Hoping you can help me figure this out! My dishwasher is leaving grainy stuff -- looks like sand and is brown/black -- on my dishes, especially inside the cups and glasses. We pulled out the dishwasher and cleaned out the tube that hooks into the garbage disposal (not much in there), ran a Finish dishwasher cleaner, and are now literally scrubbing every food particle off dishes before they go into the dishwasher, and it is still happening. I'm running the dishwasher on the most intense cycle with the hottest water possible. It has to be coming from the system itself. Has this happened to any of you? Not sure where to begin or if it's something I can fix myself.
ETA: I am moderately handy and could take apart the bottom and put it back together. Do I need to cut off the power to the dishwasher first? Not sure if the dishwasher plugs in or is hard wired?
Thanks!
Do you, by chance, have well water? We noticed a similar problem with our water softener stopped working. (That reminds me, I need to remind my husband to try and fix it!) We ran an empty load with a bottle of vinegar. That helped. Then we used Finish or similar product.
This is very common with hard water, so a water softener makes a huge difference.
This stuff is inside the sprayers, the drains, the pipes, etc....I do think you'll need to run it with some vinegar a whole lot of times. Use a LOT each time.
Ours does the exact same thing! I hope you get an answer here that fixes it for both of us! :)
One more place to check (besides the bottom agitator thing) is the seals around the door. When my dishwasher started depositing gunk on my dishes, I cleaned the agitator... still gunk on the dishes. Then I checked the door seals and almost passed out, it was so disgusting! They're black anyway, so it's not like you would really notice the slime unless you looked closely. Anyway, all the grease and dirt and crud from your dishes has to go somewhere. Most of it goes down the drain (hence, the disgustingly dirty sediment filter under the agitator). But some of it deposits on the rubbery door seal and leaves behind a substance not unlike tar. It's SO GROSS. Anyway... good luck. Wear gloves. :(
Do you have the dishwasher manual and moderate mechanical abilities?
You need to take the bottom agitator off and clean the debris out. There is a small garbage disposal under there that gets clogged and the food and detergent cannot drain properly and it redeposits on the dishes.
If you don't think you can do it call a repairman because you will create a more expensive issue if you do it wrong.
shouldn't have to cut the power because you are inside and not near electric. Just keep track of which screws go where. My Maytag has four different screws removed in the process.
I HATE Finish. It doesn't work well for us. I use Cascade, even though Bosch recommends Finish.
You may also need to clean or replace the filter in the bottom. I have taken the whole filter apparatus apart and cleaned it before, but I think it's time for a new one.
I also avoid Pot Scrubber. It seems to make it worse. And make sure you have rinse aid and your kids didn't load the dishes to cover the jets.
Google dishwasher magic and buy some. Use it about every two months. You have mineral build-up in your draining system and sprayers. This will get it all opened up again.
