Bite Me Maytag

[da]

Our dishwasher seems to be under recall.

If you bought a Maytag dishwasher between July 1997 and Fall 2001, check that link against your serial number/model number. (apparently, US as well as Canada). I'll be finding out how exactly they plan to come and repair it... Grr.

Edit: I called the number for additional information; he said: fill in the "registration" form on the website; you will be in the queue to receive a Replacement Part in the mail, and a letter from them, which will have local numbers to call to have an appointment scheduled. They'll come and fix it. That sounds easy enough.

He didn't say anything like "you must unplug your dishwasher right now or your house will explode". Since we don't use rinsing agent, I 'm gonna assume we're OK continuing to use it until they show up. (As d. points out, it's just as safe as it has been for the last five years... the recall didn't make it explosive; the bad design did.)

Comments

[thingo.livejournal.com]

Since we established that I have exactly the same appliances as you (but in white instead of black), this presumably affects me too. Sure enough, we confirmed the fact moments ago. *sigh*

[da-lj.livejournal.com]

Edited above to add: I called the number for additional information; he said: fill in the "registration" form on the website; you will be in the queue to receive a Replacement Part in the mail, and a letter from them, which will have local numbers to call to have an appointment scheduled. They'll come and fix it. That sounds easy enough.

He didn't say anything like "you must unplug your dishwasher right now or your house will explode". Since we don't use rinsing agent, I 'm gonna assume we're OK continuing to use it until they show up. (As d. points out, it's just as safe as it has been for the last five years... the recall didn't make it explosive; the bad design did.)

*sigh* indeed.

[nobodyhere.livejournal.com]

Thanks for posting this. Our dishwasher may be affected (although we don't use rinse aid either) -- I'll check when I get home.

[funos.livejournal.com]

Looks like the Maytag Repairman will no longer be bored...

[ckd]

Yeah, we've already been through the whole procedure. Pain in the butt, it was.

Quick summary:

I scheduled the appointment online; on the appointed day, I got a call asking if the parts had arrived. They hadn't. Called to ask about the parts, which despite it having been over a week since the original appointment request, had been ordered the previous day. Sodding morons.

Rescheduled the appointment; parts arrived, everything looks good. Technician arrives, looks at dishwasher, looks at parts, says "wrong wiring harness; you'll have to call and get them to send the correct parts kit". Do so, reschedule yet again.

The third time was the charm, but it was really annoying that it took about a month from start to finish.

While we were waiting for the repair to actually happen, our compromise was to cut power except when we were using the unit, and to only use the unit when we were home and could grab a fire extinguisher if need be. Since we don't use rinse aid, either, and are almost[1] certain never to have done so, I didn't think it was a huge risk; the extra few precautions were easy enough to deal with, though, and would limit the damage done if it did fail.

[1] I think the dishwasher came with a sample pouch of some rinse aid, which we may have used once, 6+ years ago.

If you're sure you've never used rinse aid, at least in our case they offered the option of a replacement rinse aid compartment cap which basically locks it shut forever. That one didn't require a technician visit IIRC.

[da-lj.livejournal.com]

Thanks, that's helpful.

I'm vaguely curious how long ago you heard about this? I'm not too worried about the slow spread of the info to Canuckistan, though it might be funny if it was, like, 6 months before they realized, "Oh! We forgot about Canada!"

[ckd]

I think hr_macgirl saw the info about it on USENET misc.consumers.house in early February. So, not six months; closer to two.

[earthling177.livejournal.com]

Sorry, just saw this (yes, I'm that far behind, sigh).

Maytag appliances have not been reliable since the early 90's, more's the pity. I had one of their dishwashers in the early 90's that had the pump break under warranty, and then the rinse agent dispenser leaked (to the dishes side of the machine, not the inaccessible parts) -- we had their own technicians show up to "fix" it about 3 times until I got tired of it and fixed it myself (by the simple expedient of consulting their own books and ordering and replacing the *right* parts instead of the wrong [previous model's] ones they kept installing). I sold that machine soon after that.

But the reason I'm commenting is that I am astounded at the number of people not using rinse agent. Note I didn't say "rinse aid". All machines built after the early 90's use too little water to rinse properly and using the rinse agent is the only way to remove the rest of the food and/or detergent from your dishes. That's the way it's been for about 30 years now all over the world except North America because energy here is so cheap that using lots of hot water is not as much of a problem as elsewhere.

You may be better off than most people because Maytag dishwashers are (still) notoriously inefficient with hot water and they tend to use more water than most other brands, but I wouldn't run a machine without rinse agent anyway. Set it to the minimum necessary to do the job because excess rinse agent is not nice either, but I'd use it. Also, make sure that your next dishwasher lets you vary the amount of rinse agent dispensed, instead of dispensing a fixed amount.

Also, if/when you decide to replace your dishwasher, unless they change their design completely, I'd avoid any Whirlpool made machines (that includes KitchenAid) because they may clean well (some designs do, but some don't) but they sure as all heck don't rinse well at all, to the point of the glasses getting chemically etched unless you use the most aggressive cycle (pots-and-pans), which basically makes them completely non-energy-efficient, which is the way you find out how Whirlpool cheated to get the Energy Star rating -- by providing only one skimpy rinse instead of the ordinary two or three other brands do. And that's not their only cheat, they've been cheating on the Energy Star ratings in lots of other appliances too, so I'm avoiding them when I can.

Good luck!