It will drain just fine inbetween cycles, like when I put it on light wash, it drains inbetween wash and rinse.
At the end of the cycle it will not drain though, still have 4 inches of water left in there.
I tried to reset the system to force it to drain by pusing start 3 times, still doesn't drain, but at the very end of that reset it shoots a little water out of the drain.
I have checked all hoses and they are clear, plus it drains fine inbetween cycles so it can't be a clog.
the piston is find no rubber rot at all, I replaced that 2 years ago.
If I disconnect the hose and lower the hose to below the water line it will drain, but very slowly at the end of the cycle.
I did get it to drain once, they it started acting up again and will not drain at end of cycle.
The solonoid seems to be working, I look underneath and it's moving when it should.
I am having a similar problem with my own dishwasher, a GE Hotpoint. However rather than just not draining at the end of the cycle, what mine does is it drains all of the time, so it's constantly pumping the water out. Like yours, if I play with it it will fix it for a cycle or two.
Here is what I did so far. Behind the kick plate is a little bag with the dishwasher circuit diagram and a bar chart that shows what the positions are of the different selonoids and vales are during the cycle. Open this and take a drop light that shows these valves. Run the cycle and compare against the clock what all the switches and selonoids are doing.
In my case, when it acts up, the drain valve selonoid is switching on at the same time the water valve is switching on. According to the timer chart, the drain selonoid is supposed to switch on at the end of the cycle. Mine does that too but it also switches on at times when the water valve is switched on. Mostly at the first wash cycle but sometimes at all the wash cycles.
I did buy the GE step-by-step dishwasher repair manual which parts of are very good, and parts of are not so good. This is one of those parts that isn't so good, unfortunately.
My suspicion is that my unit and yours are having the same problem, and that problem is the timer switch is worn out. The timer controls all of the switches and selonoids. I am thinking that the switch contacts in yours are worn at the point at the end of the cycle where the drain valve is supposed to turn on and let your washer pump drain the washer. And that on mine the switch contacts are worn at the beginning and are shorted across and making the drain valve switch on when the water valve switches on.
The manual did point out that in SOME models, the water float may be a problem to where if that switch turns on that it will trigger the drain valve. However in mine the water float is not obstructed, and also the wiring diagram does not show the float connected into the drain valve circuit. I am going to test for this tonight and see. The other problem I'm having is that as soon as I took the kick panel off and started watching the damn thing like a hawk it started operating pretty much normally, so a lot of what I'm posting here is very thinly supported conjecture.
The other problem is the timer is about $100 and this isn't a part that you shotgun with, since a new cheap dishwasher isn't that much more than this. Plus that in mine the drain valve seal is leaking a bit anyway. The only thing that's really stopping me from just replacing the dishwasher is that while cheap, mine does have a porcelean-over-steel wash tub, and nowadays all the cheap ones have plastic wash tubs. Damn manufacturers and their damn cost cutting - even the expensive dishwashers nowadays have the cheezy plastic interiors except for the super expensive ones that are stainless steel.
It turned out to be the wiring between the timer and the bottom of the dishwasher. I removed the timer and tested it with an ohmmeter and it was working fine. So after looking at the wiring diagram I guessed there must be a short between the drain selonoid wire and the water valve wire. Sure enough after following the wires through the wiring harness I found the problem where the wires pass through the hinge from the door to the bottom of the washer - age and continued flexing had caused the wire insulation to crack and the wire to fray and the two bare wires were touching one another. As a result when the water valve was getting power, so was the drain selonoid.
HomeOwnersHub website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here.
All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.