Cleaning · 18 of 21
Top Rack Stays Dirty
Everything below comes out clean and the glasses above come out as they went in.
| What you can see | What it usually is | Whose job |
|---|---|---|
| Lower rack spotless, upper rack still soiled | The upper arm is turning but no longer throwing far enough, which is pressure rather than rotation | Yours to check first |
| Nothing on the top rack is even wet | The feed carrying water up to the arm is blocked or unseated, so none of it gets up there at all | Ours |
| One patch of the rack clean and the rest dirty every time | Some of the jets have closed up, so the arm sprays a pattern with a gap in it wherever those jets point | Yours to clear, ours if it will not |
| It got worse over a winter rather than overnight | Deposit builds by the load, so a machine run every night narrows its jets faster than one run twice a week | Ours |
| Tall things below and a dirty rack above | Something in the lower rack is catching the upper arm and stopping it turning through a full circle | Yours to reload |
Water reaches the top rack only if there is pressure left once the bottom has taken its share, so a top rack that stops cleaning is usually a pressure story rather than a top rack story. Filter, feed, arm, jets, in that order. Viking Repair Denver works down that list on (303) 729-0972.
The top rack is the end of the line. Water is drawn in at the bottom, driven round by the pump and pushed upwards last, so anything costing the system pressure costs the top rack first. That makes a dirty upper rack an early warning rather than only an annoyance.
Reading it from the bottom up
Start with the cheapest thing in the chain. A loaded filter takes pressure off everything downstream, and it is the one part of the water path an owner can lift out and look at. After that comes the feed that carries water up the back of the tub, then the arm on the end of it, then the openings in the arm itself.
Deposit works on all four but shows at the last, because that is where the openings are smallest. An arm whose jets have narrowed still turns, still sprays and still sounds right from outside the door; it simply no longer throws water as far as the shelf above.
What gets cleared and what gets replaced
Jets get cleared, not replaced. An arm that comes up clean, turns freely and sprays a full pattern goes back in. What does get replaced is an arm that has been run on deposit long enough for the seat it spins on to wear, or a feed that has cracked rather than blocked.
The load gets discussed too: plenty of these are cured by leaving a gap between tall items and not standing a tray where the water has to climb past it.
What to try before anyone drives over
- Stop the machine a few minutes into the main wash and look upwards. The underside of the upper rack should be soaked through; if it is dry, no water is getting to the arm at all.
- If the upper arm lifts away by hand, take it off and hold it against a light. Any opening you cannot see daylight through has closed up, and that is the gap in the pattern.
- Run a thumbnail across the jets you can reach. Deposit comes away as a chalky grit and the openings look wider straight afterwards.
- Load the machine, push the rack in and turn the arm through a full circle with a finger. It has to go round without meeting anything; one handle standing up from below is enough.
That is as far as it goes without tools. If it is still wrong, call Viking Repair Denver on (303) 729-0972 and say whether the underside of the upper rack is soaked when you stop a cycle — it is usually enough to know which part is coming on the van.
Every symptom, grouped by what you can see Water in, water out, cleaning, power and the door — the whole library on one page.
Clifford Nakamura
- Written
- On the van
- Service technician — controls and intermittent faults
- Years at it
- 22 years in the trade