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I know, a full on 1st world problem, and i apologise to those for whom this Christmas has some real challenges. Anyway, they are so expensive! I know a Meile will last forever blah blah blah, but has anyone got any recommendations for a cheap one? £1000 or £500 for a Bosch is not what we need right now.
Can it be repaired, instead of throwing it out?
My dishwasher packed in nearly 10 years ago. I traced the fault to a broken door switch - it wouldn't start a wash as it thought the door was open
New switch bought from eBay from £5 and still going strong.
Obviously some faults can't be economically repaired, but often they can.
Mine packed up a couple of years ago and I've been washing up since.
I'm a wierdo who kind of likes doing it though.
Ours packed up last year, and was unrepairable ☹️
However, a quick look on local FB marketplace and I found a Hotpoint one being given away due to the owner upgrading. Needed a new hose, but it's been fine for 12 months now.
Worth checking FB, gumtree, etc. as people often just chuck it give away older appliances.
When our Bosch died we ended up with a Blomberg. Seems OK.
I’ve bought decent dishwashers from Facebook etc in the past for very little. Probably the quickest cheapest option at this time of year.
Our old Bosch slimline finally went to dishwasher heaven this time last year. I'd replaced a few parts on it already but the pump went. A new pump was going to cost in excess of £80. Quick look on eBay and I bought a newer posher Bosch for £50. We then moved and got a full-size dishwasher so the Bosch was sold for a grand total of £50. So I had a dishwaser for free for a year, result.
So yeah short version is check eBay, FB Marketplace, Gumtree etc. If you're anywhere near Sheffield I know a colleague is selling one for £100.
Can it be repaired, instead of throwing it out?
My first thought.
My tumble dryer packed in last week. I took the lid off, went "yeah... no" and there's currently a Man in the kitchen who knows what he's doing.
My tumble dryer packed in last week. I took the lid off, went “yeah… no” and there’s currently a Man in the kitchen who knows what he’s doing.
Ha ha - you're in my club of 'know your limits.'
It's a very small but wise club.
Even I have managed to coax a dishwasher back into life (new PCB). Second time I gave up and got a new one as it was starting to get quite spendy.
Facebook marketplace is a good place to start as people seem to dump freestanding units on there when they get new kitchens.
If it's not been diagnosed as totally dead then what Sui said. Also, if you take the filter out from the sump, there's usually a small inspection plate you can remove which gives access to the top of the pump. Vax that out, put it all back together and run it on any old cycle with the spray arms removed then clean the filter and pump again. Vaxing the spray arms clean of all the trapped peas, beans and bits of limescale can also rejuvenate really badly performing dishwashers.
I’m a serial fettle- our original dishwasher had a pump fault so I bought and fitted a new one. I’m happy taking the back off stuff…
However I couldn’t stop it leaking. Meanwhile my mate gave us one he was chucking, it’s the donated DW that has an error that indicates a proper man must fix it. I still have the old one in the garage so I could try and glue the pump on permanently in an effort to stop the leak but know it will need chucking if that pump goes. The problem is the good Lady is fed up with me lying on the kitchen floor with my arm up inside an appliance, trying to use my phone like an endoscope and a torch in my teeth, swearing and writhing like a mad man.
For context I’m sat waiting to fly out of Brussels, and then working till the 24th, so I don’t have much time to sort it.
Sat waiting for my flight with not much to do is why I’m writing such long boring posts. Sorry about that.
I will check for cast offs though, good idea.
My Hisense packed in just out of warranty....I checked the internet to see if I could fix it, but every thing lead to 1 of 3 things and you can't tell which it is. Ended up getting a guy out who narrowed it down and replaced the part. I could have fitted the new part my self if I could have figured out what it needed, and it was the part I thought it would in the end, but now I was tied into getting the others to fix it at their prices....
Anyway, cost me nearly as much as a new one would have but at least it didn't go to land fill!
Don't buy a Hisense...
Another vote for Facebook marketplace, my dishwasher was £50 off someone getting a new kitchen so switching to an integrated one. I've had it 5 years with zero issues and it was a few years old when I got it.
I actually inherited a dishwasher in the house I moved into and didn't use it for a few months but When I did it's a real labour saver.
When the Bosch gave up I bought a Beko, been faultless.
I’ll have a look at second hand posh ones or a Beko
Ikea only because they have a long warranty. They fit standard spaces.
Mine packed up a day or so before I did the in laws pre Christmas Christmas meal here which was a pain. Felt like we washed up all day and the day after! Second time in 8 yrs that the heat pump board shorted. New part next day for £60 and bingo all good again. I just wish the first time it went that I’d bought the Bosch part and not the pattern one that was £20 cheaper. That might have lasted more than 2 yrs.
I quite like the idea that it can be fixed and I can keep it out of landfill. 2 yrs ago to replace it was about £300, this time it would have been £450 ish for the similar base-ish Bosch model although why you need a WiFi dishwasher I don’t know?
a Freire of ours uses the fb/ gumtree approach for dishwashers. I guess every time someone buys a new kitchen these days with an integrated dw there a decent one going spare. Might try that next time bu T getting the
art and fixing it saved a trip to collect a dishwasher and the associated manhandling as well as the hassle of disposing of one and finding the time to get to the tip and argue with the bloke there about my trailer…
Ha ha – you’re in my club of ‘know your limits.’
It’s a very small but wise club.
Yeah. Honestly, I'm generally quite practical and of the mindset "I'll work it out." But the dryer is an oversized drum in a standard size appliance so you can about squeeze a cheese slice between the drum and the side; getting to the guts of the machine required more disassembly than I was comfortable with; and I have an innate fear of anything held together with bloody great springs where one slip could leave me like Phineas Gage.
Compare and contrast, I've done laptop hard disk swaps which involve a full teardown including removal of the motherboard. I'm well within my comfort zone to do that but I would be loathe to suggest anyone else try it. I know what I'm doing, I've probably come across every Ping****it clip known to man by now; I figure the same applies to the chap who diagnosed the fault over the phone and has just now left leaving we with a working dryer. Sixty of your English pounds well spent.
Go old school and think of the benefits or your skin...
They are a right pain in the arse to work on if you have to replace anything. I ended up lifting one of mine onto some trestles so it was easier to get at. Pumps shouldn't leak - they're designed to be replaced* if required. I'd suspect a cracked or deformed seating in that case. Soudal or sikaflex might work?
Have a safe flight!
*by someone with a broken wrist and a torqs driver for an index finger.
I swear useful appliances are pre programmed to fail around Christmas time. I had cooker elements fail on Christmas eve two years in a row. I now keep a spare in the garage.
Also had dishwasher fail on boxing day and a few years ago my hoover caught fire.
Sixty of your English pounds well spent.
Besides which, DIY is effectively scabbing. Up the workers.
I swear useful appliances are pre programmed to fail around Christmas time. I had cooker elements fail on Christmas eve two years in a row. I now keep a spare in the garage.
Can we count cars in that? Engine malfunction light days before supposed to be driving to various family members.
This was December 19th 2020, tumble dryer this time, also had cooker go on 23rd and the fridge go on 20th of different years.
If you're anywhere in the Midlands I've got an old Miele slimline which is scruffy but operational. You're welcome to it if it'll get you out of a bind.
We put a SMEG dishwasher in our old house and a Miele one in the new one. The old one was <£300 (from AO.com when they were Appliances Online iirc) and the new one more than double that. We didn't have any trouble with the SMEG in the 8 years it was in use by us and I actually preferred the internal layout to the Miele.
Would happily recommend SMEG.
We had a Samsung that packed up 2 months after the warranty expired, the replacement part alone was £349 !!!
so we bought a Bosch to replace it with an extended warranty.... It's been fine so far. The dishwasher we had the longest we bought 2nd hand for £20 and lasted about 5years but I can't remember the brand.
Submarined you are very kind, but I think it will be hand wash if needed, there are some second hand options on FB MP, one very close by and the exact model that’s kaput. Just waiting to hear back.
Can it be repaired, instead of throwing it out?
My dishwasher packed in nearly 10 years ago. I traced the fault to a broken door switch – it wouldn’t start a wash as it thought the door was open
New switch bought from eBay from £5 and still going strong.
Obviously some faults can’t be economically repaired, but often they can.
I'm usually all for this, but recently my patience has been severely tested.
Previous dishwasher, a "Kenwood" (Curry's own white label with a royalty payment as it turned out), barely 2 years old wouldn't run. Traced it to a leak tripping the leak detector switch. Could I find the leak, f no. I had it apart every day after a cycle for a fortnight and nothing was ever wet apart form the b f*** switch.
I gave up and ordered a new one. The overtime I could have worked would probably have paid for the upgrade to a Bosch.
Tumble dryer, a simple vented one. Belt burnt out, as it had been prone to do a few times in it's life, so now every self taping screw and panel clip is bent. And because the belt is on the "drum", which is supported by a felt "bearing" around the door end you have to pull the whole of the front off to do it. I eventually lost several pints of blood from my knuckles and had a screaming mental breakdown into a pillow when my OH asked how it was going. I did the math's and a £550 condensing Samsung with a 5 year warranty will save more electricity than it cost. Why the old one couldn't have just had the belt (the thing most likely to break) on the back of the machine I've no idea (well I've a good idea that it probably makes the drum ~50mm longer which does well for it's capacity, but it's drying 0kg now so......) .
I enjoy fixing stuff, I'm good at it. But there's limits sometimes (and I doubt most people have quite as extensive a collection of unusual screwdrivers to get things apart anyway 😂).
Facebook / ebay +1, I'm 37 and yet to pay more than £60 for a washing machine, and that was only once. The rest have come with houses or been free to collect! It's a bit like cars and bangernomics. There's a greater supply of old cars/washing machines than new parts and patience/time to fit them.
We’ve resurrected our 11 year old Beko dishwasher a few times in the last year or two. It’s apparently fairly resilient, but the plastics used are brittle crap. Most of the screws holding the front together no longer have anything to screw into, and one of its failures was the plastic carrier for the controller board falling to pieces.
I've had two used Bosch. One older one (£20) that got moved and left in freezing garages too often and started to leak and one more modern one that was £40 and does a great job.
Don’t buy a Hisense…
Yep, ours is working OK (except for disassembling it to get some glass out of the pump, that was my fault), but the plastics are rubbish, the door seal keeps coming loose and the metal baskets are slowly losing their powdercoat and rusting away. Started a couple of months after the warranty ended.
Wish I'd spent a bit more but it was during the first lockdown and I just bought what was available and able to be delivered.
We got a Beko one as an emergency replacement at Christmas 2 years ago, utter shite. Flimsy, and rarely cleans well despite cleaning the inside regularly and using branded tablets etc. plastic tubing inside has failed twice. Has stopped mid cycle for no apparent reason many times. Cheap, nasty thing. Way worse than the ancient Bosch it replaced.
Dryers are a nightmare to fix. Dishwashers are usually a bit better imvhe
Sixty of your English pounds well spent.
That is a crazy good price. If I could get that I would never hesitate to get someone in. It always seems twice that just to get someone out, then parts that they randomly change until it works :(. We had 3 different people visit our dishwasher to fix it until I got bored of that and worked out which p-clip they had failed to tighten correctly to stop it spraying a fine mist of water over the pump connections. Sometimes you get someone who cares, sometimes you get someone who doesn't
fooman
Full MemberIkea only because they have a long warranty. They fit standard spaces.
They do, but beware the door fitting on most has a parallelogram-ish mechanism because Ikea kitchens have longer doors than standard. I think it would work fine with a normal height door but it's a bit of an arse to fit.
The ikea instructions though are effing terrible. You will want to shank this smug prick by the end of it:
If you like the idea of a Miele but can't afford a new one, they also have an Outlet ( https://www.miele.co.uk/c/miele-outlet-abingdon-1409.htm ) We had a couple of bits from the Outlet and they have been fine, last thing we had was a new washing machine to replace the 26 year old Miele one we had before that.
Surprisingly Miele dishwashers are not in the top tier of reliability, the best are Bosch (which would be & in fact is, my choice), Neff, LG & Zanussi in that order (Which?)
The heat pump went on our Bosch, we managed to get it repaired locally for £100 or so. First repair since we bought it about eight years ago so not bad going.
Blimey there’s some good reductions on the Meile stuff, no mega ones on dishwashers though cheers Zilog, I’m not far from Abingdon as well.
Ransos that’s a good price it was the heat pump install I ballsed up previously that cost £90.
I have decided I’ll try and fix E19 error is only £25 for the part.
Definitely market place. Our entry level dishwasher cost around £180, broke just after the warranty expired and the same model was now £230.
They didn't sell any official spare parts, and we couldn't find a generic part that the seller would guarantee would fit.
We got an identical dishwasher off market place for £30 and has done the last 2 years - we're not going to buy new again as it's not really worth it for us.
Just wash up by hand, when we had a new kitchen we didn't bother with a dishwasher, 15/20 minutes after tea job done 👍
That is a crazy good price.
It's a local sole tradesman. I've had him out to it before, the drum bearing had disintegrated. He replaced the ball race, £45 all-in. The only downside was I was finding tiny ball bearings in the corners of the kitchen for weeks.
That's the thing though, reputation is priceless, I knew exactly where to go when it packed up. I rang him up at lunchtime yesterday, he was deeply apologetic that he wouldn't be able to look at it until 9am today. He turned up at 9:01, the workshy bastard.
It’s a local sole tradesman. I’ve had him out to it before, the drum bearing had disintegrated. He replaced the ball race, £45 all-in. The only downside was I was finding tiny ball bearings in the corners of the kitchen for weeks.
The bearing in my last bosch didn't wear out, but the entire housing corroded. On the back of the drum there's a big star shaped structure that mounts the drum to the bearing, the whole thing was ether dissapered or powder!
£250 part to replace so not economical.
We live in a hard water area so I suspect some sort of galvanic action was at play.
Our Smeg one is 9 years old and doing just fine.
I swear useful appliances are pre programmed to fail around Christmas time. I had cooker elements fail on Christmas eve two years in a row. I now keep a spare in the garage.
Also had dishwasher fail on boxing day and a few years ago my hoover caught fire.
I posted this earlier. And, as if by magic, my hoover has broken this evening
Last Christmas I had our dishwasher apart. The pump kept running and the internet said it would be a leak triggering the float switch in the base; the plumber my better half rang said the same thing... except I'd checked the bottom already, and it was bone dry. Plumber said he'd come and look anyway if we liked, but how old is it? 12-13 years, we said. Not worth it then, he said, it might take me a few goes to find the problem, and at that age, something else will fail soon anyway - just get a new one.
Decided there was nothing to lose by having a look myself.
Turned out there was a second float switch, in a little chamber, behind the side panel. That float had some fatty gunk on it, so I pulled it out to clean it, and started running a wipe around the inside of the chamber too. I must have nudged the gunk in there, because suddenly a 1/4" square hole appeared at the base of the chamber and all the water ran away. Cleaned the rest out properly, put it back together and it's working fine a year later (famous last words...). I do run a bottle of cleaner through it every 6 months now though.
It did, and does, scare me that a basically perfectly good bit of kit nearly got junked for the sake of a small lump of gunk blocking a little hole...
Could be a lot worse, there’s the sink, a bowl and hot water to get you through Christmas. Three years ago my central heating boiler failed catastrophically a week before Christmas. Fortunately we still had an immersion heater for hot water.
Dryers are a nightmare to fix. Dishwashers are usually a bit better imvhe
Really? Dryers are pretty simple. An electric screwdriver to take the tedium out of all those case screws helps. In my experience it tends to be the capacitor for the motor, the heater element or door switch. They’re light and aren’t connected to a water supply, so unlikely to flood the place if you cock up.
I’ve fixed a couple of washing machines. One I cut a hole in the side to fix so i didn’t have to take it apart. Couldn’t see it when under the counter.
Three years ago my central heating boiler failed catastrophically a week before Christmas. Fortunately we still had an immersion heater for hot water.
A few years back, my water pump died in the middle of December during one of the coldest winters on record. Old back boiler so no hot water, no heating. I DIYed it in the end. It was so cold. So, so cold.
It took me almost a week just to find the bastard thing, it was buried under the floorboards. It was, shall we say "of its time," it was about 10" across, looked like it'd just fallen out of a U-boat and had alternative wiring terminals for 3-phase. I couldn't undo it because a combination of paint, rust and age had welded the entire plumbing assembly solid; when it did turn I was turning the entire pipe run attached to gods know what somewhere in the bowels of the house. I wound up taking a pipe cutter to either side, dropping it out, replacing with a modern Grundfos and about a foot of pipe to patch the gap.
.
We had one once that stopped working, turns out it was a pistachio shell wedged in the impeller. Was a git to even get inside but satisfying to get it functioning again.
Don't have one in our current place, but like others I genuinely don't mind washing up!
Good luck
Engineer for our Bosch said don’t use rinse aid with eleventy-one tablets as it causes lots of foam.
Indeed. AIUI, those posh 3-in-one [/insert Gillette blades arms race number here] tablets are supposed to negate the need for rinse aid and salt. You should be using either/or, not both.
Try a Howdens own brand Lamona, cheap and come with 3 yr warranty
A dishwasher is so essential in our household that anytime one breaks - I check the classifieds & buy one the same day.
Previous one was a £40 Beko that, surprisingly, worked great for 5yrs.
Then we moved house and our new house only had a useless slimline one so picked up a fairly new semi-integrated Miele for £50. I think the sellers were putting in a new kitchen. Bargain.
The only downside was I was finding tiny ball bearings in the corners of the kitchen for weeks.<br /><br />
That reminds me of a big fold-out MBUK Mint Sauce poster! I had it on the wall at work for quite a while, then took it down and put it in a cabinet along with other personal stuff, which all suddenly disappeared! 😖
I am not sure why people think if they throw something away it will go to landfill. I suspect it is a young person phrase that I am not down with 😁. Those of you saving dishwashers from landfill, you are not.
They go through the scrap metal route and will end up processed through metal shredders and the different metals / plastics separated. Those fractions will probably then go through other separation processes and the unrecoverable fraction that is left will then be landfilled.
I hope this assuages the guilt of those replacing their domestic appliances when the break.
Dryers are a nightmare to fix. Dishwashers are usually a bit better imvhe
I take this back. Dishwasher just died. It is now leaking from some kind of tank under the pump. I peeled the sides off and can't even see how I would strip the machine down to get to the bit I need to remove.
Off to Facebook...
£25 part delivered and a half hour fix and so far it’s okay. Another big lump saved from landfill.
It was a part changed round the side and easy to access. The hardest part was draining the whole side water thing down. The water comes out where you take out the valve thing really low down, I made a little water shute out of tin foil to direct it from the hole into a jug so didn’t flood the rest of the machine. I felt quite proud of this, all the YouTube video professionals just had loads of towels. Fools.
Been out all day so hopefully I won’t go back to another error code, but it did a quick wash okay.
Not landfill 🤫
PCA, top tip is disconnect it and put it up high so you can work on it more easily. I never do this and invariably end up doing a rubbish job whilst simultaneously knackering some part of my body.
Yeah sorry I took it to landfill to the recycling facility where the metal will be reclaimed already. It was old, very elaborately assembled, and the part if I could identify it wouldn't show up for weeks. I'm stalking a couple of dishwashers on Facebook already.
Honestly face ache market is ace for stuff like this. People who have new kitchens replace perfectly good stuff.
I'd have a spare but I don't have anywhere to keep it and I doubt anyone has a 25yo Siemens going that's worth having over something newer.
Ffs…..wish I never read this thread the other day. Sod’s Law as my dishwasher has packed in tonight. What is it about Christmas time and appliances breaking, is there some sort of magic timer built in to them?
Sorry about that, whats the code say andy4d?
Can you add my tumble dryer to the list of appliances that know it's Xmas.
Fortunately a quick scroll the eBay located a condenser model about an hour away. A deal was struck at £70 . If it lasts a year I think it will save that in electric.
All I need is the horizontal rain to stop so I can get it out the car.
All I need is the horizontal rain to stop so I can get it out the car.
At least you've be able to get your clothes dry again.
It's a bosch and the tap symbol it illuminated. The pump was running continuously so I had to turn it off at the mains to stop it. Quick check online suggests the pump or impeller issue. Need to get it out and see but at work just now so just left it last night.
I might suggest it is the switch that tells the pump to stop. If the machine is empty and the pump is running (dry,) then the pump is clearly operating.
So it's either a PLC issue, or a float switch covered in crap that's still telling the PLC control that the waste water needs gone