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troubleshooting Bosch dishwasher constantly clogging

4 years ago

Our Bosch Ascenta was installed by a contractor 2 years ago. It’s installed with a high loop correctly into the disposal, and we run afresh or lemishine through it regularly since we have hard water. We are currently using cascade complete platinum but have used finish tablets and seventh generation tablets with the same issues.

For the past year it has been aborting cycles and failing to drain on and off, and this happens more and more frequently as time goes on. The problem is always resolved when I bail out the standing water, clean the filter and sump area, pour baking soda and vinegar down the sump and shake the corrugated drain hose vigorously.... sometimes it takes several tries before I hear and see water drain into the disposal when I restart the dishwasher. This seems to happen every 4-8 times we run the dishwasher now despite the fact that we practically prewash the dishes now and there’s never any serious gunk in the filter.

I’m pretty sure it’s not the pump or sensors, but I’m wondering if the seals around the filter might be letting larger particles get into the drain pipe?

Before I call out the (very expensive) Bosch authorized repair person, are there common drainage or installation problems I can check for this dishwasher myself and what do I look for?

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Comments (4)

Jakvis
4 years ago
Disconnect the drain hose from your drain pipe or garbage disposal and get a large bucket. pour about a gallon and a half of water in the bottom of the d/w. Put the drain hose into the bucket and then do a cancel cycle on your dishwasher. This will make the pump run for about 30 secs and will flush out the hose.

Before you reinstall the hose check the port that it connects to and make sure it's clear. Many times it the port in the disposal that gets blocked and that causes the issue you've described.
Tmnca
Original Author
4 years ago
I’m able to clear the drain pipe and see the water gushing out into the disposal (doesn’t appear still clogged after I clear it) but this continues to happen every 2-6 weeks and I’m wondering if there is something else contributing to the problem I can check. For example, is there a part/seal in the filter system that may be failing that could be allowing larger debris into the drain?
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Jakvis
4 years ago
The filters on a Bosch D/W, when properly locked down will filter out any debris that would be large enough to block a pump. It's my opinion that at some point your filters were not locked and allowed something larger down in the drain system. Many time flushing as I described above will clear this.

One other possibility is the drain hose is pinched behind the dishwasher. This would require pulling out the d/w to check the hoses.
M
4 years ago
We had pretty much the same symptoms with our Miele dishwasher, but that was after almost 8 years of pretty much daily use. So, 2 years feels a little early. On the other hand, we have exceptionally soft water whereas you have hard water, so maybe our situation isn't quite comparable.

In our case, it turned out to be a sticky backflow valve. The rubber gasket had worn out after all these years. Visual inspection didn't show anything, and I was reluctant to replace it, was I had manually cleaned it a few times without much effect. But ever since I got a new valve, everything has been working perfectly.

For Miele, it's a really easy user-replaceable repair and the part isn't overly expensive. I did order it from Germany though, as that shaved off some of the cost. Given that I really only needed the rubber gasket (not sold individually), it felt expensive having to buy the entire valve assembly. But on an absolute scale of things it wasn't a big deal. Much cheaper than paying for 30min of time from a service technician.

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