KUDE is not a complete model number. Can't accurately search details, parts diagrams, tech sheets and such on a partial number. Find the full number on the model/serial label that is on the edge of the tub (usually left side) visible with the door open.

Model numbers are coded for the year of market introduction.

Serial numbers are coded for the year and week of manufacture so cite it also if you want to know the age more accurately (not considering any warehousing time before you bought it).

A grinder mechanism would not be a factor in drain failure, even if your model had a grinder. Grinders are part of the recirculation/spray pump. Drain pump is separate.

Water inlet line leaking has no relation to drain failure. You may have loosened it slightly in jiggering with the pump stuff.

May be a bad drain pump. Simple fix, parts can be found online at multiple sources, can be surprisingly reasonable cost for a DIYer. The alarmist above is premature until the problem is accurately diagnosed and a required part is researched.

Yikes this machine is ser 2002894. That's almost 20 years. And it's KUDE70FVSS0

OK, I posted a long thing that vanished. Let me try again, this is what I've done ...

Removed the drain pump. Impedence = 0 ohms. But power gets it to go. Is it too anemic? I don't know.

Running the "rinse only" cycle gets no water in the machine. However, water does go into the machine in the "one hour" and "regular" cycles. What doesn't seem to happen is for the water to drain away. ... Maybe a motherboard problem?

There's a pair of small baffles at the outlet hole in the bottom exiting to the pump. One has broken off the other is loose. Could these possibly interfere with water sensing?? They are small, approx 2mm x 4mm. Just plastic molded to the housing. I read somewhere there is a sensor opposite this outlet hole but my unit doesn't seem to have this. Maybe the sensor is located above the outlet drain...?

The inlet hole at the 90-degree elbow (outside the machine) does indeed drip but just a teeny bit and wouldn't seem, I agree, to be related to this drain problem inside the machine.

I was able to blow water from the outlet hose back through the line and out the airgap.

The only evidence of gunk I see is at the pump's input where there's an O-ring. This area is a bit gunky but I can't see how that's keeping it from functioning to pump water out.

Does this suggest an electronic, motherboard problem??

I don't think it's 20 years old. Possibly 12 years. The V in the model number indicates 2008 model year per Whirlpool model coding (Whirlpool bought KitchenAid in 1986). The serial number you cited is not complete per Whirlpool coding, there should be at least one letter at the beginning, possibly two ... in which case the 2nd letter is part of the date coding which you may be interpreting wrongly as a year of 2002.

Well, I think I don't care now because .... I fixed it!!!!!!!!! I was so proud of myself until I nearly killed myself trying to get the cabinet door to a corner cabinet back on. Man that was awful. The dishwasher wasn't a ton of fun either. But less awful. Turns out it was just a plug and the non-rinsing was a clue. Water wasn't going in with enough force to get water into the middle and top shelves. The plug was behind a 90-degree turn in the drain hose. I had to use a pipe cleaner and a lot of gyrations but eventually something gave and then some really gross black water dripped out.

I tightened the intake hose which did have some play in it, put it back in and bingo. Also I noticed a little rubber gasket was not really closing right for the mid-rack connection, that's what gave me the clue.

Now the machine seems so much louder than it used to, but perhaps that's bc it hasn't been rinsing forever? I can't wait to try it on a full cycle.

The full SER is FY2002894 - guess I made a presumption.

Congratulations! Hopefully you just saved yourself the purchase of a whole new unit. It's amazing what some ingenuity can produce. I have a subsidiary brand of a Frigidaire dishwasher that is around 8 years old, and the motherboard has already been replaced I think twice. These appliances do have certain lifespans, so don't wait until disaster strikes to replace in the future if you have failing seals or other things that could cause leaks and cannot be easily caught in time or repaired, would be my caution.

Serial decodes to 20th week of 2009.

F = Whirlpool's factory in Findlay, OH
Y = 2009
20 = 20th week (May 11 to 15)
02894 = production sequence

OMG dadoes - who the heck would know that stuff. Thank you it's interesting.

Silverlined: thank you YES! I was just having that conversation - husband was saying "just get a new one" and really, what I loathe almost more than the purchase price, which is bad enough, is the researching of a new machine. But I was ready to concede that the machine just might have met its lifetime perhaps. I hate the idea of just replacing parts and I didn't know how to diagnose whether the pump was too slow*, etc. So I had dipped into the buy-it thought process and I was wondering the same thing now: how many machines are literally trashed for want of a plug-release?? That's it. The entire thing works perfectly now. Though I can't be sure it was entirely a plug release, it could also have been fiddling with the bladders that connect the middle rack and also dealing with the mechanism that was causing a misconnect there (I hadn't been aware of it as a problem, but something got fixed and changed, I think, because I am fairly certain the rack now goes to a higher height than previously and I have to also push a little hard to really feel that engaged seating of the middle rack). I'm thinking - don't know - that if that whole upper mechanism isn't functioning properly, perhaps there's a negative vacuum type thing missing, and the whole system doesn't work properly. Is it all that delicately balanced? Could be I suppose....

Anyway, yeah - think of all the unnecessary resource-waste of machines being replaced needlessly. It's kind of mind-boggling. The whole exercise scared me tremendously and yet it was all incredibly easy. I'm sure some such repairs might be more tricky but - dunno - I think the lesson should be stronger that: this is just a plug. Find it. It's not where you think it is. I didn't get that message from online chatter, what came through was more of "you could look for this if you feel like it". Not, "your machine probably doesn't need to be thrown away. You need to find gunk that's inhibiting its function, then it will work". And maybe you-all's experience shows this to be simplistic but from here, that's what it feels like to me! lol.

*Speaking of which ... the resistance across my pump was zero ohms. What does that mean? Online videos said above 100 is good. Another said "approx 200." Mine just flew to 0. So ... there's nothing inside inhibiting current flow ... what does it mean?? I wonder .... *does* it mean the pump is anemic? Would a new pump have more resistance?

Infinite resistance (opposite end of the scale from 0) means the pump is burned out, with full resistance against electricity passing through. 0 means there's no resistance, electricity passes freely through. Most devices have some amount of resistance. That's how an electric stove burner, oven element, space heater, etc. (even a light bulb) generates heat ... the wire gets hot due to resistance against electricity pushing through. Most meters (if not auto-ranging) have a choice of multipliers on the settings knob to read the number easier on the scale.

Drain pumps can be erratic or "weak" ... run OK when cool at first then break-down when heated. But, the drain hose clog likely was your problem if it's consistently draining OK now. The spray arms and recirculation pump are a separate water-flow path from the drain pump.

The drain pump is (currently) a whopping $48-ish (more or less depending on the source) if it does fail at some point, and if you (or hubby) can DIY it without involving a servicer.

Hm OK ... so maybe my sense that when it did turn on when pu ton power, that it was anemic is correct? Because it *did* work though! And it cleaned my dishes beautifully last night! (so grateful to have it back).

Also - geesh, where did you see it for $48? I called our local guy here and he wanted $79 for it. That was before I had tested and made it go, just wanted to know my options.

I don't have the machine out any longer or the pump out (easy to do) to re-test. Both multimeters I used (!) have only a single ohms setting - lots of AC and DC twists but no multiplier for ohms. But it just zinged to the right ("0") - they aren't nice new digital versions like folks online are using. Weird... if I got any reading at all, therefore, it must have made cnxn at the contacts so I don't think I could have done that wrong? And if I didn't then that would really mean the pump is bad, no?? wait wait wait ... you're saying if the needle had NOT moved, there would have been resistance and it would have been bad. But with zero resistance it's good? I so do not get this.... I guess re-reading for the sixth time, what you're really implying is my old analog multimeter isn't up to the task of resolving whether there's enough resistance down around the 100-200 ohm range to indicate whether there's a problem. If the needle hadn't budged way up in the high end, then there would have been no electricity flow, some circuit was broken and the pumps was bad. But that it went gang-busters means nothing obviously is broken. It *should* have shown some resistance bc life happens, and it didn't so ... my multimeter just isn't getting an accurate-enough reading. Therefore, it's possible the pump is bad, but this test hadn't adequate "power" as it were, to figure that out.

Is that right-ish?

And yeah, I feel completely able to swap out that pump on a dime should it become necessary in the future!