DIY Appliance Repair: What I did When My Dishwasher Start Button Stopped Working

When, in the middle of a terrible head cold last week, our dishwasher stopped working I had a meltdown. In my worst display of “first world problem” privilege ever, I actually fell to my knees and wailed. Then I calmed down and asked Dr. Google for advice.

In recent years, Dr. Google has become much more knowledgeable about the intricacies of appliance repair. Back in the dark ages, the internet only provided Beanie Baby prices and Nyan Cat memes. Now the internet’s coverage has expanded beyond the geeky and into the more mundane world of home construction and repair.

What to do when your appliance stops working
So when a major appliance breaks down I would suggest first consulting the Appliance Blog discussion threads. Even if you’re going to hire the job out it’s good to know what the problem might be and how much it will cost to fix. In my case I was able to figure out that the control panel had a bad switch.

The next step is to head to a parts supplier such as Parts Dr. I picked up the control panel for $137 including shipping.

Appliance Repair 101
The last step, actually doing the repair, is where YouTube comes in. You could probably learn to pilot a jet with YouTube instruction these days, and there’s now a decent amount of appliance repair porn to watch. I viewed the thrilling video above multiple times before attempting the repair.

It took less than ten minutes to swap out the control panel. Then I took a victory lap around the living room with much fist pumping. In the end, I probably saved at least $150 by avoiding a service call.

The interior of my Whirlpool Silent Partner III dishwasher has nicely designed modular parts that are easier to access than many other appliances I’ve opened up. But I have to say that, like many modern gadgets, I wish it had fewer features. All those buttons and circuits end up being a repair liability over time. We need to start a #fewerfeatures movement!

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18 Comments

  1. Dr. Google helped me when my Kenmore dishwasher wouldn’t turn on. I was close to wailing:) I found a discussion board where a tech said to press the cancel button, wait a few seconds, and press it again, and then press the start button. Presto! The dishwasher turned on.
    I have a cheap electric pencil sharpener that I needed to empty, but I couldn’t figure out how. I found a YouTube video that showed me how to open it up.

  2. YouTube is fantastic. It showed me how to replace a tail light in my car. The new cars aren’t as easy as the old cars from the ’60-70’s. I hate to think what I would have paid a mechanic for such a simple thing! I’m sure my late husband would have been proud of me!

  3. When we were purchasing a stove no one could understand why we wanted the simplest model available. The more features,the more things to break.

  4. our appliance repair guy totally agrees. new appliances are awful, not only because the increased number of formerly metal parts that are now plastic, but in the complicated electronics. dr. google saved us over $500 last year when the latch for the center console compartment in dh’s truck broke. dealer said the only fix was replacing the entire console unit, at over $500 for parts plus labor. some fine individual who totally earned some serious karma lottery posted their diy fix for said busted latch, amounting to less than $10 in sundry bits from any local hardware store and maybe 15 min of fiddling to install. not only did the fix work, but when dh was at the hardware store, the person helping him was having the exact same problem with the exact same make/model/year of car, and was in the same boo hoo place, so was also thrilled to learn of the $10/15min fix.

    • I’m with your appliance guy on the awfulness of new appliances. When my old washer died and was unfixable, I reluctantly bought a new one. My old one had an easy-to-understand dial that I could adjust as needed and, if I set the thing wrong, change in mid-load. Not so the new electronic wonder machine. Once the darn thing starts nothing can be changed without draining it completely and starting over from the beginning. Royal pain in the butt.

  5. our appliance repair guy totally agrees. new appliances are awful, not only because the increased number of formerly metal parts that are now plastic, but in the complicated electronics. dr. google saved us over $500 last year when the latch for the center console compartment in dh’s truck broke. dealer said the only fix was replacing the entire console unit, at over $500 for parts plus labor. some fine individual who totally earned some serious karma lottery posted their diy fix for said busted latch, amounting to less than $10 in sundry bits from any local hardware store and maybe 15 min of fiddling to install. not only did the fix work, but when dh was at the hardware store, the person helping him was having the exact same problem with the exact same make/model/year of car, and was in the same boo hoo place, so was also thrilled to learn of the $10/15min fix.

  6. Hubby is a fairly handy kind of guy naturally, but with YouTube he is stellar. He’s replaced simple things like tail lights, car windows, and car door locks, but the best was two summers ago. The washer was making noise then stopped draining and the clothes dryer wasn’t drying. Because a fun date night has always been browsing the big box appliance aisle, I knew replacements were expensive and yuck. With the help of YouTube (and me), he took apart both washer and dryer and now they run fine, even tho’ they are 20 years old. YouTube is a gold mine of DIY instruction.

  7. oh yeah, I’ve have lots of praise for the YouTube repair/knowledge base! Not only do I learn guitar music from these people, but have been able to repair washers/dryers, etc…also this past weekend installed a fuel filter to an old Jeep Cherokee. Rock on!

  8. Totally agree. My oven failed a few years ago. The heating coil snapped like the filament on a cheap incandescent light bulb. The part was only $45, but it took me an hour of removing screws from various panels to get at the connector which took all of thirty seconds to actually install. Aesthetics took over from function. Ugh.

    If you want to enter into the ninth level of repair hell spend some time trying to figure out what went wrong with a washer/dryer pair.

  9. I learned the hard way that all newer appliances should be on power surge protectors. My frig/freezer combo motherboard went on the fritz and so did my oven. Went a year without an oven when the repair guy told me the panel was over $300. I went to youtube, ordered the $300 part and put it in myself….I have way more respect for the repairman and a person can only go so long without a Papa Murphy’s pizza:)

  10. I could go on like everyone else with my own DIY YouTube story, but I’d rather echo the #fewerfeatures movement. I see new cars on the road, and they all seem to have these little features like turn signal lights on the side view mirrors, backup sensors built into the rear bumper, tire pressure sensors and stuff like that. A guy I know was showing off his brand new 2016 Tacoma to me, and I noticed how the tailgate is built such that it won’t slam down on you anymore, and IIRC, the rear gate has electronics built into it, maybe for the rear camera. My 2003 Tacoma is super simple compared to all those extras that are just waiting to break.

    WTF? If I were to get a newer car, that’s a bunch of stuff I would NOT want. But much of it is ‘standard’, so you can’t NOT get it. In my opinion, this is really getting out of control.

    #fewerfeatures for sure.

  11. totally agree with fewer features, I dread the day when I have no option but to purchase a car with central locking and window remotes.
    You tube taught me how to never have to buy printer ink again, for that I am very grateful. For the cost of four syringes and needles and the endless ‘recovered from the trash’ printer cartridges that I bring home from my office cleaning job…there is ALWAYS ink left in those things, even when the machine tells you it is empty.

  12. I’ve often found that by finding out the part number from somewhere like appliancepartspros.com I can find the part much MUCH (sometimes by hundreds of dollars) cheaper by googling the part number or searching directly for it on Amazon and Ebay. This is because the same part can sometimes be used on various brands with the price varying wildly and sometimes NOS (new old stock) with an older part number will be sold cheaper as well. I also have home appliance insurance that is a real pain in the *** to deal with, so I weigh the cost of the service visit vs the difficulty of fixing it myself.

  13. So glad that the intertubes helped you out; we’ve had mixed success with YouTube-directed automobile repairs despite hubby and oldest son’s many years of experience fixing cars. The two of them are now specifically prohibited from replacing the headlights on the Subaru after that disaster.

    When we discovered that the dishwasher in the home we bought leaked like a sieve, we removed it and had a local woodworker make doors that matched our other cabinets. The husband then installed a pull-out shelf in this cabinet for the microwave so it doesn’t take up so much valuable real estate on our tiny kitchen counter.

  14. I’ve never owned a dishwasher and gave up driving 10 years ago. My ha nds and feet are still going strong!

  15. Pingback: The #FewerFeatures Movement | Root Simple

  16. This post inspired me to attempt my first ever appliance repair. My fridge started rattling wildly a couple of days ago. After a wild goose chase involving taking out the ice maker and back of the freezer, I realized it was the damper motor in the fridge. It was fairly obvious once I paid closure attention. Whoops.

    But, probably eight hours later…it was likely a 30 min job….it is repaired. By me. I am proud. I learned a lot during those eight hours and it cost me way less money and possibly even less time than having a repairman out. I learned that I didn’t have the right tools for the job…once I had a nut driver, everything went much more smoothly. Glad I did it. Would probably do it again.

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