tuna55
tuna55 MegaDork
10/20/16 2:21 p.m.

I have a six month old Bosch dishwasher. Once or twice it didn't open the soap tray during the cycle. What does this? Can I just leave the door open at the beginning?

I filled the rinse aid up, and maybe inadvertently caused an issue. Sometimes the dishes come out clean but slimy, with a film on them. Excess rinse aid not rinsed off perhaps? I've made sure everything is spinning properly, opened the rinse aid and ran two cycles with no soap, and the water in the bottom (opening during the cycle) still has white stuff in it.

What's going on?

GameboyRMH
GameboyRMH GRM+ Memberand MegaDork
10/20/16 2:28 p.m.

For some reason this made me think of surely the nastiest scene in American Dad, involving Roger, a dishwasher, and a stress ball...

(sorry, but now anyone else who was thinking of it can post something helpful)

4cylndrfury
4cylndrfury MegaDork
10/20/16 2:45 p.m.

I have a 2 year old GE Cafe washer, and its the same story - occasionally, the door doesnt open, and the dishes occasionally come out gross.

I have nothing to offer, just wanted to see what the hive has to say...

tuna55
tuna55 MegaDork
10/20/16 2:51 p.m.
4cylndrfury wrote: I have a 2 year old GE Cafe washer, and its the same story - occasionally, the door doesnt open, and the dishes occasionally come out gross. I have nothing to offer, just wanted to see what the hive has to say...

I am very closely affiliated with someone who works for GE. I can say without any doubt that they make a fantastic gas turbine and a poor appliance.

I was hoping for better from Bosch. I bought a GE for my old house and the first one was crooked. Like, it wasn't welded to the frame because parts were the wrong size. The door wouldn't even open and close.

codrus
codrus GRM+ Memberand SuperDork
10/20/16 3:19 p.m.

Pretty much every dishwasher I've ever owned for the last 25 years has occasionally failed to open the soap tray door. Sometimes it's due to having loaded the dishwasher wrong (put a large pot in the wrong place and it can block the door), but sometimes it just sticks. When that happens I just cycle it a few times by hand and run the dishwasher again.

mndsm
mndsm MegaDork
10/20/16 3:41 p.m.

Do you use soap pods? Thry can jam the door shut. As for thr slime thing, I usually attributes that to a proliferation of greasy dishes and a need to run a cleaning cycle on the washer. We have some horseE36 M3 rental units washer and it works fine if we use liquid (not solid) and do a thorough job decreasing dishes.

Huckleberry
Huckleberry MegaDork
10/20/16 3:45 p.m.

Spray it with PAM.

Also - don't bother with rinse aid. After you start the cycle - wait until you hear the pump stop draining and just before it fills. Open the door and dump a cup of white vinegar in there.

It's the cleanest and most spot free your glasses and silverware will ever be. Plus if you have hard water it will clean the crust off your stainless pots and the inside of the dishwasher.

dculberson
dculberson PowerDork
10/20/16 3:56 p.m.

Hmmm.. I have had a Bosch dishwasher for about five years and it's run once or twice a day. (six people in the house, including a baby .. three meals made/eaten at home a day .. lots of dirty dishes!) I've never had the soap door stick that I know of. I'd try cleaning around it well with a dish brush and see if there's any crusty build up or anything. Maybe something's stuck under the door that you can't see?

Dr. Hess
Dr. Hess MegaDork
10/20/16 3:59 p.m.

We have a Bosch as well. I think maybe once the flapper door has not opened, and I think it was from using too much detergent. You are supposed to use like a tablespoon.

Hal
Hal UltraDork
10/20/16 4:05 p.m.

We have had a couple KitchenAid dishwashers and every time the door has not opened it was traceable to the wife putting in a plastic cutting board that blocked the door from opening.

wearymicrobe
wearymicrobe UltraDork
10/20/16 4:07 p.m.

Lemonshine additive will cure all your ails. Seriously dishes come out better then new.

SyntheticBlinkerFluid
SyntheticBlinkerFluid UltimaDork
10/20/16 4:09 p.m.

Well I have found out from trial and error that if you put something that fits all the way to the end of the lower dish rack (pans, handles from pots, cookie sheets, platters, Pyrex), they will block the soap door.

This happened to me a few times and when I saw that it was getting blocked, I have redone how I load the dishwasher and haven't had an issue since.

Streetwiseguy
Streetwiseguy PowerDork
10/20/16 4:21 p.m.

Its long spoons in the cutlery receptacle that blocks mine shut. I just lean the spoons the other way now.

Too much soap can cause all sorts of issues too. I used to have to pull the spray bars out a couple of times a year to unclog them, but now I'm divorced.

tuna55
tuna55 MegaDork
10/21/16 10:32 a.m.

No soap pods, no oversoaping, no crud on the doors.

Last night I made extra sure nothing was in the way, and closed the presumably empty rinse aid door, and everything worked fine, so I'm happy.

Thanks for the advice!

foxtrapper
foxtrapper UltimaDork
10/21/16 10:59 a.m.

No Bosch experience myself. But googling "bosch dishwasher soap dispenser won't open" sure is eye opening. Seems a rather common problem.

EastCoastMojo
EastCoastMojo GRM+ Memberand Mod Squad
10/21/16 11:41 a.m.

I'm gonna throw some vinegar in mine tonight. We have hard water and everything always has spots.

Ian F
Ian F MegaDork
10/21/16 12:14 p.m.

Using the rinse-aid function definitely helped with water spots. Up here in SE NH, the water is absolute crap. The water at my house in PA isn't much better (but is at least drinkable out of the tap) and rinse-aid helped there too.

My dishwasher at home in PA (a Whirlpool, I think) also tends to jam, but I'm using powdered soap and it seems if I don't get the fill just right, the door jams. Here in NH I've been using pods and haven't had a problem.

02Pilot
02Pilot Dork
10/21/16 2:50 p.m.

After struggling with generally poor results, especially on silverware, and determining that everything mechanical was OK, I ran a couple of white vinegar cycles and switched over to Lemi Shine detergent on the advice of the interweb. Huge difference. Huge. (No affiliation, just surprised by how mediocre most dishwasher soaps seem to be.)

Mezzanine
Mezzanine HalfDork
10/21/16 3:46 p.m.

I have a 4 month old Bosch dishwasher - it has a soap dispenser, but we don't use it - there is a small tray on the front of the top rack. We just put the little soap briquette in there and everything comes out great. We've never tried rinse aid either. Never had the dishes not come out clean enough to investigate trying anything additional.

Rufledt
Rufledt UltraDork
10/21/16 11:25 p.m.

We won't work on Bosch products so this is more general info, but you may find it useful. The problems you describe happen to all of them anyway.

Door not opening happens to all of them now and then. If you're worried about grime/lime left in the washer holding the soap door shut or otherwise causing a problem, use this:

Use as directed. It's really good stuff.

About soaping, you really can't gauge how much soap to use without knowing how hard your water is. If you have 15 grains of hardness (most of the USA is around there, though it does vary considerably), a 'pod'/recommended powder amount is about right. Lower hardness means less soap (and don't use pods), more hardness means more soap (or 2 pods). The problem with detergent is the government required them to remove phosphates a number of years ago. Now they all basically suck...

White stuff in the bottom, you say? is it like a mineral-looking white or a soap looking white? Too much soap causes suds (you want NO suds at all even during a wash in which you added soap) and the drain pump can't drain suds. Then, when you start it up again, it will still have soap left over from the last wash. It's a compounding problem. We remove the soap and suds with a splash of Spa anti-foamer, but a little vegetable oil can work. That cuts the suds and allows the drain to fully drain out the water and soap. If the water is mineral-filled, that's a different issue, however.

over-soaping is more of an issue if you have a water softener like people where I live. The water is SO hard that we need softeners. A local softener place makes REALLY good softeners so the water comes out totally soft, as opposed to most which still leave some hardness. Add that to the fact that local stores sell LOTS of those pod things, and we have a recipe for everybody using way too much soap. It's so common that we will run through a checklist when people call with dishwasher problems to make sure we won't go out on a call just to tell someone they use too much soap.

If you leave the soap door open, some of the soap will get drained out with the pre-rinse water, but not all of it. It doesn't fully drain and refill. It is a viable option we tell customers if they have a broken dispenser that is no longer available and they don't want to buy a new dishwasher. It's not as efficient, but it's not terrible. Some of those pods/bricks are actually designed to be thrown in the bottom anyway. Powder isn't, but it can still work.

'Rinse Aid' is important, but only use the good stuff ie. name brand. Generic stuff often causes more problems.

Usually when you remove the cap to pour in the rinse aid, there will be an adjuster for amount. If you think it's too much, you can turn it down.

Films can be caused by the water not being hot enough. This will cause soap to not dissolve as well as it should/not remove crud as well. Dishwashers get their water from the hot side of the kitchen sink usually. Run the faucet HOT before turning the DW on. They don't fill up with water enough to 'run out' the cold, and the heaters inside are really not up to the task of heating cold water as hot as they need to. Some DW's will drain the water out and refill up to 5 times if they don't sense hot enough water. Some new ones will also try to heat up fully anyway. This can take MANY hours, but some will do it. It's really that important.

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