(This is my first post in any forum anywhere so please forgive me if I get it wrong.)
I have a 17 year old built in Neff dishwasher (S4152). It was worked flawlessly till now. I am reluctant to junk it for all sorts of reasons and don't want to be given that advice by a service engineer.
Now, it almost fails to fill. Water trickles in and no more. However if I leave it, the dishwasher eventually fills and goes on to complete a rinse cycle normally. I am reluctant to try a full wash cycle in case the heater comes on before there is sufficient water in the machine.
There is no water in the sump and never has been. The sump looks as good as the day it was made. Therefore I do not think that a leak has caused the machine to stop filling. Reading the forums, it therefore seemed that it would either be some kind of blockage or else an inlet valve problem, either on the machine or on the aquastop itself. The machine empties correctly when first switched on and so the waste pipe would seem not to be blocked.
I've tried investigating the aquastop (more of that later if necessary) but the most significant finding is one I haven't been able to repeat, try as I might. That is, I tried unscrewing the salt container lid and found that the water inside was at a modest pressure in the sense that some water came out (maybe half a cupful). I have never used the salt container because I live in a soft water area where salt is never needed and so I don't know if that slight pressure is normal. The level in the salt container appeared to be lower by more than half a cupful for reasons I don't understand. After doing that, the machine filled rapidly (ie as normal) until the salt container appeared to be full again and then the flow reduced to a trickle again. I don't know why I can't repeat this. I've tried spooning some water out of the salt container but that does not reproduce the effect. Perhaps I need to suck more water out of the salt container in order to trigger the effect. Or perhaps I had done something else that I was not aware of and so can't remember. In view of this I feel that the aquastop must be ok but wish I could reproduce the salt container effect in order to be sure.
So, does anyone have any idea what's going on here, please? Thanks for being patient and getting this far!
I have a 17 year old built in Neff dishwasher (S4152). It was worked flawlessly till now. I am reluctant to junk it for all sorts of reasons and don't want to be given that advice by a service engineer.
Now, it almost fails to fill. Water trickles in and no more. However if I leave it, the dishwasher eventually fills and goes on to complete a rinse cycle normally. I am reluctant to try a full wash cycle in case the heater comes on before there is sufficient water in the machine.
There is no water in the sump and never has been. The sump looks as good as the day it was made. Therefore I do not think that a leak has caused the machine to stop filling. Reading the forums, it therefore seemed that it would either be some kind of blockage or else an inlet valve problem, either on the machine or on the aquastop itself. The machine empties correctly when first switched on and so the waste pipe would seem not to be blocked.
I've tried investigating the aquastop (more of that later if necessary) but the most significant finding is one I haven't been able to repeat, try as I might. That is, I tried unscrewing the salt container lid and found that the water inside was at a modest pressure in the sense that some water came out (maybe half a cupful). I have never used the salt container because I live in a soft water area where salt is never needed and so I don't know if that slight pressure is normal. The level in the salt container appeared to be lower by more than half a cupful for reasons I don't understand. After doing that, the machine filled rapidly (ie as normal) until the salt container appeared to be full again and then the flow reduced to a trickle again. I don't know why I can't repeat this. I've tried spooning some water out of the salt container but that does not reproduce the effect. Perhaps I need to suck more water out of the salt container in order to trigger the effect. Or perhaps I had done something else that I was not aware of and so can't remember. In view of this I feel that the aquastop must be ok but wish I could reproduce the salt container effect in order to be sure.
So, does anyone have any idea what's going on here, please? Thanks for being patient and getting this far!