Dishwasher Repair Advice (Problem Found)

[BrentDH]

Looking for some thoughts on diagnosing a dishwasher problem.  I have a ~15 year old Jenn Air JDB1100AWS dishwasher that does not spray water through the spray arms.

Here is what I have figured out so far.  The water fills just fine.  The circulation motor seems to make noise as though it should be spraying water all over, but nothing actually sprays.  At the end of the cycle the discharge pump (a separate unit from the circulation motor) pumps all the water out.

So why doesn't water circulate through the spray arms?
1.   It could be that water is not getting to the circulation impeller.  That would be if the filter is plugged.  This is a strange filter.  It is a circular plastic assembly that is probably 10" or so in diameter and sits in the bottom center of the dishwasher around the impeller and motor.  It does not look clogged and I have put water in it and it drains out.  So I don't think that is it.   It costs about $125 so not something you just order and try without convincing oneself that is is a good candidate.

2.  The tubes feeding the spray arms or the spray arms themselves could be plugged.  This is definitely not the case.

3.  The impeller could be damaged or broken.  I have removed it and it didn't seem like there was anything horrible wrong with it.  It is just a plastic disc with some fins in it.  Even if it were damaged and it were spinning I would expect SOME water to get circulated, but I get NONE.  It is a $55 part.

4.  The motor might actually be broken and, even though it makes noise, it is not turning.  This is my most likely scenario now.  This is a $250-$450 part (depending on which source).  I would like to make sure this is the problem before spending so much on a part.  Any thoughts on how to do this?  I was thinking maybe I would put a mark on the impeller and run a part of a cycle and then check it the mark had moved.

Am I missing anything else I should be checking?  Or any other ideas on how to determine if the circulation motor is actually the part that has failed?

Thanks in advance for any advice or thoughts.

[stav]

I had something similar with my Bosch. Everything looked ok, no broken parts, it filled and emptied.  I took out the impellor and there was one of these plastic strips that are used to hold grocery containers closed that are perforated on both sides so you can pull it off and open the container.  Salads and grocery store premade things have them here a lot.  It got down in the impellor and and was preventing it from spinning properly but since it was clear it was not easy to see. I found it when I pulled the motor to see if I could test it.

[Willyou]

If you can, I would remove the circulation motor and test run it on the bench and, at the same time, make sure the impellor is rotating with the shaft. I had a different appliance a short time ago where the motor shaft rusted off at the connection point with the impellor.

[PossumDog]

I had a frozen pump/motor in the dishwasher once. I read you could loosen it up with boiling water. I took all the racks out, got the dishwasher to start for a minute or two, then poured boiling water from a tea kettle all over the ports on the bottom.

It worked.

I don't know if it's a fix for your particular part, but worth a try.

[Roly]

I had a frozen pump/motor in the dishwasher once. I read you could loosen it up with boiling water. I took all the racks out, got the dishwasher to start for a minute or two, then poured boiling water from a tea kettle all over the ports on the bottom.

It worked.

I don't know if it's a fix for your particular part, but worth a try.

Try putting water in bottom of dishwasher to see if it then pumps.   If it does look for blockage somewhere by the pump.   I would not put too much money in a 15 year old dishwasher.  Roly

[DogwoodTales]

You might need to give some things a good cleaning.

At the risk of shameless self promotion here's something that might help-
www.youtube.com/watch?v=75DB9cyPYO0&lc=UgyCDsQhwP8IZbco54J4AaABAg

[jteneyck]

I had the same problem last summer.  Turns out there is a perforated metal filter just below the grinder impeller that is turned by the pump impeller below it.  I had to remove a cover above it to access it all, not obvious first looking at it.  That screen was blinded with paper and adhesive from the labels my wife puts on containers going into the freezer.  One of the legs of the impeller below was busted, too, from hitting some hard object that bent one of the grinder blades, but still worked fine after I cleaned the screen filter.  I bought an OE replacement on Amazon for like $7 for when the one I cleaned up dies.  

If you haven't gotten down into that far yet, I would.  On mine it's down under the large, perforated disk you talked about.  

John

[BrentDH]

For those of you who are curious about the outcome I thought I would fill you in on the results.

The problem ended up being a partial blockage of the water supply.  There is a valve with a VERY fine mesh screen that opens to allow water to fill the dishwasher.  I have had problems with this in the past because our plumber installed an iron filter system that uses a tank with some very fine "flakes" or "beads" that the iron particles apparently "stick" to.  In his initial install he loaded the tank above the fill line for these "flakes" and every time there was a drop in pressure by a short demand peak these flakes would enter the water lines and find their way to all kinds of places one didn't want them.  Usually to shower heads and the aerators on the sinks.  And occasionally this little screen in the dishwasher if it happened to be one of the items that created the demand peak.  We have finally worked the level of the flakes down to a point where it doesn't seem to be a problem anymore.  In the past when that happened to the dishwasher the screen was completely plugged and there was no water getting through.  in this case there was some water in the bottom of the dishwasher (I just didn't know how much there was supposed to be) which incorrectly caused me to rule out that little screen.  My wife finally suggested that we should try taking a pitcher and dumping a bunch of extra water in there to see if it behaved any different.  Sure enough with an extra gallon and a half of water everything spun and sprayed as it was supposed to.  So I opened up that little valve and the filter was PARTIALLY plugged.  The dishwasher doesn't seem to fill to a LEVEL and then stop, it seems to just fill for a certain amount of TIME.  I cleaned the screen, re-assembled, and all is back in working order.

As a side note.  This problem was a blessing in disguise.  When I was under the sink to turn off the water supply I noticed that my garbage disposal was leaking.  It had rusted through and was leaking right through the base.  So a quick trip to Fleet Farm and $130 later the garbage disposal is also fixed (replaced).  It put 1/2" of water in the ice cream pail while I went to get a new one so it was leaking pretty badly.  I must have just started within the past couple days because otherwise I would have had a much bigger mess.  Very happy to have caught it when I did and only caught it because of the dishwasher problem.

[jteneyck]

Glad to see you resolved the problem with the dishwasher, and were lucking to find the problem with the disposal before that created a real mess.  

Something sounds amiss about how the dishwasher fills, however.  I can't see how the solenoid could work based on time.  Different inlet water pressures would result in different fill levels, and below a certain level the problem you had would always occur.  Every dishwasher I've seen has a float switch which tells the solenoid when to close.  But as long as it works that's all that matters. 

John

[Roly]

Glad to see you resolved the problem with the dishwasher, and were lucking to find the problem with the disposal before that created a real mess.  

Something sounds amiss about how the dishwasher fills, however.  I can't see how the solenoid could work based on time.  Different inlet water pressures would result in different fill levels, and below a certain level the problem you had would always occur.  Every dishwasher I've seen has a float switch which tells the solenoid when to close.  But as long as it works that's all that matters. 

John

The solenoid i s fed thru the timer so it has a max time before shutting off but normally the float stops the water flow when it is at the correct level but if it never reaches that level it shuts off when timer advances.  Roly