I've just repaired two faults on my Candy CDI 1012/B built-in dishwasher. I Googled the symptoms before I started and found lots of people with similar problems but no answers, so I thought I'd write mine up here in case someone searches for them in the future. Hope that's ok with the forum.
Please note, I am not telling you what is definitely wrong with your machine, just a recount of what I did with mine. I accept no responsibility for anything, ever.
The original problem was a loud, fast rattling noise at the start of the cycle. The first thing it does in a cycle is drain any water which is inside. I know this because I can hear it gurgling down the drain in the kitchen sink. This, combined with previous experiences with washing machines, made me think the problem was in the drain pump.
First step, obviously, was to turn off and disconnect water and electricity. Then get the dishwasher out from its built-in gap under the worktop. The bottom plinth front was just clipped onto a cabinet foot and the dishwasher was screwed to the underside of the kitchen worktop with two screws, visible when the door is open. After they were undone, the dishwasher slid out (it had been standing on two blocks of wood to get the height right.
I guessed the drain pump would be near the filter and the drain hose, so I took off the right side panel. There are a number of screws on the top and sides of the panel, and it slots into the bottom. The drain pump is the black square thing with the white square sitting on it, just left of centre in this pic:
You can see that it feeds directly to the left into the grey waste hose. The big white thing behind it is the bottom of the filter which you can see/remove to clean from the inside of the dishwasher.
The next thing I did turned out to be the wrong thing to do. I decided I could get better access to the pump if I put the machine on its side and removed the bottom panel. DON'T DO THIS. Apparently, dishwashers don't like to be on their side, and it caused the second problem, see below.
Anyway, once I got these screws out:
...the pump twisted off from the housing:
The problem noise was caused by a bit of broken glass, about the size of my thumb nail, trapped in the white housing, so that it would get hit by the green impellor blades as they spun:
Once that was removed, I cleaned up the dirt and limescale deposits from the mating surfaces, because I didn't want it to leak. Don't forget this rubber ring:
I put everything back together, reconnected electricity and water, and tried it out. The drain pump worked perfectly, with none of the noise! But then I discovered problem number two...
Every time I would start a program, the machine would fill with water, drain, fill & drain another two times, then beep about 30 times, while the lights for P1 and P2 would flash toghether. I searched the internets and downloaded the instruction manual, but I couldn't find any specific fault codes for what these lights were trying to tell me. The only suggestion I got was that it wasn't getting any water. So I checked the inlet and drain hoses were not kinked, but they looked fine. I could hear water flowing in through the inlet hose and hear it draining into the sink when it drained. I even opened the door mid-cycle and the bottom had water in it. So I knew water was getting in, but the spray arms weren't turning.
I knew it didn't have this fault before I took it apart, so I disconnected everything again and took the right side panel off again to check I hadn't pulled a wire or something. Nope, all looked as it should. Then I took the left side panel off, so I could see where the inlet hose went into the machine. That's when I saw this thing:
I don't know exactly what it does, but it's half full of water and has an opening at the top... which had spilled water all down the side of itself when I laid the dishwasher on its side! At the bottom of this device you can see a connector with two little black wires. Behind the bit of green circuit board you can see is a little plastic water wheel, sitting in a clear plastic pipe which can be traced directly to the inlet hose. My guess is that the little wheel turns when water flows, so that a sensor can "count" how much water has entered the machine. If this arrangement was faulty, the machine would be filling up with water, but it wouldn't know it and would think that no water was coming in.
I unplugged the little connector, and sure enough, it was soaking wet! Traditionally, electricity and water don't like each other. So I got a hairdryer and patiently dried out both ends of the connector, and as much of the circuit board bit as I could get to.
Plugged it all back in (didn't bother to put the sides back on until I'd tested it this time, but was very careful not to touch anything) and - success! It all appears to work as it should and the dishwasher has just completed a full program as I write this!
So, I'm feeling slightly pleased with myself, because I've never done a dishwasher before, and I've learned a few things too, mostly not to put anything on its side until I'm certain there's no water anywhere in it, and to shut the cat out before it can crawl into the space under the kitchen cabinets and then come out and wipe spider webs all over the furniture.
Hope this was interesting/helpful to somebody who has found it because they searched for the same problem.
Please note, I am not telling you what is definitely wrong with your machine, just a recount of what I did with mine. I accept no responsibility for anything, ever.
The original problem was a loud, fast rattling noise at the start of the cycle. The first thing it does in a cycle is drain any water which is inside. I know this because I can hear it gurgling down the drain in the kitchen sink. This, combined with previous experiences with washing machines, made me think the problem was in the drain pump.
First step, obviously, was to turn off and disconnect water and electricity. Then get the dishwasher out from its built-in gap under the worktop. The bottom plinth front was just clipped onto a cabinet foot and the dishwasher was screwed to the underside of the kitchen worktop with two screws, visible when the door is open. After they were undone, the dishwasher slid out (it had been standing on two blocks of wood to get the height right.
I guessed the drain pump would be near the filter and the drain hose, so I took off the right side panel. There are a number of screws on the top and sides of the panel, and it slots into the bottom. The drain pump is the black square thing with the white square sitting on it, just left of centre in this pic:
You can see that it feeds directly to the left into the grey waste hose. The big white thing behind it is the bottom of the filter which you can see/remove to clean from the inside of the dishwasher.
The next thing I did turned out to be the wrong thing to do. I decided I could get better access to the pump if I put the machine on its side and removed the bottom panel. DON'T DO THIS. Apparently, dishwashers don't like to be on their side, and it caused the second problem, see below.
Anyway, once I got these screws out:
...the pump twisted off from the housing:
The problem noise was caused by a bit of broken glass, about the size of my thumb nail, trapped in the white housing, so that it would get hit by the green impellor blades as they spun:
Once that was removed, I cleaned up the dirt and limescale deposits from the mating surfaces, because I didn't want it to leak. Don't forget this rubber ring:
I put everything back together, reconnected electricity and water, and tried it out. The drain pump worked perfectly, with none of the noise! But then I discovered problem number two...
Every time I would start a program, the machine would fill with water, drain, fill & drain another two times, then beep about 30 times, while the lights for P1 and P2 would flash toghether. I searched the internets and downloaded the instruction manual, but I couldn't find any specific fault codes for what these lights were trying to tell me. The only suggestion I got was that it wasn't getting any water. So I checked the inlet and drain hoses were not kinked, but they looked fine. I could hear water flowing in through the inlet hose and hear it draining into the sink when it drained. I even opened the door mid-cycle and the bottom had water in it. So I knew water was getting in, but the spray arms weren't turning.
I knew it didn't have this fault before I took it apart, so I disconnected everything again and took the right side panel off again to check I hadn't pulled a wire or something. Nope, all looked as it should. Then I took the left side panel off, so I could see where the inlet hose went into the machine. That's when I saw this thing:
I don't know exactly what it does, but it's half full of water and has an opening at the top... which had spilled water all down the side of itself when I laid the dishwasher on its side! At the bottom of this device you can see a connector with two little black wires. Behind the bit of green circuit board you can see is a little plastic water wheel, sitting in a clear plastic pipe which can be traced directly to the inlet hose. My guess is that the little wheel turns when water flows, so that a sensor can "count" how much water has entered the machine. If this arrangement was faulty, the machine would be filling up with water, but it wouldn't know it and would think that no water was coming in.
I unplugged the little connector, and sure enough, it was soaking wet! Traditionally, electricity and water don't like each other. So I got a hairdryer and patiently dried out both ends of the connector, and as much of the circuit board bit as I could get to.
Plugged it all back in (didn't bother to put the sides back on until I'd tested it this time, but was very careful not to touch anything) and - success! It all appears to work as it should and the dishwasher has just completed a full program as I write this!
So, I'm feeling slightly pleased with myself, because I've never done a dishwasher before, and I've learned a few things too, mostly not to put anything on its side until I'm certain there's no water anywhere in it, and to shut the cat out before it can crawl into the space under the kitchen cabinets and then come out and wipe spider webs all over the furniture.
Hope this was interesting/helpful to somebody who has found it because they searched for the same problem.
