To be furious and ask for my money back

[DorothygohometoKansas]

My dishwasher broke a few days ago, with the soap compartment not opening during the wash and I called the best rated repair person in the area, as listed on a well known trades rating/checking website.

Since then its been 4 visits, a total of £211 parts and labour, replacing the entire soap/rinse aid dispenser and much of the internal wiring. Yet still the soap dispenser door does not open during the wash, seemingly no matter what their repair person tries/replaces so far.

The repair person seems very laid back about it all, not understanding how inconvenient and time consuming this repeated visits are. He keeps doing a possible fix, putting the machine on and leaving. Then I have to call him once more and say yet again whatever you didn't hasn't worked, so come back and try again. No apology from him and no acknowledgement that this is poor service.

At this point I'm furious, out of pocket and AIBU to demand my money back for incompetent work, if the repair person cannot fix it tomorrow on their 5th visit?

Been there done that @DorothygohometoKansas. The cost of the repair was more than a new dishwasher. The guy who cam was very honest and said it can be hard to find the fault and the time spent repairing is often prohibitive.

That’s why I am never having my dishwasher or washing machine repaired anymore. I just buy the cheapest one I can find out CC and know that in about 5 years I’ll have to replace it.

The dispenser hatch is there so you can have a water only rinse first - then the hatch opens for the main wash. If the machine drains after the first rinse, then without using the hatch you won't have much detergent in your hot main wash.

But if the machine does not drain before the hatch opens then of course it won't make any difference whether you use it or not.

Can you contact the manufacturer to set what they suggest as a fix?
You've spent a ridiculous amount on this so far, so I see every you're another but in all honesty, the machine will wash just as well if you put the tablet in at the beginning of the cycle.

Ours broke, if you wait for the click early cycle we would open the door and open the soap dispenser. Simples. Certainly not worth the money to get it repaired.

He's still done the work, bought the parts.
We paid 350quid to a gas person to fix boiler only for it to need completely replacing 6 days later. Shit happens

This is too late for you but I have used www.repaircare.co.uk, you get a fixed price which you pay up front. Even if they come several times the price is the same. The technician will be from a local firm, not a one man band (who can be great, but not always).

Well this is a revelation. I thought my dishwasher soap tray was bust because I could hear it opening and dropping the tablet on the floor a few minutes into the cycle.

I think a while back the wee door got stuck on something and didn't open and I found the whole tablet on the bottom at the end and assumed from that it wasn't meant to.

So my dishwasher isn't bust at all.

well known trades rating/checking website
Some of the sites are for advertising purposes, and IIRC will remove bad reviews.

Sounds like you've created a problem that wasn't really there. Our dishwasher is ancient and the dispenser thing door broke off years ago. I pop the tablet in the cutlery basket and it works fine.

Poor OP, not realising what everyone on the thread has said and wasting all that money!

Try putting on a wash with no dishwasher tablet in the dispenser and see if it opens.
We had this problem and discovered that if the dispenser was wet from the previous wash the tablet melted a little and caused the lid to stick to it. So the lid was stuck to the tablet moreso than being stuck closed.

Our soap compartment has been used a few times when we used powder which I only use now for soaking burnt on stuff.

We have a little space at the front of the top shelf to put a tablet in and have always used that.

Always use salt, and the setting is high because of the hard water and also the basic tablets because they don't have perfume - who wants scented crockery and chopping boards? Everything is perfumed these days and it is foul.

My dishwasher hasn’t be used in over a year. Hate the things

Blimey, he saw you coming. As everyone else has said, just Chuck the tablet in the bottom of the machine.

Bloody hell, it appears that I'm the only person on mn that actually uses the little dispenser thing. Who knew! I feel all special now.

Dont "just buy a new one", thats so wasteful. Just throw the tablet in as suggested.

I always yoitube the problem, order cheap bits from wherever & give it a go, unless it's electrical.

However, I did take apart my Karcher pressure washer a few weeks ago, to replace a part, that is £8.00, I can't be faffed to do it now, so will give it to someone to keep and put back together

My user guide says you can put tablet in the cutlery carrier. If your's doesn't have one, then in the bottom of compartment will be fine.

These are difficult issues - when to repair and when to replace. I use the dispense trays for the rinse aid and the other stuff. When to stop repairing and replace and throw good money after bad is very difficult but over £200 and you might as well have replaced it.

It reminds me of my central heating repairs a few years ago, where they kept coming back to do more and more (18 days in all) including rinsing out the old radiators on the lawn having taken them out (21 radiators) and then that didn't work so replacing 21 with with new ones and then replacing the 2 boilers with new - that alone was £7k and he wanted to install some kind of veyr expensive boiler and I said no I want same as before.. I spent £21,500 including VAT by the time they finished the 18 days and 4 radiators STILL did not work. I suppose at least I had heating on - it was snowing outside in most of those 18 days and I had no hot water. Obviously I think the boilers being replaced and 21 radiators was probably fair and flushing them out first before replacing them (they were 30 years old - I kept 3 of my existing ones only) were not bad choices but I have still not recovered from the shock of the cost that just built up and up.

A year or two later I found a man who did a powder flush (not power flush) and had a patent on it and it really got rid of all the problems (and was about £2k including VAT) and I should obviously have used him first. He was recommended by another local firm who are very good and knew it was beyond their competence for such a big system with lots of rust clogging it up.

If he couldn't fix it just pay him the fallout charge

This could be typo of the day!

how is the soap compartment even supposed to work? I'm a technical, logical person and it still confuses me. Its just a plastic lid that clicks into place. No mechanism I can see, and its quite a forceful press to unlatch it. How does the machine do it?

This is like the cancel the cheque thread.

Chuck the tablet on the floor!

Mine never worked for 15 years. I always used to wait until the initial emptying and filling had started then bing the tablet in the bottom

Then a washing machine engineer said to bing it in at the beginning as it doesn't dissolve until the water heats up

I've always tossed the tablet towards the back of the floor.

I use the hatch and it did stop working. I moved it a few times manually and ‘de-gunked’ it with a cocktail stick. Worked perfectly again and still works a year later.