dishwasher trouble shooting advice-black gummy spots
 

Hello you wonderful people with you vast knowledge of everything under the sun. You guys helped me tremendously when my icemaker ate a ziplock bag in the freezer. It's all better.

So hoping to tap into some more help-my dishwasher has started leaving little black gummy balls on the dishes and the inside of the dishwasher. I have to use hot water, soap and scrub to remove it from the washed dishes.

Any one else have this problem and what did you do? and roughly how expensive or time consuming was the repair?

I've done a google search and found it could be an internal gasket someplace or it needs a good cleaning with a citric acid product. Looking for other ideas.

For now, I'm hand washing the dishes and sitting them in the washer to dry. Don't have a dish drainer.

Never had anything like that happen - have you tried one of those commercial cleaners that you run through it while empty?If you have small children they could have helped by putting something in it. I remember back in 1962 my parents rented a house where there was a dishwasher - my sisters and I were thrilled. It didn't work very well, there was a problem with it not getting the dishes cleaned and when the repairman came out he found a lot of rocks and various types items in it. We didn't know who lived there before us - but it made us curious what they expected from a dishwasher.

just a thought... perhaps a rubber gasket is decomposing?

Definitely sounds like a gasket to me as well. How handy are you/DH? Do you have the owner's manual? Does it look like something one of you (or a really handy friend) might be able to manage? Otherwise, sounds like a call to the repair shop is in order. If it's an older model and otherwise is cleaning dishes well, I'd advise against getting rid of it. The new ones take forever and don't clean worth a fig in my opinion. We replaced ours about 2 years ago with a mid-range KitchenAid. Had great consumer report reviews. It's horrible. The use next to no water - which would seem a great thing from an environmental perspective but doesn't clean well at all. Plus, with all the phosphates taken out of all the cleaning products, it doesn't help. OK - rant over! Sorry.

Small children can do strange things. I was a nanny while in college. My VCR stopped working, I took into the shop and they found a couple toy cars inside. The 2 year old had been playing garage I guess.

The dishwasher is a GE about 10 years old. It never really washed well. It came with the new house and we never upgraded.

My dh likes to think he's handy but it's very stressful while he's attempting to fix something.

I hear ya on the stress level! Do you end up in the ER when he's fixing things? We do more times than I'd like to count!

I ran into the same thing a year or so ago. I had used a cheaper brand of dishwasher detergent and found little gummy spots on my dishes. I have no idea if it was the change of detergents. After many many cycles with clorox and or vinegar it was finally cleaned out. These were empty cycles with just clorox or vinegar or both. I also have started using a cleaner (found at Walmart) once a month and returned to using Cascade and have not had this problem since. Did i mention it took Many Many Many cycles using Clorox and white vinegar. Good luck.

I have a high efficiency dishwasher and the recommendation is that you use special detergent and use a cleaner especially meant for dishwashers every once in a while. If it is so inefficient that it doesn't clean itself, how can it clean the dishes....truly it doesn't clean nearly as well as my old one and I have to wash on high temp, heavy duty, to get them reasonably clean and run some things twice...efficient??? I don't think so! I do use Lemishine which helps to keep the water spots at bay.

This probably isn't the answer to your problem of black spots but I had trouble with a sediment collecting on my dishes and dishwasher. I bought the cleaner at Walmart especially made to clean dishwashers. After I used that I started using vinegar in the container where you usually use Jet Blue or something like that. I've not had a bit of sediment or water spots on the dishwasher or dishes since.

It sounds to me like you have some sort of bearing that has grease in it that has gone awry. Probably going to need a repair man. Sorry

I put a cup of cider vinegar in mine once a month and recently was told that the Oxy-Clean Dishwasher Booster was also good.

I have not had this problem but I did find that when I took a paper towel and ran it across the bottom hinge area of the door/unit, it came up black! So, I wipe all the rubber door seals down until no more black. Just wondered if your rubber door seal could be falling apart?

I have no idea what it could be.

I do use a dishwasher cleaner at least once a month. I use the one that is in a square bottle that has a wax plug that melts when the dishwasher is ran.

Also- those packs plugged up my dishwasher. I only use liquid and crystals ---- NO PACKS.

I use Lime-Shine in every load and Cascade complete. Yes it cost more but cheaper than replacing the dishwasher. Had to do that a year ago.

Since that stuff is obviously not food residue it may be harmful to people's health - even the molecules of it that are not visible.

Another thought is that the bearings are there for a reason, and if you keep running it without getting it fixed, it might cause further damage. Gaskets are seals, and when they're gone in a dishwasher, obviously water is getting in where it shouldn't. I'm thinking rust and decay.

I'm inclined to worry excessively, but I would definitely get this problem solved and forget using the dishwasher until it is.

LOL, I'm just the opposite, if I ignore it long enough it will go away.

Where do you find dishwasher cleaner? I checked while I was out over the weekend and didn't find it in the grocery store.

I can't help your problem, but appreciate all the comments on newer dishwashers. I haven't had one for a long time and considered putting one in recently when we removed a section of cabinet that would allow for one. We had pretty much decided that it was going to be replaced with drawers, you confirmed our decision. Thanks

Buy a 8oz.-12oz. jar of TANG, use the whole jar, just dump it into the dishwasher and run a cycle. If it is the gasket you will probably have water leaks and I would guess you would see the water on the floor.

They still make Tang?

Well, anyway, I washed with 2 cups of white vinegar 2 times and it seems to be clean now. It's not throwing any stange gummy spots any longer. I may just start doing that periodically.

Thanks everyone for the suggestions.