siliconchip.com.au Australia’s electronics magazine May 2019 61
SERVICEMAN'S LOG
Dave ThompsonI’ve owned many Samsung products over the years and no wonder; this
South Korean manufacturer has their fingers in many pies. They’ve been
around for years but more recently have become known as innovators
and leaders in the field of consumer electronics, especially phones,
tablets and TVs.
Samsunk – or the dishwasher that wouldn’t
Like many other companies, they’ve
had the odd swing-and-a-miss, but in
general, they make quality products.
I was mindful of this when we ren-
ovated our house a few years ago and
decided on some shiny new Samsung
appliances for the kitchen. For the
dishwasher, we chose a Samsung Wa-
terwall over appliances made by more
well-known brands that specialise in
kitchen appliances.
It certainly wasn’t the cheapest
option, but it looks the part with its
minimalist, brushed stainless-steel ex-
terior and slick, futuristic blue multi-
LED display buried behind the door
panel and peeking through tiny, pat-
terned holes laser-cut into the facia.
Very cool and just the thing for the
modern kitchen.
However, it is not without its prob-
lems. From day one, when the wash
program was set and the door closed,
the front display would often show
all 8s instead of the time remaining. A
light tap on the door beside
the display usual-
ly got it back to normal. I suspected a
loose connection or dry joint perhaps.
We’d spent a long four months re-
building and renovating the kitchen
while cooking on a gas range, having
dinner on crates and washing our dish-
es in a bucket. I wasn’t keen to tell the
wife that mere weeks after installing
the dishwasher, I’d have to pull it out
again and either get it repaired under
warranty or disassemble it and repair
it myself.
For the time being, we could live
with such a minor fault; after all, its
operation wasn’t adversely affected,
and the display glitch only manifested
itself roughly half the time anyway.
I did log the fault with the relatively
good online registration/warranty sys-
tem and was advised by some virtual
assistant to take the dishwasher to an
accredited repair agent — advice that
I ignored because, well, that’s what
servicemen usually do when faults de-
velop in their own gear. Be-
sides, shoehorning a dish-
washer into a 1997 MG totransport it to an appliance-repair guy
across town just isn’t feasible!The dirty water thickens
That was two-and-a-half years ago,
and aside from that small fault, the
dishwasher performed flawlessly.
However (there’s always a however!),
a few months ago, I started noticing
that the bottom rack of dishes (usually
the most soiled in any dishwasher lay-
out) were not being cleaned properly.
This would happen once every ten
or so washes, but over time it started
happening more often, until almost
every wash cycle ended up with dirty
dishes in the bottom tray.
I was actually becoming a bit an-
noyed. It’s a story all too familiar with
modern appliances, conveniently fail-
ing just outside of the two-year war-
ranty period. I messaged the virtual
assistant on Samsung’s website and