after he moved to a managed-care facility and I have a fabulous 1962 KDS54 in the kitchen in addition to the 'Tag.
Last week, I took the wash arms and pump filter apart again and cleaned them; not much gunk in them and the load of dishes I ran through seemed to clean just fine. I ran the machine last night and not only did I have the fine residue on the plates on the left side of the upper rack, it seems that the detergent didn't "wash out" of the dispensers...
The question I have to ask myself is, "Is it time to give up?" My Hubby, Chris, just loves this dishwasher (probably 'cause it's not a top-loader...LOL) I suspect that either there isn't enough water getting into the machine or the pump is just not moving water around as vigourously as it should.
The water supply lines to the dishwasher got changed in 2016 when we had a new tile floor put into the kitchen (as a 'future-proofing' move for the eventual replacement of this machine). Could the new water valve that I put in be providing too low a flow? If so, why did it take over 6 months for this problem to crop up?
Or could the main pump be just plain worn out? The machine has not had an easy life - it shows signs of hard use and I am sure the previous owners didn't handle this dishwasher with kid gloves...
I just _happen_ to have a restored 1963 Whirlpool SKU70 dishwasher patiently waiting in my basement in St-Liboire and it just _happens_ to be turquoise to match my range and refrigerator.... I also have a 1963 GE SD203 that I have never used in storage down in Ogden, also turquoise.... So you can see what direction I am leaning in... LOL
But for Hubby's sake, is there anything I can do with the Maytag machine??
(apologies if the pictures appear sideways, they were taken on my phone)
[this post was last edited: 1/12/2021-10:08]
