[DavidAJ]

I I have one of these RUD4000MQ2 units in a rental and tenant says that it doesn't clean as well as it should (always has to use Pots/Pans cycle even though she scrapes them off first) and that it doesn't dry well either. Also this week she said that it had dark smoke coming out of it when on the Pots/Pans cycle. Supposedly nothing touching the element. She switched to regular cycle and the cycle ran without incident. Hmm. . .

I thought that there must be a problem with it and so, armed with info from this forum, went to check it out. She said that dishes seemed to do OK on Pots/Pans mode but drying was never enough so I concentrated on drying. Here's what I found:

First, in running through a cycle everything seemed to work beautifully. No evidence that anything had been smoking in the unit. While the unit was in wash and rinse mode, you could really hear the water shooting everywhere. When it was initially filling with water, I used a key to allow me open the door and watch the process. I was about a 1/4 second too slow in removing the key from the door to pause the cycle after it filled up. As fast as lightning, the extendable water jet shot to action from the rotating radar like device and I ended up having to dry a few things up in the kitchen.

Heating element ohms reading - 17. It pulls 6.3 amps through most of the wash cycle (just the element). DW pulls 8 amps total. The overheat sensor had continuity. I was able to open the door and touch the element for a couple of seconds while it was pulling the 6.3 amps. It was quite warm but certainly not burning hot. That surprised me.

I don't recall for certain if the element turned on during the rinse cycle. When the drying cycle began, the element was pulling something around the 6 amps but then over a five or so minute period, it dropped to 4.5 amps and stayed there for the remainder of the cycle. When I opened the door mid-drying cycle the air was certainly very warm and thus it seemed like it was working but I don't know if it should have been hotter. The drying part of the cycle lasted about 30 minutes.

So what do you think? Does this DW just not excel at washing and drying? it's nothing fancy but I imagine that the guts on DWs are probably all about the same. Do any of these measurements sound off to you? Is it normal for the amp draw on the element to drop during drying mode? Anything to explain the smoke mid-cycle?

Any other thoughts about what I can do or check?