Bosch 800-Series Dishwasher - No water fill after lightning storm?

[lowefficiency]

Hey guys, we had a big storm a few days back with some significant lightning activity, and since then, our two-year-old 800-series Bosch dishwasher (SHXN8U55UC/07) no longer fills with water.

When starting a cycle, the display and touch panel act normally, the red floor light turns on as expected, and it makes sounds as if it is operating normally (clicks, whirring, etc). However, if you open the door, everything is dry, and in the brief moment before it turns off, it sounds as if the pump is gurgling against air.

I couldn't find a service manual online, but found that the button press sequence for error code recall from another model worked on ours. It showed no detected errors, E00 on all slots, so the dishwasher doesn't know (or hasn't detected) that anything is wrong. When we attempted to wash a load yesterday, it ran for a seemingly normal amount of time before we discovered that nothing had been washed.

Any thoughts on what might be wrong, or what to check first? Or where a person might find a service manual for this generation of Bosch dishwasher?
(Thanks in advance.)

 

[chachp]

AquaStop

 

Could it have anything to do with this feature?  Is there a chance the lightening has done something to activate this feature therefore turning off the water into the machine?  When we had ours installed I remember the installer telling me something about a safety feature installed on the water line to shut it off in the event it detects a malfunction.  At least that's how he explained it.  I looked under our sink and I see the Bosch junction box for the electrical connection but the Stainless hose doesn't seem to have anything on it at least not on the sink side.

 

<span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: BoschSans; font-weight: bold;">Aquastop® Leak Protection</span>

<span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: BoschSans;">Our AquaStop® system contains leaks through a precisely engineered tub and sensor system that works with our solid molded base. If a leak has occurred, it shuts down operation and automatically pumps out water to avoid contact with the floor. It works 24/7 and can turn itself on.</span>

 

[arbilab]

Lightning loves to follow waterpipes.  Why never to bathe during a thunderstorm.  Could have fried the valve coil.

 

[henene4]

For these machines it is normal to be empty for the first minute or 2.

It should drain, then it calibrates the pump by running empty, then it fills and starts up.

If it wouldn't fill it would show an error vode after no more then 5 minutes as the flow meter is pretty quick at checking for filling.

 

[lowefficiency]

Thanks guys, appreciate the replies.

This is a bit of a puzzle for sure. When we opened it, it was completely dry inside, so I figured at least the pump (and in hindsight, possibly that Aquastop system) was functioning... Didn't think of the water line, it's PEX for the final run but any surges could have followed the water...

Henrik, by your description, I definitely opened the door and checked it too quickly yesterday. I ran it again this morning on a 9-minute rinse-only cycle (same one I tested yesterday), and after several minutes of clicks and increase-increase-increase-stop motor sounds, I heard the sound of water filling! It completed the rinse cycle, and everything inside was thoroughly wet.

So since the dishes inside were still dirty from the failed prior washes, I went ahead and put another detergent tablet in and started the normal "auto" cycle with sanitize option. I heard it fill this time too, so we will see in a couple hours how it did.

Still a head-scratcher on why it went through a full wash program yesterday without filling...

 

[lowefficiency]

Ok, the wash program failed.

At some point less than an hour in, it tripped the circuit breaker. This dishwasher is the only thing on that circuit.
When I opened the door, the water inside was hot/steamy, and the detergent tablet had been dispensed and was half dissolved. So although it didn't make it too far into the cycle, it seems as though it has tested all of the major functions - fill valve, detergent dispenser, heater, circulation pumping, drain pumping...

hmmm....

 

[jamiel]

I had a weird short-cycle on my Bosch several months ago...seemed to be caused by a power blip. Got out the book to find the reset routine, did that and all was well.

 

[lowefficiency]

So I'm happy to report that this has been resolved.

I was racking my brain trying to figure out what the problem could be with the dishwasher, as seemingly all functions of the washer were operable save for completing the cycle. So I took a step back and decided to replace the circuit breaker, as perhaps there was some chance that the lightning, or too many trips, had fatigued this breaker.

In the process, I discovered that the house wiring on the screw terminal of the breaker for that circuit was loose! Not flopping around, but when the breaker was plucked from the rails, you could easily spin it around on the wire. There was some evidence that that wire had been getting warm, so I'm pretty sure that was the culprit. Just a loose connection.

I replaced the breaker anyway since I had the new one. I can't imagine how much that would have cost as a service call for a repairman... with seemingly nothing wrong with the dishwasher, and the circuit would have tested fine too unless put under a load for a period of time, so it would have been tricky to track down. I lucked out.

We're about a half-dozen cycles past that now without issue!

 

[joe_in_philly]

Great detective work!

 

[rolls_rapide]

Hmm, something similar happened to my parents' Bosch dishwasher.

About a year or more ago, the dishwasher was on one evening, when it decided to go into some kind of draining loop. Obviously the computer was confused in some way. I think I switched it off, waited a few minutes, and switched it on again. It then seemed to work as normal.

Around about nine months ago, the machine stopped dead on the heating part of the main wash. I thought, "Oh, the heater has gone!". Then I noticed the isolator switch's neon lamp was dead. The consumer unit's circuit breaker seemed to be working okay though.

However, unplugging the dishwasher from that switched spur socket, and feeding it from the ring mains loop via an extension flex, the machine worked fine.

The problem turned out to be a terminal wire in the consumer unit had overheated, due to bad connection and resistive heating.

 

[sudsmaster]

Yay! Another Bosch dishwasher saved!

It's often not obvious, but faulty building wiring can cause all sorts of weird problems with stuff plugged into it. We tend to take the building wiring for granted, but it can be installed wrong, modified wrong, and just plain fail at random from substandard components. Especially if the homeowner gets in there to do mods and doesn't have an inspection. Present company excepted, of course ;-).

I once worked in a research lab at a VA hospital. We had moved into a new building, and instead of the usual black plasticky bench tops, the new lab had nice shiny stainless steel counter tops.

The only problem was, when I went to turn on a piece of equipment, and touched the counter top at the same time, I got a nasty shock.

Turns out the electricians had done the wiring wrong. My boss wasn't good at explaining the details, but I gathered that the ground wire to the outlets had been made live. Ouch! Could have killed somebody.

That said, this house here I bought has somewhat notorious Federal Pacific circuit breakers. It was noted on the pre-sale inspection. However he also noted that there was no sign of the usual breaker failure associated with that equipment. I made a mental note to replace the panels and breakers if there were any issues. But there simply haven't been any. I did note that FP had put out a series of defective breakers, and that was the source of most the problems in the field. I'm guessing when this place was re-wired sometime in the 60's, it was with good breakers. Knock on wood.

Further detail: the FP breaker design featured "Stab-Loc" connections where the installer could just pry out the old breaker and push in a new one, or so I gather from my reading. Apparently there was a sort of gripper fork on the electrical connectors, which in defective breakers didn't grip firmly enough and resulted in arcing and potentially fires. The inspector said there was no sign of arcing on the breakers here.