Update...
Here's my status report on the generic spray arm.
Initially, on the first few washes, the arm did very well, getting the dishes cleaner than ever before. But unfortunately, things quickly took a turn for the worse.
The last few nights, the dishwasher had gotten a bit louder than before. I quickly realized that both the bottom white piece and gray tube, which twist and lock onto the lower post of the DW, are not very snug, so these pieces gradually twist into the unlocked position during a cycle. This makes the arm very wobbly during operation. I even tried using a drill to sand down the plastic on the locking piece, but that didn't do very much.
Just last night, I started the DW like usual and went upstairs. When I came back down about an hour later to check on it, my socks got wet. The DW was leaking like a sieve, all over the floor. I had to soak up all that water with a couple of bath towels. I then opened the DW, repositioned the spray arm and closed the door. The leaking mostly stopped, but the wash water got all sudsy. So I stopped the cycle during the final rinse and restarted on a normal cycle without detergent.
After soaking up all that water, the kitchen floor had warped in a few spots. Laminate floors and water are a dangerous combination.
Soon, I discovered that this new arm was showing the exact same symptoms that the original one did (staying in one place mid-cycle). Combined with the lower pieces coming loose, the arm would rest on the heating element, further exacerbating the problem.
Today, I removed the generic arm and took a closer look at it. The plastic had gotten a bit melted and even split open. And the OrbitClean end had gotten seized up, not to mention the metal piece started to split apart. Not even a whole week later, this generic arm is already having issues. No big surprise here.
Fortunately, I hung onto the original spray arm and its two other parts. After explaining the issue to my dad, he suggested that I pull a switcheroo, by taking the OrbitClean end off of the generic arm and putting it onto the OEM arm (in lieu of the old, split and melted end) to see if it works better. If not, we might just have to return the generic arm. I'm hoping that the basic Frigidaire arm will arrive tomorrow, like Amazon promised. I just want a good, reliable dishwasher with a functional lower spray arm.
