I have a Kenmore 17372 dishwasher. All of a sudden, it stopped filling with water.
I checked the float and its switch and that seems ok.
I checked the voltage at the inlet pump and it is ok.
Water pressure to the dw has not changed and is fine
When I turn the dw on, I clearly hear water passing through the valve which is puzzling. Then a small amount of water seems to fill the sump and before it reaches the usual level of the float, it stops filling up and starts “washing”.
Since the dw is 8 years old I went ahead and ordered a new valve, thinking it might be on its way out soon anyway.
But while I was under there, I noticed an odd thing: Both connectors to the pressure switch are disconnected. Since I am quite sure I did not do that, and no one has been under there that I remember, I wonder if it was like this since new. Is there any reason you guys can think of why that would be disconnected? Is there any reason not to reconnect? We are not having any draining issues. Probably because I take the whole motor sump assembly apart once a years to clean out all the gunk in there…
I cannot say why the pressure switch is disconnected but this should not effect the fill so was probably disconnected from day one.
If you look a part up on AppliancePartsPros often there will be more views and a Q&A section about that part.
You mentioned the float. This is just a safety device to prevent over fills (floods). Fill is just a timed event.
I would remove and check the fill valve.
There is a screen filter on the input side of the valve which may be dirty and might just need cleaning.
Do not permanently remove the screen as it is there to keep crud out of the valve which could hold the valve open and cause a flood.
You have one on order so that will most likely solve your fill problem.
Since you are working on it you may as well give the pump a cleaning. 17372301.pdf (983.3 KB)
I received my replacement inlet valve yesterday and installed it. It now works perfect! The screen was very clean so that was not the problem. The only difference I noticed between the new and the old valve was that the new valve read 1.2 ohms while the other one was more like 920 ohms. Not a huge difference. But evidently enough to cause water to stop filling before it reached normal level. Odd.
But back to the main original question: The unplugged pressure switch. I will reconnect and see what that does. But, what does that pressure switch do exactly? The schematic just says that it measures the soil amount. Does it measure the outgoing water pressure? And then what happened once it detects too much or too little pressure? Does it switch the chopper on to grind some of the food debris?
[COLOR=“Blue”]The schematic just says that it measures the soil amount. Does it measure the outgoing water pressure?[/COLOR]
Yes and yes
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And then what happened once it detects too much or too little pressure?[/COLOR]
If it senses soil then I think it adds another rinse cycle.
[COLOR=“Blue”]Does it switch the chopper on to grind some of the food debris?[/COLOR]
No the3 chopper is always on.