putting money into an 11 year old dishwasher.

[JustinH]

Hey all,

Our house is 11 years old, and we still have the original dishwasher that came with the house.

It is a whirlpool, standard builder grade model.

So last year, it needed some sort of a timer motor, we did that.

Then it needed a pin for the soap door, I did that.

Now, it seems that the "wax motor" has gone out. This is a little motor that sits under the soap door and opens the door during the wash cycle.

A wax motor is about 20 bucks, but putting it in looks interesting.

Hate to throw out a good dishwasher that just needs a 20 dollar part, but looking at the Home Depot they have ones for $299 with a hard food disposal built in.

My recommendation for the group is to buy the 3 year warranty extension on one of these things, and let someone else mess with it.

I know that if I put that wax motor in the thing, something else is going to go out within six months.

 

[LoneRanger]

Skip the wax motor repair and don't use the soap dispenser anymore.

Stop using liquid or powdered soap and get those little packet things that are all the rage now, several brands out there, they come in like 12, 24, 48 packs etc. You just place one on the floor of the dishwasher, close it up and let 'er rip.

 

[JayhawkRoy]

In this case, go with Lone Ranger's solution.

IIRC, Consumer Reports doesn't recommend doing many repairs on dishwashers after the 7 year mark. That has also been my experience. I do a couple of inexpensive repairs once or twice, and then generally come up with an expensive repair that leads me to buy new.

Consumer Reports is a good resource if you want to go new. The cheapest washer at Home Depot may not meet your needs.

 

[spasm3]

Hard to say, depends on how much work you want to do. Newer dishwashers are not going to last like older ones did. High efficiency and so forth Thinner materials. You can laugh but when i buy appliances i look for the lowest energy efficiency.

 

[JustinH]

Thanks guys.

We have used the PODS for the dishwasher, but the problem was the door would not open and no soap would get into the machine.

So I started throwing a pod into the secondary soap door and leaving it open.

Sometimes the pod would stick to the wall of the machine and not dissolve. Weird, I guess we are not getting a good flow of water in the machine, and it is not overloaded either.

Will check consumer reports!

 

[Jim K]

My dishwasher is my 2 hands . If they go out I`m in trouble.

 

[JustinH]

I never owned a dishwasher for my first 30 years of life.

Never had one growing up, never had one at my old apartments in New York.

Got my first one when I moved to Texas in a crummy apartment.

I felt like a millionaire. Sounds stupid right.

Anyways, the dishes are much cleaner using the machine than I could ever get them by hand.

 

[Propflux01]

If the soap dispenser is not dissolving the tablet it sounds to me like the water pump is wearing out. Repair or leave it be until it no longer cleans the dishes. Pumps, while easy to replace, bro wear out over time.

 

[Rand]

kenmore goes on sale at sears and usually have 50 off 300$ or better as well to stack with the sale.

 

[cjcride]

Sounds right.

 

[dlundblad]

I am betting your 11 year old dish washer could very well outlast the new one from Home Depot.

I enjoy tinkering (and saving money) and if the repairs arent too difficult, I would keep doing what you're doing. It sounds like you can get away with no using the wax motor/ soap dispenser so I would try that at least before going any further.

FWIW, my mom just added the powder soap in our old whirlpool for years without using the dispenser. The dishes still came out very clean. The only reason she got rid of it was because she was getting new cabinets and reinstalling a 20 year old dishwasher that would look horridly out of place didnt seem logical to her. (Cant say I blame blame her) We gave it to a family friend and as far as I know, it is still working.

 

[goodtimes]

I have saved a lot of money over the years by getting the part number and searching for it on ebay. Not always, but sometimes works. Always look for new OE parts. $20 isn't a lot to keep it going. The machines usually throw the detergent into the machine after a while, not at the beginning. Right now I wash by hand and it takes ten minutes. The machine does it better and keeps the dirty dishes out of sight though.

 

[Chris142]

We have one on wheels. Wheel it over to the sink and hook it up.wheel it back to the corner when done. When it quits I just wheel it out back and buy a new one.

Ours uses very little water. Much less than hand washing them.

 

[Tdbo]

I doubt that I would put much money into a ll year old builder grade dishwasher.
I probably would use it as long as it cleaned dishes and take the $20. save it,and apply that cash to its replacement.

 

[philipp10]

I replaced one that was about 15 yrs old last year. Don't know if you know this but the new dishwashers are designed differently. The bottom is now inaccessible without taking the whole machine out. One repair site online claimed they are less repairable than the older units. I kind of hated giving up my old machine. With the floor of the machine lower, the components below are "less robust" looking.

 

[JHZR2]

We had a quality KitchenAid which was over 20 years old and still worked perfect.

Im not holding quite the same hopes for future stuff...

Its kind of worth what it costs to replace it. A soap dispenser Id probably not sweat much, but something that prevents ops, if its a matter of $50 vs a $500 dishwasher, its probably a good move.

 

[stephen9666]

Replace it.

I personally wouldn't get the $299 Home Depot special. That's likely another builder-grade model.

I recently put a dishwasher in our house. My top priorities were cleaning performance, cost and quietness.

I went with the cheapest Bosch Ascenta series dishwasher. It cleans really well and is very quiet. It's made in the USA, too. I paid $439 after shopping for a sale. The Ascenta is slightly smaller inside than some other dishwashers, but that's a trade-off I don't mind.

 

[The_Jeff]

It was my understanding that the pre-wash used one "side" of the detergent doohickey and the main wash somehow popped that open via water pressure. You say it's a wax thing? Maybe like a car thermostat, hot water does it? Interesting.

One thing to beware of, is new dishwashers just steam the food off and take forever. Mine has an hour, 40 minutes cycle. Saves energy.

 

[DBMaster]

I had a "builder grade" GE dishwasher that came with the house in 1996. It cleaned poorly and was noisy. After only a few years the pump housing leaked and nearly ruined my cabinets. My next door neighbor's did the same thing. I installed an inexpensive clearance model (Whirlpool) from Lowe's. It does a great job. I noticed a long time ago that when setting the timer to my preferred (single) wash cycle the detergent dispenser would pop open immediately upon setting the timer. I use pod detergent so I started simply tossing it into the bottom of the dishwasher. So, i don't use the dispenser, anyway.

I had Whirlpool brand in a couple of houses I rented, too. Even the cheap ones clean very well. Kenmore dishwashers used to be made exclusively by Whirlpool and may still be.

I would just forget about fixing the dispenser and toss or dump the soap right into the bottom. I think new dishwashers are overpriced and overhyped.

 

[The_Jeff]

BTW, I have a cheap kenmore dishwasher and it's my understanding the "guts" are similar to better ones, but the trays are "sabotaged" to be nearly useless. It'll wash ten plates and however many glasses and silverware, but the "prongs" are set up to not really be helpful with pots, pans, and odd things.

The fix is to find a better tray from a dishwasher junkyard, whatever that is. A new one is $160. My whole dishwasher was $230.

It's quiet, attractive, reliable (knock wood), just slow. Clean the heck out of cream of wheat bowls, though, as that grit sticks to everything.