How I finally figured out the blue line in my washer's pressure hose

I ran into this exact headache when my Amana dryer started acting up last fall. I thougt the sensor was shot too, but after my repair guy swapped the main board, the issue persisted. He ended up tracing the fault back to the water inlet connection itself. He noticed some mineral buildup on the male end of the hose, right where it meets the pressure sensor housing. It was barely visible, but it was disrupting the flow enugh to throw intermittent codes. Instead of just replacing the hose, he cleaned that connection point out with a small wire brush before reattaching the rubber tube. The factory blue stripe is helpful for identifying the part, but sometimes the failure point is just where the plastic meets the metal fitting on the washer side. It sounds minor, but that buildup can be a nightmare for the pressure switch to read properly.

One habit I picked up after doing this job twice on the same machine is taking a phone photo of the hose routing before I pull anything loose, beacuse on mine the tube took a lazy loop behind the tub lip and if you reclip it without that loop it rubs on the shell. Also check the little barb on the sensor itself, mine looked attached but had actually slid halfway off, and the machine threw codes for a month before I spotted it. Gentle breath pressure only when testing, no shop air, you can pop the fitting right off the diaphragm that way.

Same deal on mine, that blue line had me second guessing a part I'd already bought. What I'll add is the little cup at the bottom of the air dome, the fitting where the hose meets the tub. Mine had a wad of detergent gunk sitting in there and blowing through the hose alone told me nothing since the blockage was below where I was testing. Pulled the hose off the tub side instead of the sensor side and poked around with a toothpick, came out with a soft plug of sludge. Codes cleared right up after that.

Funny thing about that stripe, the color isn't even consistent across revisions. I ordered a replacement air dome tube by model number last spring and the new one showed up with a red line instead of blue. Same part number, same fittings, works fine. So if anyone orders one and the stripe doesn't match thier old hose, don't send it back, just match the part number on the bag. The molded line is only there for factory QC anyway. What I do check on every new hose is how stiff the plastic feels near the clip end, because the stiffer ones crack faster in a cold garage.