What reasons could cause the Bosch dishwasher to periodically fail to fully clean dishes

dishwasher

I have a Bosch dishwasher (model SHX46A05UC/43) that occasionally fails to get all the soap scum off of the dishes. It seems like it fails to fully finish cleaning once every five to ten cycles.

I feel like it might be something to do with the heater. The cycles the dishes do get fully clean, the dishes are almost too hot to touch at cycle end, while following cycles where the dishes are not fully clean, the dishes are only warm.

The heater is capable of working, as during testing I observed water temperatures around 150°F mid-cycle.

Things I have confirmed:

  1. Pump: Opening the dishwasher while it's running shows the arms
    spinning and spraying. Water fully is removed from basin after the
    cycle is finished
  2. Arms: I have removed and cleaned the arms and they
    don't seem to be clogged.
  3. Traps and drains: appear to be cleaned are not gunked up.

Can anyone suggest what might be wrong? The inconsistency in the issue is making it hard to track down.

Best Answer

After a few months of rerunning failed washes, I found the issue... I hope.

I disassembled the dishwasher's front and removed the control board. Upon close inspection there were two dead/fried ants (yes, the insect) on the bottom of the control board near the pins for the relay the heater. This relay is already unreliable in this dishwasher model and I have fixed it before.

One of the solder joints connecting the relay looked like a cold solder joint. Cold solder joints can sometimes have intermittent connection issues so I was hopeful that this was the issue. I suspect the ants were in there during a run and caused the pins to arc which melted the solder joints.

I removed the solder from the joints and re-soldered the pins. I reassembled the dishwasher and have had two successful runs so far. Fingers crossed this resolves the issue. 🤞🤞🤞

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