I have an old Kenmore dishwasher that came with the house when I purchased it 10 years ago. It has worked well most of the last 10 years. However, this is not the first time that I have had this problem... previously, the problem just "corrected its self". I cannot find the model number anywhere.

Normally, as the dishwasher goes through its cycles, you can hear a "click" and then water draining, another noise, and then it continues to the next cycle. The dishwasher recently decided to NOT drain and I ended up with water across my entire kitchen floor.

After I mopped up all the water and removed MOST of the water from the tub area, I turned it back on and tried to "force" it through the cycles... at no time did the dishwasher ever even try to drain. There was no "click", the water just kept running and running, causing it to overflow again. So, not only is it not draining, but it is not trying to drain AND it is continuously filling.

I have tried to look over past postings, but I stopped after 14 pages... I absolutely can not afford a plumber, and as a single mom who is going to college FT as well, I really rely on my dishwasher! I hope someone has some good information for me... with clear instructions on things I can try. Just check hoses is not quite enough information for me; I hope you can give me some more detail... THANK YOU FOR YOUR HELP!!

I had the same problem with my dishwasher not too long ago and my handy son fixed ours! You need to get a 6" plunger, saw the handle down, and do the following.

Locate the drain hole at the bottom back of the machine. Pull the bottom rack all the way out of the machine. The drain hole will have some kind of plastic criss cross screen over it. Locate the screws and carefully remove this screen. Take the plunger and plunge the hole many times. Take a fine mesh strainer and go through the water in the hole and the standing water in the bottom of the machine (if it is still there) and take out all the gook that is in the water.

The reason your dishwasher will not drain is because it has food caked and clogged into this drain hole. When you are plunging this hole the water will be forced up the middle shaft and out the top of the shaft. This is normal. It can get a bit messy if there is a lot of water. I would recommend that you take out a lot of the standing water before you start plunging the hole or you will end up with a lot of water all over you and your floor.

You may have to do this plunger thing about 10 or 12 different times to get all the caked on food out of this drain hole. 10 years is a lot of time to get built up food in this area. Be patient. You will prevail! The reason it cleared itself up before was whatever food was clogging the drain hole somehow got unseated and it would run OK.

You will be surprised at all the stuff you will be able to plunger out of this drain hole! Don't force the machine to keep filling up until you plunge away the problem. Also, you cannot just plunge and the clog goes down the drain like a sink would. You must physically take all the goop and glop out of the machine itself before it can even think of having it fill up again. Good luck!

Thanks for your reply! I will give this a try sometime during the next few days and see how it goes.

Thing is, it doesn't even try to drain... doesn't make the sounds like it is trying. Would this still be caused by the drain being caked up? I know that looking at the drain, it looks fine, but DUH, I never thought to look down inside, under the screening! I sure hope this works! I will let you know how it goes. Thanks again!

The machine not making any noise like it should when draining is normal when the drain is clogged. It appears to be some kind of fail safe mechanism to keep the motor from burning out as it is stuck and cannot properly whirl around the impeller. Mine was doing the same thing and since I didn't have money for (god forbid) a repairperson to come and fix my son fixed it for me. What is happening is the machine first drains out any water before starting it's cycle... mine was silent when it was clogged and would not start up. Then after we plunged it a few times it would start up, do it's thing and actually do one complete wash, rinse cycle and then poop out and not run again. We plunged again and it worked OK. We had to do this a few times as I had 5 years of goo to clean out. So don't be discouraged if you don't get the goo out completely the first time you plunge!

Okay, so I ran to the hardware store to get a tool that would actually remove the screws.. darn things are those hex type screws and I only have regular and phillips screwdrivers. Got what I needed and here is how it went...

Well, there were 2 different places inside the dishwasher that I could open up. The first was near the center of the dishwasher, off to the right. There was no screening, but just many square/rectangular holes in the plastic. I opened this one first, as I could reach it easier... I found a ton of gunk, a straw, hair and a bread twist-tie. I removed all of this and then plunged the best I could. I was hopeful that once this was cleaned out that the dishwasher would work. It didn't :(

Next was at the rear of the dishwasher and had screening in the center of it and square/rectangular holes on the ends. I opened this one and found that some of the screening was clogged with tiny junk. On the underside of the plastic -- where the screening is -- was a small metal piece that seemed to work by being pushed up from underneath, opening a very small, round hole. There was some gunk around that area, so I cleaned it up as well. I found the piece that is supposed to rise up and push open this "drain?" I could pull it up and push it back down again. I did my best to plunge the heck out of this area as well. Again, hopeful that this would solve the problem, I ran the dishwasher... no draining.

I also removed the hose from the sink's drain pipe and (having no other means available) blew as hard as I could into the thing. I heard bubbling in the water sitting in the bottom of the dishwasher the first two times I did this. Now, no more bubbles. I am guessing that this means that the hose may be clogged as well?

Also, if I have the rear plastic piece with the screening removed, will the dishwasher still try to drain? I actually did the test run with the pieces still out of the dishwasher. I was hoping that I would not have to put it all back together until I was sure I was finished.

What is my next step? Thanks again!

Oh, when I ran the dishwasher, it ran fine... it just did not drain. When it got to the very end cycle, it kept washing and washing and then just shut off and went into the drying mode with no draining. Maybe it's the motor for the drain system?

Eeeek! Well, at least you got a lot of the gook out of the machine for starters. May I suggest one more thing before you bite the bullet and call a repair guy? Try putting the plastic screens back in place with the screws. Sometimes there is a "safety mechanism" that prevents the machine from operating unless the whole shebang is put together. Make sure you put everything back in the machine in the exact order that they came out and don't miss any screws. Very important. Make sure all screens are put back in the correct position. Just having the screen reversed or not in properly will not activate the safety doohicky.

If that does not work... then, guess what. It sounds like it's the drain solenoid. This nifty part is located underneath the machine and needs to be tested with a multi tester to see if it is fried. Some solenoids are cheap and some are expensive depending on your system.

There is also one other thing that could be wrong that keeps it from draining and that is there is a drain system that is operated by a reversing motor. In that case that motor is cooked. Hopefully you only have one motor in your unit as you said the dishwasher works OK but does not drain. Reversing motors are pricey.

Does the machine make any noise at all when it should be draining now? Like a motor hum?? Anything? Or just dead air?

So, if putting everything back together doesn't work then it's repairman city unfortunately, or if you know of any handy dude with a multitester and a few favors he owes you.

I bought a Maytag dishwasher with a disposal gizmo in it and used it daily for over 11 years and never called a repair person or had any problems with it at all. I cried when I had to leave it behind in Florida when I moved. I now have a GE Nautilus which does not have the disposal in it and much louder.

Well, when the machine is supposed to be draining, the sound it makes is --WASHING... LOL It never stops washing. It just seems to "forget" that it is supposed to drain some time. It just washes and fills and washes some more and then stops at the end of the full cycle. It never even tries to drain.

Then it's got to be either the drain motor or the solenoid. You did put the screens back on I hope? Because with all the stuff that was down in the drain it apparently burned out something.

My rinky dink dishwasher fortunately does not have the drain motor so I lucked out on that. My dishwasher would not drain but would fill up and wash and the unit itself at the beginning of the cycle would not turn on at all and I had to turn the knob and progress it a bit until it turned on. My unit was trying to tell me duh the food trap was clogged. My DW is 2001.

Well, persistence pays off... I was finally able to get the access panel off the bottom front of the dishwasher and actually get to the rest of the parts.

There is a large black piece under there which I assume is the motor. To the left of that and slightly back there is another smaller object connected to it by several wires that has some springs on it. Also part of this smaller object is a lever that is operated by springs. I checked the lever and it sticks. I made it go down and restarted the dishwasher in a position that looked close to where it might be ready to drain... and low and behold it tried to drain! :D Unfortunately, when it did so (good thing I left the panels off and watched underneath) it leaked water down underneath the dishwasher and onto the motor object. :eek: I immediately pulled the handle to unlock the dishwasher to turn it off ASAP! Seems like there has been a leak under there for a while and this probably shorted out the little part that works the drain system.

SO, is it worth fixing the leak and replacing the part (would have to hire someone)... or just wait it out and buy a new dishwasher in a few months? I am guessing that since this thing is like 15 - 20 years old, that I might as well assume that more will continue to go wrong.

Oh, I finally found the stupid model numer: 363.1479580, ser# LA 304474. (Kennmore)

Oh dear here we go again. Seems that when you opened up the panel and noticed the leaking mess... I hate to tell you that whatever part got leaked on got fried. Now it is probably more than just the solenoid and/or the drain motor. A friend of mine who has a handy dandy repair CD for dishwahers recommends that if this is the case more than likely a bunch of parts may have been fried along with the solenoid. You will be dumping more money into the repair of this older machine in the long run. You can get a dishwasher at one of those "used appliance" stores for less than a brand new one and get some kind of waranty with it also.

You sound just like me... I'll keep at it until I either fix it or die trying to fix it. Just had a swell electric furnace repair done yesterday. The expensive contactor part ($138) went and since I never had the furnace looked at before and knew how to open up the repair panel access without getting fried myself... I sprung $50 for a repairdude to put the part in for me. At least I had an expensive furnace repair lesson for future use LOL! Can't afford the repair but hafta have the heat as it's going to get really cold again here in Ohio - it was a balmy 8 degrees the other night with windchill around zero and today it was a toasty 65 degress and tomorrow back to being cold.

I am so sorry about your dishwasher. Well, at least you gave it a heck of a good try. When electric and water mix - there never is a good outcome. I'm surprised it lasted as long as it did and didn't actually catch on fire. Apparently all the years of the goo build up finally caught up with it. New dishwashers are not too terribly expensive. I've priced them in the $200 - $250 range for some pretty good models. You don't need to buy the top of the line to get your dishes clean. Hot water works just as well in a less expensive machine as it does it a pricey one. Watch for some sales.

Thank you for all your help! I really appreciate it. I have bookmarked this site... seems there is help on here for everything. Since I am on my own with the kids, I am learning to do a lot of repair work myself around the house. So far, it is frustrating but fun learning. So far I have repaired the kitchen sink, tinkered with the lawn mower and my car.

You should have seen the people at Lowe's when I told them I was doing the repairs myself... the guys could have been knocked over with a feather! One day, I picked up a 5 gallon bucket of ceiling paint and a few gallons of colored paint... the guy says "So you got a job for the hubby, huh?" I said nope... just me! He was shocked... I loved it! :D

Bless your heart, dear. I'm pretty good at diagnosing a lot of stuff and fixing it myself. I've learned that guys are not the answer to everything. If you have the time and energy... LOL... look on Amazon.com for some repair-it-yourself books. Some of the older books from Time and Life are wonderful. The one I love is Time and Life Complete Fix it yourself Manual. This is a book about home repair stuff that I have referred to over the years. They give you a crash course in how to fix just about everything. They are printed back in the late 1980's and are well worth the few dollars for a used book plus a few dollars shipping. Readers Digest has a good repair-it-yourself book also.

I've installed kitchen cabinets with counters (with my son) as I needed more counter space. That was a fun project to do. We've done many other projects together around the house. My son has a bedroom that he does not use to sleep in as it has a stand up mechanic's tool chest and a huge work bench plus a gazillion tools lining the walls, in drawers, etc. He sleeps on the couch in the livingroom LOL!

Everyone on this site has something to share and they are willing to share it with other people. If you ever have a problem, this is the place to go to! Good luck and I'm sure we'll talk again soon.