Kitchen Large Electric Appliances - Dishwasher doesn't clean well

I've got a Kenmore 363.1442191 dishwasher that appears to operate properly; however, it leaves food matter on some of the dishes and utensils. I checked the bottom spray head and it appeared clear.

Any ideas?

Welcome to the DIY forums :)

No pro but just some thoughts:

Did this just happen once or does this happen constantly?

There could be several things: You're not loading it correctly, the water pressure could be too low, the water could be too hard, you could be using the wrong amount of detergent or the water temperature may not be hot enough.

Dishwashers have a hard time with any stuck on foods. If you don't want to rinse the food off your dishes first, just let them soak in the sink for a while first to soften whatever is on them.

Actually, we've been in the house about 11 years. We've noticed it throughtout the last 6 mo. to a year. I'm certain our loading habits haven't varied that much to have seen this fairly consistant change.

I haven't checked the water temp- hadn't occured to me that that could have changed.

And again with habits... we do pre-rinse the dishes and I assume do it like we always did.

If you've had it that long, not changed your habits with regard to how you load it and it has only been failing to clean the dishes recently, I'd say it might be time for a new one.

My guess is that the spray arm is clogged or restricted or the water system is loosing pressure somewhere. I would take the entire spray system apart (usually not that hard to remove everything from the inside of the tub) and clean it all out. Look for missing or broken parts that might keep the water preassure from reaching it's max (spray heads, tower parts, pump impeller...). This really should be done routinely on any dishwasher to get the longest possible life out of it, but 11 years isn't bad...

Doug M.