GE QuietPower dishwasher: beeping, blinking, and not running but…

…other than that, it works great! And it sure looks sharp filling in that big gap in the cabinets. What’s that? You say you’d like it to actually wash dishes, too? OK, I guess we can talk about that after you try cutting power to the dishwasher for at least 15 minutes. If, after restoring power, it’s still just an expensive cabinet filler, then we go to DEFCON 3.

From the genuine GE service manual for this dishwasher:

The DRYING LED will flash and control will beep when the sequence switch is not reaching its target position within 30 seconds:

1. Check connections between sequence switch and control.

2. Replace sequence switch.

3. Replace control assembly.

So, in other words, GE’s recommended corrective action for this problem is to first try replacing the sequence switch. If that fixes it, great! Go pop a cold one. If not, wel-l-l-l, now you get to throw another part at it: the control assembly.

Are you smelling the real problem here? It’s not merely that something’s already broken on your two-year old dishwasher. It’s the fact that 1) GE designed a dishwasher with such convoluted controls that 2) even the engineers who excreted this future landfill ornament don’t know enough about this problem to be able to give any better instructions than just, “Throw this part at it; if it’s still broken, then try this other part.” [sniff-sniff] What’s that smell?