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My $1200 7 year old Miele dishwasher stopped working a few months ago, with the “Intake/drain” light on red when starting a load. Dishwashers during the pandemi

My $1200 7 year old Miele dishwasher stopped working a few months ago, with the “Intake/drain” light on red when starting a load. Dishwashers during the pandemic were sort of scare due to massive home remodeling demand, and the professional repair people would have cost $300 just to diagnose, so I went to try to fix it myself. It turns out the water intake valve solenoid was jammed or gummed up somehow, as applying 120V to it directly had no effect. I went to find an OE replacement online only to find that they are $580, sold by only 2 places, and sold out. You need to be a certified Miele technician to buy them. Given I knew the specifications from the model number and the printing on the solenoid itself wrt voltage and flow rate, I bought the cheapest replacement I could find on Amazon, spliced the wires into the existing harness and boom, it worked perfectly. One thing I didn’t understand was why there were so many different inlet valves that all did the same thing. There were 120V AC and 12V DC versions but other than that the only difference was the water connector/dongle/bracket. It seemed absurd there would be so many but the reality is that actual solenoid is super generic and should only cost $20 and should be made to fit them all. Of course nobody really repairs things these days but I think this is the reason why. Even when the part could easily be standardized and replaced/repaired like a light bulb, companies want you to buy a whole new one.

annoyingnoob 5y ago
There is a reason that appliances, or pretty much any product these days, do not last. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planned_obsolescence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planned_obsolescence
- gambiting 5y ago
  I honestly 100000% believe that people use this term incorrectly almost all the time. Planned obsolescence is when something is deliberately made to break quickly so that you buy another one. What is happening here is different - it's a question of "how do we make it as cheap as possible and last as long as the warranty". They sound the same but they really aren't. No one is designing these devices to break deliberately. But companies absolutely are swapping metal cogs for plastic ones because a plastic cog won't break during the warranty period and that's what matters.
  - qubidt 5y ago
    What really is the difference? If you know a plastic cog has a 90% chance of breaking after 6 months you're effectively planning on it breaking. You're basically arguing that intent matters more than the effect of creating disposable products.
    - rowanG077 5y ago
      Yes that's the entire point of `planned` obsolescence. The word itself quite clearly signifies a requirement for intent to be there. If you make your product as cheaply as possible and because of this it does not last long does not mean it's planned obsolescence. It's just a cheap product.
      - qubidt 5y ago
        My point is in *either* case you're planning on it breaking .
        rowanG077 5y ago
        No. A cheaper product may be more durable due to less complexity.
        gambiting 5y ago
        Not really. You can buy a hammer made out of metal, or a plastic one for half price. The plastic one will break long before the metal one would. Is the manufacturer "planning" for breakage? Or it is just a side effect of the product being cheaper? Real planned obscolescence is making software that requires online authentication and then switching off the auth servers 3 years in so that the customers have to buy a new version. That's a deliberate action.
        squarefoot 5y ago
        > Is the manufacturer "planning" for breakage? Or it is just a side effect of the product being cheaper? It can be both. I was in a hardware store looking at painter ladders and noticed many of them had the two sturdy metal ladders kept together by a piece of plastic. Pretty much everyone would think they were extremely durable, while actually the weak link would soon wear to make the entire product useless. Was it incompetence or planned obsolescence? I have no idea, still I wonder why I spotted the problem in 5 seconds straight although I am no engineer.
- p1necone 5y ago
  There's a bit of survivorship bias going on here though. The only appliances still working from more than (X number of years) ago are going to by definition be those that were built to last for more than (X number of years). So your only reference point is seeing that all the older appliances seem to be built to last. You'd need to do research on all the options that haven't lasted to today to find out if modern stuff really does break faster, and that's much harder to do.
imglorp 5y ago
Similar experience with a Miele. Inside it's about 4x more complicated than an American model: far more engineering around sensors and actuators and quality, while the American ones are designed with short lifetime and manufacturing costs as goals. Fortunately it came with a circuit diagram which made it easy to find a bad relay which had a generic replacement. Back in business for more years. ps. Just remembered, that Miele also had a diagnostic/debug mode to tell you what system was faulting. Try that with your shitty builder's grade Whirlpool.
- Causality1 5y ago
  Is lasting twice as long really a convenience if the repair costs ten times as much? I've always preferred simpler appliances that are easy to work on.
  - imglorp 5y ago
    Is 10x repair cost right? Parts maybe 2x-5xish? For labor, I think it's the same "appliance repair" network as the others, so whatever that rate is, trip fee plus hourly.
    - Causality1 5y ago
      Well the original poster said his Miele intake valve solenoid was $580 OEM. The one from Whirlpool is $40.
      - kevingadd 5y ago
        It sounded like it was $580 through unauthorized channels, and an authorized service technician would probably get them at cost. The fact that the GP was able to find and substitute an equivalent part for cheaper means that the $580 had to be including the price of Something Else, and the fact that it was for sale in two different places means it wasn't just Miele.
        Causality1 5y ago
sandermvanvliet 5y ago
A few weeks ago my Philips coffee machine broke down. It just stopped when I pressed the button for a coffee and went into error mode. It turned out that despite my google-fu there isn’t a published repair manual to be found, Philips does not offer replacement parts anywhere oh and actually it’s a rebranded machine from Saeco... So I just started taking it apart as the warranty had expired anyway. Took a bit of doing but ultimately found out that the motor for the bean grinder was broken. With some luck by typing in some numbers printed on it I managed to find a place that sells them. With that it was a fairly easy fix that cost me 40 euros and an hour or three instead of 300+ for a new machine. Also there is sweet satisfaction form having fixed a thing
- praseodym 5y ago
  Saeco is a Philips brand, no funny rebranding business going on: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saeco https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saeco
  - sandermvanvliet 5y ago
    Fair enough but nothing on the machine or labels inside it or the manual mention that. However later I found out that the parts are Saeco branded which did not help my search for them
- tda 5y ago
  I recently replaced the pump in my espresso machine. Turns out a lot (maybe all?) have the same solenoid pump and they are not expensive at about €25. Also found out my "Solis" machine is sold as Breville in the US.
- SmellTheGlove 5y ago
  I'm glad you figured that out. I have a Saeco machine (Magic Deluxe) from 2004 that I've kept in working shape. Parts still aren't too hard to come by on ebay - although I'm now replacing the boiler and did end up with the wrong part before finding the correct one. Now I figure if I can get a gasket kit, I can fix the boiler I'm pulling out and have a replacement on hand when it leaks again in 5-10 years. For the most part, googling part #s and looking at pictures will get you pretty far. These machines share a lot of parts with other Saeco/Gaggia/Philips models.
userbinator 5y ago
If the coil itself hasn't burned out (easy to check with a multimeter), a bit of cleaning could be sufficient to fix it. Indeed a lot of the mechanical parts like valves, pumps, etc. will be available online from various places, and I bet you'd be able to find the same thing on AliExpress cheaper than Amazon. As for why there are so many variations, it could be a form of vendor lock-in (like laptop AC adapters, where the number of different output voltages is far greater than the tolerance itself), or different companies just chose different OEMs.
js2 5y ago
I've been able to keep my Fisher & Paykel dish drawers operating since 2004. Besides supplying parts, they also offer retrofits as they've made design improvements over the years. Ditto for a Fisher & Paykel double oven. I'm recently annoyed by my Honda lawn mower which requires a complete transmission replacement ($220) due to a worn out key slot in the drive shaft. Annoying since the transmission itself is well built, but you can't buy just the drive shaft: https://axleaddict.com/misc/Honda-Harmony-215-Transmission-Problems https://axleaddict.com/misc/Honda-Harmony-215-Transmission-P... (I have an HRX217 but the transmission design is similar.)
- bombcar 5y ago
  Small engine repair shops may have a used shaft - or look for the same/similar mower on Craigslist with a dead engine - how my friend repaired a rototiller.
- asguy 5y ago
  ... that’s when you decide to buy a lathe, and now you have a whole new hobby.
- busterarm 5y ago
  I have a Maytag washing machine & dryer from 1955 that still run and the only thing either ever needs is a new belt every 15 years or so. I've seen the inside of modern washing machines and the difference between the two is stark. Both machines are actually extremely simple, but the Maytag is incredibly overengineered. Every last component is quality. Modern machines do everything in the PCB but every component had maximum cost squeezed out of it.
- telchar 5y ago
  A local machine shop could probably build up the steel in the worn keyway in the shaft with a welder and cut a new keyway for a good deal less than the new part cost.
  - js2 5y ago
    Good idea. The lawnmower is of course built around the transmission, so removing it is a bit of a hassle. What I'll probably do is replace the easily replaceable parts (key, spring, clamps, washers, gear), give it a good lubrication, and sell it (disclosing the worn part) and replace it with a battery-powered mower. I'm tired of dealing with gas machines. I'm under no illusion that a battery-powered mower will be as durable, but I'm just done with the noise and pollution of gas.
lhoff 5y ago
Thats why I keep my more then 15 year old espresso machine and resist the urge to get me something fancier. If somethings brakes i can got to the local hardware store and buy stuff from plumbing supply. Its also a generic clone of the E61 machine so a lot of parts are interchangable and the inner workings are straight forward so said i don't even need a manual for the specific machine.
- kovvy 5y ago
  The hard part of fixing it can be that the manufacturer used a range of sources for each part. The parts are available, but it can be difficult to tell which easily available part is the right one. This is only a problem for fixing a single device - if you fix many, then you likely have multiple parts anyway.
- seryoiupfurds 5y ago
  Since I didn't know what the E61 machine is: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-61 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-61
m463 5y ago
That's the same sort of thinking I go through when walking down the plumbing fittings aisle of home depot. Slip fit threaded mpt fpt barbed 1/2", 3/4", 1", garden hose, pex, ... I think the permutations make it hard.
kjs3 5y ago
Funny...my way over-complicated LG clothes washer started leaking water all over the floor a week or two ago. A little poking around revealed that there's a water steering assembly, a modestly complicated bit of plastic with 3 solenoids attached. Searching Amazon, the OEM part is $70, but a half dozen places sell nearly identical units for $20, next day shipping. I noted there seemed to be 2 different versions of the knockoff replacement, differing in the angle of the wiring attachments. Works perfectly. Of course nobody really repairs things these days While I'm sure the OEM would prefer you buy a whole new item, and a 'certified repairman' is likely to spend the extra for the OEM part, the existence of an aftermarket where someone has gone to the trouble to produce a nearly identical replacement part (and perhaps 2 different manufacturers have) tells me that people are in fact fixing these things.
- earleybird 5y ago
  . . . and in non inconsequential numbers. There's a critical mass to establishing this aftermarket.
- EricE 5y ago
  Ha - I have a new LG front loader and took the covers off to have a look around. It has at least half as many if not 2/3 less parts than the Whirlpool Duet HT it replaced. And the motherboard is tucked up at the top of the washer, not down below like my Duet. I mean the Duet HT lasted me 15 years (and may last someone else another 15 if I get around to selling it) but the LG bests it in every way. Most impressively it's whisper quiet, barely makes any noise on all but the highest spin speed and even then doesn't shake my whole house like the Duet did. And it does a fantastic job cleaning my laundry. My towels have never been fluffier or more absorbent. It's almost as if someone replaced them mid-wash. If it's half as reliable as my Duet I'll be ecstatic, and if it breaks I'll fix it. There aren't that many parts and diagnosing these things is pretty easy if you have at least minimum problem solving/deduction/critical thinking skills.
- nicbou 5y ago
  They are. For many, a new appliance is a significant investment. Even when it's not, I'd rather pay 200€ for a used washer than 700€ for a new one. There has to be a network of repairmen who refurbish and resell machines for that to happen. I also repair my appliances because it's quick. I can usually fix it in a day or two without interacting with another human, for very little money.
rasputnik6502 5y ago
yep, most home appliances are surprisingly easy to repair, the intimidating part is that you never did such repair and have no idea how to go about it. But there's the Internet and you can find instructions on Youtube to fix almost anything. Water pump in dishwasher, bearings in a washing machine, heaters, sensors - almost everything is replaceable. And many parts are reused between models and brands so with some searching they can be had cheaply. Usually it's not worth it to pay a service guy to fix your 15 year old device as it's probably nearing its end of life anyway, but why not give it a chance and try to fix it before throwing away..

annoyingnoob 5y ago

There is a reason that appliances, or pretty much any product these days, do not last. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planned_obsolescence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planned_obsolescence

gambiting 5y ago
I honestly 100000% believe that people use this term incorrectly almost all the time. Planned obsolescence is when something is deliberately made to break quickly so that you buy another one. What is happening here is different - it's a question of "how do we make it as cheap as possible and last as long as the warranty". They sound the same but they really aren't. No one is designing these devices to break deliberately. But companies absolutely are swapping metal cogs for plastic ones because a plastic cog won't break during the warranty period and that's what matters.
- qubidt 5y ago
  What really is the difference? If you know a plastic cog has a 90% chance of breaking after 6 months you're effectively planning on it breaking. You're basically arguing that intent matters more than the effect of creating disposable products.
  - rowanG077 5y ago
    Yes that's the entire point of `planned` obsolescence. The word itself quite clearly signifies a requirement for intent to be there. If you make your product as cheaply as possible and because of this it does not last long does not mean it's planned obsolescence. It's just a cheap product.
    - qubidt 5y ago
      My point is in *either* case you're planning on it breaking .
      - rowanG077 5y ago
        No. A cheaper product may be more durable due to less complexity.
      - gambiting 5y ago
        Not really. You can buy a hammer made out of metal, or a plastic one for half price. The plastic one will break long before the metal one would. Is the manufacturer "planning" for breakage? Or it is just a side effect of the product being cheaper? Real planned obscolescence is making software that requires online authentication and then switching off the auth servers 3 years in so that the customers have to buy a new version. That's a deliberate action.
        squarefoot 5y ago
        > Is the manufacturer "planning" for breakage? Or it is just a side effect of the product being cheaper? It can be both. I was in a hardware store looking at painter ladders and noticed many of them had the two sturdy metal ladders kept together by a piece of plastic. Pretty much everyone would think they were extremely durable, while actually the weak link would soon wear to make the entire product useless. Was it incompetence or planned obsolescence? I have no idea, still I wonder why I spotted the problem in 5 seconds straight although I am no engineer.
p1necone 5y ago
There's a bit of survivorship bias going on here though. The only appliances still working from more than (X number of years) ago are going to by definition be those that were built to last for more than (X number of years). So your only reference point is seeing that all the older appliances seem to be built to last. You'd need to do research on all the options that haven't lasted to today to find out if modern stuff really does break faster, and that's much harder to do.

imglorp 5y ago

Similar experience with a Miele. Inside it's about 4x more complicated than an American model: far more engineering around sensors and actuators and quality, while the American ones are designed with short lifetime and manufacturing costs as goals. Fortunately it came with a circuit diagram which made it easy to find a bad relay which had a generic replacement. Back in business for more years. ps. Just remembered, that Miele also had a diagnostic/debug mode to tell you what system was faulting. Try that with your shitty builder's grade Whirlpool.

Causality1 5y ago
Is lasting twice as long really a convenience if the repair costs ten times as much? I've always preferred simpler appliances that are easy to work on.
- imglorp 5y ago
  Is 10x repair cost right? Parts maybe 2x-5xish? For labor, I think it's the same "appliance repair" network as the others, so whatever that rate is, trip fee plus hourly.
  - Causality1 5y ago
    Well the original poster said his Miele intake valve solenoid was $580 OEM. The one from Whirlpool is $40.
    - kevingadd 5y ago
      It sounded like it was $580 through unauthorized channels, and an authorized service technician would probably get them at cost. The fact that the GP was able to find and substitute an equivalent part for cheaper means that the $580 had to be including the price of Something Else, and the fact that it was for sale in two different places means it wasn't just Miele.
      - Causality1 5y ago

sandermvanvliet 5y ago

A few weeks ago my Philips coffee machine broke down. It just stopped when I pressed the button for a coffee and went into error mode. It turned out that despite my google-fu there isn’t a published repair manual to be found, Philips does not offer replacement parts anywhere oh and actually it’s a rebranded machine from Saeco... So I just started taking it apart as the warranty had expired anyway. Took a bit of doing but ultimately found out that the motor for the bean grinder was broken. With some luck by typing in some numbers printed on it I managed to find a place that sells them. With that it was a fairly easy fix that cost me 40 euros and an hour or three instead of 300+ for a new machine. Also there is sweet satisfaction form having fixed a thing

praseodym 5y ago
Saeco is a Philips brand, no funny rebranding business going on: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saeco https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saeco
- sandermvanvliet 5y ago
  Fair enough but nothing on the machine or labels inside it or the manual mention that. However later I found out that the parts are Saeco branded which did not help my search for them
tda 5y ago
I recently replaced the pump in my espresso machine. Turns out a lot (maybe all?) have the same solenoid pump and they are not expensive at about €25. Also found out my "Solis" machine is sold as Breville in the US.
SmellTheGlove 5y ago
I'm glad you figured that out. I have a Saeco machine (Magic Deluxe) from 2004 that I've kept in working shape. Parts still aren't too hard to come by on ebay - although I'm now replacing the boiler and did end up with the wrong part before finding the correct one. Now I figure if I can get a gasket kit, I can fix the boiler I'm pulling out and have a replacement on hand when it leaks again in 5-10 years. For the most part, googling part #s and looking at pictures will get you pretty far. These machines share a lot of parts with other Saeco/Gaggia/Philips models.

userbinator 5y ago

If the coil itself hasn't burned out (easy to check with a multimeter), a bit of cleaning could be sufficient to fix it. Indeed a lot of the mechanical parts like valves, pumps, etc. will be available online from various places, and I bet you'd be able to find the same thing on AliExpress cheaper than Amazon. As for why there are so many variations, it could be a form of vendor lock-in (like laptop AC adapters, where the number of different output voltages is far greater than the tolerance itself), or different companies just chose different OEMs.

js2 5y ago

I've been able to keep my Fisher & Paykel dish drawers operating since 2004. Besides supplying parts, they also offer retrofits as they've made design improvements over the years. Ditto for a Fisher & Paykel double oven. I'm recently annoyed by my Honda lawn mower which requires a complete transmission replacement ($220) due to a worn out key slot in the drive shaft. Annoying since the transmission itself is well built, but you can't buy just the drive shaft: https://axleaddict.com/misc/Honda-Harmony-215-Transmission-Problems https://axleaddict.com/misc/Honda-Harmony-215-Transmission-P... (I have an HRX217 but the transmission design is similar.)

bombcar 5y ago
Small engine repair shops may have a used shaft - or look for the same/similar mower on Craigslist with a dead engine - how my friend repaired a rototiller.
asguy 5y ago
... that’s when you decide to buy a lathe, and now you have a whole new hobby.
busterarm 5y ago
I have a Maytag washing machine & dryer from 1955 that still run and the only thing either ever needs is a new belt every 15 years or so. I've seen the inside of modern washing machines and the difference between the two is stark. Both machines are actually extremely simple, but the Maytag is incredibly overengineered. Every last component is quality. Modern machines do everything in the PCB but every component had maximum cost squeezed out of it.
telchar 5y ago
A local machine shop could probably build up the steel in the worn keyway in the shaft with a welder and cut a new keyway for a good deal less than the new part cost.
- js2 5y ago
  Good idea. The lawnmower is of course built around the transmission, so removing it is a bit of a hassle. What I'll probably do is replace the easily replaceable parts (key, spring, clamps, washers, gear), give it a good lubrication, and sell it (disclosing the worn part) and replace it with a battery-powered mower. I'm tired of dealing with gas machines. I'm under no illusion that a battery-powered mower will be as durable, but I'm just done with the noise and pollution of gas.

lhoff 5y ago

Thats why I keep my more then 15 year old espresso machine and resist the urge to get me something fancier. If somethings brakes i can got to the local hardware store and buy stuff from plumbing supply. Its also a generic clone of the E61 machine so a lot of parts are interchangable and the inner workings are straight forward so said i don't even need a manual for the specific machine.

kovvy 5y ago
The hard part of fixing it can be that the manufacturer used a range of sources for each part. The parts are available, but it can be difficult to tell which easily available part is the right one. This is only a problem for fixing a single device - if you fix many, then you likely have multiple parts anyway.
seryoiupfurds 5y ago
Since I didn't know what the E61 machine is: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-61 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-61

m463 5y ago

That's the same sort of thinking I go through when walking down the plumbing fittings aisle of home depot. Slip fit threaded mpt fpt barbed 1/2", 3/4", 1", garden hose, pex, ... I think the permutations make it hard.

kjs3 5y ago

Funny...my way over-complicated LG clothes washer started leaking water all over the floor a week or two ago. A little poking around revealed that there's a water steering assembly, a modestly complicated bit of plastic with 3 solenoids attached. Searching Amazon, the OEM part is $70, but a half dozen places sell nearly identical units for $20, next day shipping. I noted there seemed to be 2 different versions of the knockoff replacement, differing in the angle of the wiring attachments. Works perfectly. Of course nobody really repairs things these days While I'm sure the OEM would prefer you buy a whole new item, and a 'certified repairman' is likely to spend the extra for the OEM part, the existence of an aftermarket where someone has gone to the trouble to produce a nearly identical replacement part (and perhaps 2 different manufacturers have) tells me that people are in fact fixing these things.

earleybird 5y ago
. . . and in non inconsequential numbers. There's a critical mass to establishing this aftermarket.
EricE 5y ago
Ha - I have a new LG front loader and took the covers off to have a look around. It has at least half as many if not 2/3 less parts than the Whirlpool Duet HT it replaced. And the motherboard is tucked up at the top of the washer, not down below like my Duet. I mean the Duet HT lasted me 15 years (and may last someone else another 15 if I get around to selling it) but the LG bests it in every way. Most impressively it's whisper quiet, barely makes any noise on all but the highest spin speed and even then doesn't shake my whole house like the Duet did. And it does a fantastic job cleaning my laundry. My towels have never been fluffier or more absorbent. It's almost as if someone replaced them mid-wash. If it's half as reliable as my Duet I'll be ecstatic, and if it breaks I'll fix it. There aren't that many parts and diagnosing these things is pretty easy if you have at least minimum problem solving/deduction/critical thinking skills.
nicbou 5y ago
They are. For many, a new appliance is a significant investment. Even when it's not, I'd rather pay 200€ for a used washer than 700€ for a new one. There has to be a network of repairmen who refurbish and resell machines for that to happen. I also repair my appliances because it's quick. I can usually fix it in a day or two without interacting with another human, for very little money.

rasputnik6502 5y ago

yep, most home appliances are surprisingly easy to repair, the intimidating part is that you never did such repair and have no idea how to go about it. But there's the Internet and you can find instructions on Youtube to fix almost anything. Water pump in dishwasher, bearings in a washing machine, heaters, sensors - almost everything is replaceable. And many parts are reused between models and brands so with some searching they can be had cheaply. Usually it's not worth it to pay a service guy to fix your 15 year old device as it's probably nearing its end of life anyway, but why not give it a chance and try to fix it before throwing away..