Kenmore dishwasher fuse

[Phil]

I have a Kenmore model 665.16829000 dishwasher,which I believe is made by Whirlpool.(which I knew which Whirlpool model this is).Anyway it stopped in the middle of a cycle.I traced the problem down to a blown thermal fuse,number 3376359,I got a new replace from Sears,which is a new number 675813 and installed it.Dishwasher works fine now.My question is what would of caused this fuse to blow in the first place,and after replacing it,the dishwasher runs fine now?I know that is a loaded question.

[Jeff Wisnia]

I have had more than one thermal fuse in an appliance open "without any reason" and after I replaced those thermal fuses the units worked fine for years afterwards. Two examples I can think of were our undercounter instant hot water unit, and our previous microwave oven.

I suspect thermal fuses are subject to the same kind of thermal cycling fatigue which sometimes causes regular cartridge fuses to open "by themselves" without any demonstrable overloading. Though, poor conductivity at the fuse clip/end cap connection can cause resistive heating to takes out a cartridge fuse. The oxidization causing that resistance can get "removed" by the wiping action of snapping a new clean fuse into the clip.

Try and not worry about it too much. This is probably not going to be a case of "Things which go away by themselves coming back by themselves."

Jeff

[jeff]

Hi,

Thermal fuse kit with harness, *always use new wiring harness (The manufacturer has replaced part number 3376359 with this item, part number 675813.)

Whirlpool ( maker of your d/w ) has mentioned that sometimes the wire harness isn't tight enough and the fuse may let go, it is important to replace the wires in the kit as well as the fuse!!

jeff. Appliance Repair Aid