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-   -   Kenmore Ultra Wash Dishwasher model #665.1703, Flashing light-won't start (https://www.askmehelpdesk.com/showthread.php?t=32571)

  • Aug 25, 2006, 11:24 AM
    L0gansm0mmy
    Kenmore Ultra Wash Dishwasher model #665.1703, Flashing light-won't start
    I have a Kenmore Ultra Wash Dishwasher. It will not start. The light above normal wash is flashing continuously. Any advice will be helpful.
    Our warranty ran out 9 days ago:rolleyes:
    Thank-you in advance:o
  • Sep 16, 2006, 10:33 PM
    zrocket
    My clean light was blinking on my kenmore I just pushed the heated wash,and the heated dry buttons one after the other for about 5 times and all the lights lit up and the thing just started going through different settings then it all quit so I pushed normal wash and its working now.
  • Sep 17, 2006, 05:50 AM
    L0gansm0mmy
    Thank-you for your response ZRocket. Unfortunately, this was not the case for us. I do, however, appreciate your help:)
  • Sep 17, 2006, 06:39 AM
    esquire1
    Sometimes if you disconnect the power to the unit for a short period it will rest itself.
  • Sep 17, 2006, 03:35 PM
    L0gansm0mmy
    Thank-you, Esquire-we have tried this as well. More than likely we have a faulty electrical board.
  • Sep 23, 2006, 09:02 AM
    pacogomez
    I just wanted to join this discussion to express that I have similar problems (Flashing green light - no start) with the same model. I called on it and was told it would cost some $170 to have the guy come and take advantage of our recently expired warranty. Any advice would be helpful!
  • Sep 23, 2006, 12:05 PM
    L0gansm0mmy
    I am so sorry to hear you are dealing with this as well, Paco. :(
    We went out & purchased a new dishwasher from a totally different store.
    The way Sears handles all this-well, let's just say we are DONE dealing with SEARS. :mad: We didn't want to give them a dime more of our money & we gave our faulty unit to a friend of ours who is going to repair it--somehow, w/o the help of Sears.
    BEST WISHES TO YOU!! :)
  • Oct 14, 2006, 02:02 PM
    celaa
    Comment on zrocket's post
    It worked for me too!
  • Oct 23, 2006, 10:07 AM
    Hotrod
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by zrocket
    my clean light was blinking on my kenmore i just pushed the heated wash,and the heated dry buttons one after the other for about 5 times and all the lights lit up and the thing just started going through differant settings then it all quit so i pushed normal wash and its working now.

    Thank You.. That Worked for me too!!

    THE POWER OF THE WeB!!
  • Oct 23, 2006, 10:50 AM
    Jennybean25
    Hi, Thanks for telling me which buttons to push. I had this problem with my dishwasher about a year ago. I think what happens is I put a large pan in the rack. If the spray is not allowed to turn due to something in the way the dishwasher malfunctions. Otherwise it will burn out the motor or something. Anyway I called sears and I had a nice guy who told me how to reset it by pushing the buttons. Heated wash/heated dry a few times. All the lights will light up and the dishwasher will continue its cycle before it malfunctioned. He said let the cycle complete and then it will be ready to go. I just had this happen again and could not remember the two button to push. I tried to call and the lady told me it would be $65.00 for a tech to come out an look at it. I tried to tell her I knew what the problem was and just wanted to talk to a tech. She would not listen so I said forget it. I decided to look up the problem on the internet. I am so glad I found this site. Anyway, I will be writing down the button in my user manual. Thanks and I hope this helps people in the future. :p :p :p
  • Nov 19, 2006, 05:19 PM
    edshark
    Thank you for the fix. My my clean light was also blinking on my kenmore ultra wash and I pushed the heated wash,and the heated dry buttons one after the other for about 5 times and all the lights lit up for me too and the dishwasher started up again.

    You saved my Thanksgiving.
  • Nov 21, 2006, 09:21 PM
    photusEnigma
    Wow! THANK YOU THANK YOU THANKY YOU!! (and the wife absolutely loves you all and offers a place at our thanksgiving table if you can find out where we live... and also says "I love this internet thingy!"). You've saved our turkey day as well! The pushing of the heated wash and heated dry buttons one after the other in rapid succession worked like a charm! May you all have a wonderful thanksgiving... and a working dishwasher to clean up after!
  • Dec 5, 2006, 06:32 PM
    Jeffmo
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by edshark
    Thank you for the fix. My my clean light was also blinking on my kenmore ultra wash and I pushed the heated wash,and the heated dry buttons one after the other for about 5 times and all the lights lit up for me too and the dishwasher started up again.

    You saved my Thanksgiving.

    I too have a Kenmore Ultra Wash dishwasher. I've had it for 15-months now and found mine in the same condition as described... clean light blinking... dishwasher not functioning.
    I cycled between the two buttons and wahlah... it came back to life. All lights luminated, it went through some cycles and finished with a quick rinse. It was good to go just moments later. Thanks for this tip
  • Dec 19, 2006, 11:41 PM
    yob2kanobe
    I had this identical problem on my 2 yr. old Kenmore elite 665.17052400 a clean light that flashed repeatedly 7 times then off. I reset as above with the heated wash and heated dry buttons, however I then noticed a reduced flow from the pump so I dissasembled the lower arm and water inlet assy. To find it mostly plugged with foregin matter and some broken glass chunks. Upon removal of that stuff and reassembly my Kenmore now works as new! Thanks for the heads up on the reset procedure.
    Yob~
  • Jan 2, 2007, 02:23 PM
    geeper
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by L0gansm0mmy
    I have a Kenmore Ultra Wash Dishwasher. It will not start. The light above normal wash is flashing continuously. Any advice will be helpful.
    Our warranty ran out 9 days ago:rolleyes:
    Thank-you in advance:o

    I think if you push the heated wash and heated dry buttom several times until all the buttoms light up this will fix your problem
  • Jan 3, 2007, 08:51 AM
    L0gansm0mmy
    Thanks for your response, geeper. We have since given the appliance to a friend & she had it repaired. All the best to you!
  • Jan 3, 2007, 03:04 PM
    _PK_
    I've newly registered on this site and I hope it is OK if I piggy-back my question in this thread.

    I've just had installed a Kenmore Elite Ultra Wash Dishwasher and cannot for the life of me figure out how to run a rinse cycle. The manual, on multiple occasions, notes that a rinse cycle should be run -- it just never says how to do it. There is no button exclusive for "Quick Rinse"

    Hope someone can help, Thanks
  • Feb 12, 2007, 05:25 AM
    blatz
    I paid $95 from F & F Appliance Doctors in San Diego to come out and reset the clean light. Stupid me didn't check the message boards first! (or at least look at the technical data under the machine! Which also describes the reset procedure)

    Anyway, my idiot light was complaining about the heater circuit when I looked up the code. I have a Kenmore Elite Stainless model. The manual does not describe the reset procedure - you have to take off the two screws to get to the front panel and inside there is a guide that gives more technical data.

    So the appliance tech looks at the manual, resets it, collects his $95 and on his way. At first I thought this was the heater element going bad based on the clean light description failure in the manual and was calling around to someone local to see if they would sell it as I wanted it back online ASAP. Nobody had the element in stock so figured I would try to call repair places and see if someone had it. The tech convinced me over the phone that the heater element was not the problem and unfortunately I believed him.

    So the point of all this... rambling... is that the flashing clean light is telling you that something went wrong. And of course it just came back on a day later after F & F left. So don't just reset it - it is not a fluke computer glitch... something was actually wrong!!

    Thanks to Yob's tip about the dissasembly of the lower arm... however... on my model it is quite painful to do this. There were 4 holes used by the dishwasher to push debris into the chopper blade and they were clogged up with seeds and what looks to be picked garlic stems. So here is how to get at that clogged output drain... this was not the problem with the blinking light BTW but it will help with efficiency and the extension of motor life and chopper blade which I understand is difficult to replace also.

    Instructions:
    1) Remove both racks... top rack is painful - you will have to take the rear clips out... they don't come out that easy... press the tab under the clip to get it out
    2) unscrew wash arm by turning clockwise (not the normal way)
    3) take out this blue power wash doohickey
    4) take out this grey u-shaped arm that runs from top to bottom in the unit. There are steel clips on top and in back... unclip and turn the whole assembly clockwise... now you can get it out
    5) unscrew the 4 torx type screws to get out the plastic grate

    Now you can see the gunk stopping up the chopper. Clean it out and put everything back.

    Make sure in the future you are extra careful not to put any crap that might block this up again as it is a royal pain to get out the debris.

    I paid $1000 or so for this dishwasher so not torqued enough to just replace it and I don't know if any other brands are better. This kenmore is really just a whirlpool.

    OK... so I did all that and the clean light is still blinking!! ARRRGH

    I decided to call up Sears service as I just noticed there was stuff covered under the two year warranty and didn't really want to call back F & F Appliance as they didn't really fix it the first time. In their defense the green clean light did go solid before they left indicating things were OK. I still think $95 was too high for this repair and they gave me that number w/o having an estimate in advance so I could have contested but didn't as they did do something... whatever... live and learn. So Sears came out and charged me $55 to tell me the heater element was indeed bad. The way to tell if the heater is bad is to run it through the diagnosis cycle and then feel the element itself to see if it is hot. Taking out the unit to ohm it out is painful and only a secondary thing to try. If it doesn't heat up it is bad.

    Of course Sears does not have the element in stock and I have to wait a week for them to install.

    Just ordered another element on partselect.com 2-3 day shipping. Plan to cancel the follow up appt from Sears and return the element they ordered for me (which is taking a week to ship). You can also get this element on eBay for $28 with shipping so I will keep one of these on hand for the future (kind of like a spare light bulb).

    According to the tech the old heater elements from dishwashers past were very durable. But thanks to Energy Star compliance the heater element is now less durable and will fail about every year or so with normal usage. Wonderful.

    I also found this whirlpool video on another site that talks about the clean light blinking issue... just Google for it.

    Note also that the dishes will be unsanitary at the end of a cycle where the heater is bad so be sure to wash those manually rather than putting them away like me.

    Hope all this rambling helps someone. What a f&*(king pain.
  • Feb 12, 2007, 07:15 PM
    supernutritionist
    Comment on Jennybean25's post
    I had the same experience! Thanks for breaking the code!
  • Feb 12, 2007, 07:18 PM
    supernutritionist
    Sears totally rots! What a scam, they will only tell you how to fix the dishwasher panel, if you are under a service contract! I think we should start a grass roots campaign to expose them!

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