Dishwasher top arm not spinning

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Lancashire
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United Kingdom
I have a Beko DWD5411W unit. Just recently the its not been washing at all well, and the top basket washing is just poor. I ran the unit with nothing in, and quickly opened the door, and noted the top arm did not appear to be spinning. I disconnected it, and cleaned it out, but it wasnt dirty anyway. Ran the unit again with no top arm, and there appears to be water coming out of the connection, but looks at a low pressure. I bypassed the door interlock, and ran the unit with the door open (likely not a good idea, but only for a few secs). The bottom arm was spinning but slowly, and the top arm nothing. Water was coming out of all the holes in the arms, but weakly. The unit also appears to take longer to fill, around 2 mins. Has anyone got any ideas. Used the bottom shelf only this morning, and things cleaned but there still appeared a little bit of residue.
Not adverse to taking it apart, replaced the water inlet valve on it last year.
 
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Has the supply been turned down by accident and have you checked the wire filter in the connection hose?
 
As far as I am aware the suppy is fine. The supply to the dishwasher comes from a t piece at the end of the cold feed in the kitchen. The other t feeds the washing machine, which is working fine. Is the filter where the water supply is attached?
 
Usually in the union joining the hose to the machine but might have been put in the other end of the hose, they are normally only hand tight.
 
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Double checked the main feed and its fine. Will pull the unit out later and check the filter. Any pointers if the filter is clean??
 
Well most machines Ha v a lift out filter in the bottom of the washing compartment to catch large food scraps but I assume you have tried that already. Otherwise I'm out of ideas.
 
When my top arm stops spinning, it’s normally a grain of rice wedged in the very outer holes in the top arm that are angled - the jet of water coming out of them is what spins the arm. Could just be clogged up with grease. Might be worth trying one of those dishwasher cleaners and run it on a hot wash.
 
Ok. Filter is clean. Had the whole top arm feed assembly in bits and there are no blockages to top arm flow. Put it all back together, and same. There is flow coming out of the top arm, but its not spinning. Oddly it washes everything on the bottom shelf fine, when I was testing with nothing in the top basket. Stumped now!!!!
 
You've got a blockage somewhere, but the question is where. You've done all the standard checks,so you need to trace the water supply to see if the pressure is okay at each point. Or you could try taking off the water feed, and backflushing the arms using a hose, just take it slowly at first so nothing gets damaged.
 
How do you mean tracing the water supply. I have had the top arm, top arm connection to the top arm feed off and flushed. Also flushed the feed pipe from the bottom of the machine to the top. (The pipe that sits flush to the back of the machine). All appears clear. Could it be there is not enough pressure to the top arm to spin it up, although enough to supply water to the arm?? If so what could cause this pressure drop. The only pump I know of, is the drain pump, which is working fine.
 
The bottom are is spinning, but the top arm isn't, so that inidicates a blockage somewhere - as we can assume that the machines worked in the past. The machines conected to the cold water supply, so you remove that and check the filter, and check the pressures okay. If the pressure coming in from the hose is fine, and the filter where the hose connects is clear, then the blockage has to be somewhere inside the machine. Now it could be the valve that lets in water, so if you backflush the system, then you don't want to damage anything. The cold water goes in, and then gets heated and pumped round the machine, and then gets pumped out, but I don't know of there is a circulation pump as well as a drain pump, or whether there is just a drain pump, and a diverter valve to pump the water round the machine, or to drain it out.
 
Thanks for that. I will try backflushing the system. When I had water off earlier to check inlet filter, I checked water pressure and it seemed fine. Looking at spares websites there appears to be 2 pumps for this unit, a drain pump and a wash pump/recirculation motor.
 
On the back of the upper basket there will either be 2 holes or 2 short pipes which match up with a single pipe or hole on the back of the dishwasher.

There should be a rubber seal in the hole(s) - if this is damaged or missing, there will be insufficient pressure to rotate the spray arm as most of the water will pour down the back wall of the dishwasher.
 
Thanks flameport. Seals are there and look ok. Moved the upper basket to the other level, as its never been moved, and still the same. Its now developed another issue, the tablet drawer does not open properly, its fouling on the upper basket, so the tablet does not come out properly, and I'm left with a partially dissolved tablet in the machine. No idea why it's suddenly doing this, top basket is pushed all the way in..... think I am fighting a losing battle here!!!!!!
 
The tablet drawer not opening is just another symptom of the lack of water pressure in the machine. It gets a squirt of water to open it, so nowatter pressure means it won't open when required.
 

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