My faith in humanity has been partially restored.

I loaded my dishwasher a few nights back and set it to do its thing. A few hours later I noticed the light was off. It is supposed to show a white light when finished to let me know the dishes are clean. It kept shutting off. I tried a few times to get it going but it was getting late so I decided to work on it in the morning.

Yesterday morning I start researching possible problems online. 55% of the time it is the thermal fuse! (Followed by door switch, latch switch and drain pump.) AHA! I call the parts place a little north of me only to find out they no longer sell parts and they are now 100% service. No thanks, I refuse to pay the price of the dishwasher to fix it!

I call another place I found online that is actually closer to me. A nice guy, Frank, answered and looked up my model number and told me the thermal fuse on my model is part of the main board and that I'd need to pay $210 for a new one. He could have it there in two days. I told him I was pretty handy and I'd try to desolder the part myself and replace just the single failure point.

I get home early, tear the thing apart and test the fuses on the main board. They are all good! Well shit! What now? I call Frank back and he tells me to remove the kickplate to find the service instructions and it will tell me how to make the dishwasher go into diagnostic mode. The instructions might as well be written in Latin. This is a high end KitchenAid with the hidden buttons when you close the door. I get it to go into diagnostic mode while he is on the phone with me. Turns out there are potentially 60+ things that could go wrong with it. I hang up with him to study a bit more.

Hey... it's flashing at me! 8 flashes a pause, then 4 more. It keeps flashing! I look to the diagram and see section 8.4... A clogged or stuck drain pump. I call Frank again. He tells me to siphon as much water out as I can, clean the filter on the inside, turn off the breaker and get underneath to remove the drain pump. Nothing! Looks clean to me. I drain every ounce of water and reassemble everything.

BAM... IT WORKS! I call Frank to tell him the good news. He said it was most likely a piece of broken glass or small shard of pottery and asks if I've had any broken glasses or plates with chips. Yup... Well, he said, there's your answer.

I plan on getting Frank a $50 gift card to a nice restaurant near me. He spent time on the phone with me, it seemed, almost as a friend instead of some guy at the parts store. He was super nice, patient and helped me without looking for money for his time and advice. I found my new go-to appliance place!

There still are nice people out there!