Eight parts, three price tiers, one visit fee: that is the whole dishwasher repair cost, printed below from the sheet our technicians quote from. Read down to your fault, then use the age table to decide whether that repair is still worth buying.
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How much does it cost to repair a dishwasher? Most jobs land between $180 and $420, parts and labor together, before the $90 visit is credited; that is where the average dishwasher repair cost sits. The tier depends on the part, not the symptom.
Door, seal & fill
$180–$260
Door latch or wax motor, door gasket, inlet valve with its screen. Short jobs on stocked parts, usually done in one visit.
Wash & heat
$180–$300
Spray arm or wash motor, heating element with its thermostat. Dishes come out wet, cold or still dirty; the tub comes apart.
Drain, flood & control
$190–$420
Drain pump, flood-switch work in the base pan, main control board. Widest spread: boards are priced by model and a flooded base needs a leak hunt.
A dishwasher repair quote has three parts: the component, the labor to reach it, and whether the machine is worth that sum at its age. Every number here comes from our dishwasher repair service page, one figure per part, not a national average price to fix a dishwasher.
Age predicts the quote better than the brand: door and fill parts fail first, pumps and heaters mid-life, boards and wash motors late. New mass-market built-ins run about $600 to $1,000 (Consumer Reports median $855), so the 50 percent line sits near $300 to $500. A national average cost of dishwasher repair blends a $180 latch with a $420 board and tells you little.
Eight rows, one parts-and-labor figure each, matching our service page line for line; the symptom sits beside each part.
| Repair | Parts + labor |
|---|---|
| Drain pump — standing water, won’t drain, a drain code late in the cycle. | $190–$340 |
| Bosch E15 / AquaStop repair cost — water in the base pan, leak traced and dried (E09 heating faults: heater row). | $220–$380 |
| Main control board — dead panel, random stops, lights but no cycle. | $220–$420 |
| Heating element + thermostat — wet or cold dishes, no sanitize. | $180–$300 |
| Water inlet valve + screen — no fill or slow fill. | $180–$260 |
| Door gasket — drips at the front corners, soap film on the floor. | $180–$260 |
| Spray arm / wash motor — dishes still dirty, weak spray. | $180–$280 |
| Door latch / wax motor (the actuator that pops the soap cup) — door won’t lock, cup stays shut. | $180–$260 |
The drain pump row runs $190 to $340. Four things decide which end you land on; the same four move every other row.
$190: a platform-wide pump, in stock, fitted on the first visit. $340: a model-specific OEM pump ordered to the tag, one to two business days out.
$190: the dishwasher slides out in minutes. $340: it is boxed in under stone with a hard-wired box; the sump comes apart first.
$190: Whirlpool-family, GE and Frigidaire pumps are plentiful and cheap. $340: KitchenAid, Samsung and LG parts cost more and are usually ordered.
$190: a pump on a three-year-old unit with nothing else wearing. $340: a pump at eight-plus years beside a hard gasket and a scaled heater, quoted with what is next.
The rows apply to every make; brand changes which rows you meet and whether the part is stocked.
| Brand | What tends to run higher | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Whirlpool / Maytag / Amana | Little — most calls sit in the first two tiers. | Shared platform, parts stocked, quick teardown. |
| GE | Control boards on newer touch-panel models. | Cheap mechanics, model-specific board; door springs wear with age. |
| Frigidaire | Drain pumps and heating elements. | Budget-tier pump housings; the heater scales fast in hard water. |
| Samsung | Main boards and wash motors. | Model-specific electronics, usually ordered; drain pumps routine. |
| LG | Boards and the Direct Drive wash motor. | Reliable inverter motor, pricier than a brush motor when it fails. |
| KitchenAid | Boards and wash motors. | Whirlpool mechanics with pricier electronics and quiet-package parts. |
| Bosch | Bosch dishwasher repair cost runs higher on flood-switch work and boards. | Long-lived; OEM parts cost more. Codes and pricing: Bosch dishwasher repair. |
Before any row applies, there is the visit.
Replace when the full quote passes half the price of a comparable new machine, sooner once the unit has used half of its nine to ten years. Four brackets, worked with the rows above.
| Age of the dishwasher | What fails and what it quotes | Our call |
|---|---|---|
| Under 2 years | Latch, inlet valve or gasket: $180–$260, 26 to 37 percent of a $700 machine. Check the maker’s warranty first. | Repair — or let the warranty do it. |
| 2 to 5 years | Drain pump $190–$340 or heating element $180–$300. Against the $855 median new price: pump 22 to 40 percent, heater 21 to 35. | Repair. Under the line with years left. |
| 5 to 8 years | Wash motor $180–$280 or main board $220–$420. The 50 percent line: $300 on a $600 budget unit, $750 on a $1,500 top-tier built-in. | Depends on the sticker: budget unit only at or under $300; higher tier, repair. |
| 8 years and older | Two faults at once are the norm: pump plus gasket ($370–$600) or board plus heater ($400–$720), past half of a $600 to $800 replacement, close on $1,000. | Replace a mass-market unit; repair a top-tier one if a single part is under $420. |
One exception: a panel-ready or 18-inch compact unit costs far more to replace, so repair wins longer. All appliances: repair or replace guide and the all-appliance repair cost guide.
A price page only helps if the technician at your door works from the same list.
Low end: stocked part, easy pull-out. High end: ordered part, or a unit boxed in by tile. Anything above the figure needs a new written one.
Part and hours covered for ninety days; the same fault back inside that window costs nothing to revisit.
Yes to all three. Spark Appliance Repair holds BHGS registration #C 62399 (California Bureau of Household Goods and Services) and is insured on every job; every van starts its day at the Spring Valley HQ.
Three facts narrow a row to a figure; the fourth step keeps the quote from growing.
It sits on the top or side edge of the door on nearly every brand. Read it to dispatch; the row and the parts channel follow.
A code at the start of the cycle points to fill or door, mid-cycle to heat or wash, at the end to drain. Copy it exactly; makers reuse numbers.
Pull the lower rack and lift out the filter: standing water, glass or a loose spray arm show in the sump well. Tell dispatch what you found and whether the floor is wet.
Shut the supply valve under the sink if it leaks, leave the door latched, run no more cycles: a dry base pan makes the leak hunt shorter.
These rows are Spark Appliance Repair’s San Diego County prices. Local water decides which rows you meet: City of San Diego tap water runs about 16 grains per gallon, hard enough to scale a heater and clog an inlet screen years early.
Vans leave the Spring Valley HQ for Chula Vista, La Mesa, El Cajon, downtown and the coast to Oceanside. Call before noon for a same-day visit; the 90-day parts-and-labor warranty rides on every row.
$90 service call
Credited to the repair · 90-day parts & labor warranty · same-day for calls before noon
📞 Call (619) 330-5105📅 Book an AppointmentGive dispatch the model tag and the code, and the quote is a row on this page, not a guess: a part, a price and a plain yes or no on repairing it.
Between $180 and $420 for almost every job, parts and labor together. By tier: door, seal and fill $180 to $260; wash and heat $180 to $300; drain, flood and control $190 to $420.
A drain pump at three years on a $700 machine, yes: $190 to $340 with years left. A board plus a heater at nine, no: $400 to $720 near its end. One part, under eight years, under half the price of new says repair.
Usually, if it is one part on a machine under eight years old: $250 is about 30 percent of the $855 median new price. Two parts at once, or a cracked tub, tips it to replace.
On our calls the most common problem with dishwashers is one of three, in no order. Water left in the tub: filter or drain pump. Dishes wet or cold: heater or thermostat. A door that will not latch: latch or wax motor.
$190 to $340 with labor. First lift out the filter and clear the sump: a glass shard in the impeller is the most common reason a pump is quoted and not needed.
A new mass-market built-in costs about $600 to $1,000; top-tier and panel-ready units run $1,500 and up. Every single-part repair here stays under half of that.
We stop at the second part, not a birthday. Past about nine years a single cheap fault, a latch or an inlet valve, is still worth fixing; two parts on one quote is a replacement conversation.
Because the diagnosis has a price whether or not you buy the repair. Approve the quote and the $90 is credited against it; decline, and you owe the visit only.
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