Do-It-Yourself Story

When ordering, I was worried that the picture (shown) look different from the dispenser on my twelve-year-old dishwasher. But the new assembly fit perfectly, and the part vendor's video made installing it easy. (Luckily, my old Ryobi portable drill had a Torx-15 bit in its small collection.) The only "glitch" was two small, low-voltage wires going to the old dispenser's rinse-agent section, which the new dispenser had no plug for. Since we don't use rinse agents, I just taped them out of the way, using a velcro cable tie. The DW has worked perfectly on two runs since. Part of the problem may have been putting long items in the utensil cage near the dispenser, which can block the dispenser from opening. But the problem had happened so often that I don't think that was the whole story. Anyway, paying under $60 (including shipping) for a part and spending 45 minutes installing it is better than spending $700 for a new DW and watching installers tear up your kitchen for an hour or two.