dirty dishes on top rack of dishwasher

[stewarth]

I know this is a fairly common post - but maybe someone can help. I'm sure our dishwasher used to be fine (not rose-tinted specs!). Its a Zanussi DWS 939. For a while now, the top tray regularly has dirty dishes on it - as others have mentioned, its like a very fine baked on grit. I've tried all sorts of different tabs & there doesn't seem to be a pattern there.

This evening after the last wash resulted in practically a whole upper tray of dirty dishes, i thought i'd try to have a look while it was washing - don't laugh - i emptied the bottom tray & left the dirty top tray dishes there & fooled the machine into thinking the door was shut. Apart from a blast of water into the kitchen from my VERY brief look I noticed that the top spinner didn't start to move (I know that it does move during the wash but i don't know how fast) & that hardly any water came out of the spinner. This is in comparison with the bottom spinner which fired water out at a wopping rate - hitting the top of the machine & starting to spin straight away.

I'm wondering if the top rack is only being washed by whatever water makes its way up from the bottom spinner. Does this sound likely? Does anyone know whether there is a water pressure difference between the bottom & top spinners? Could there be a blockage somewhere causing less water to get to the top spinner?

Cheers.

 

[breezer]

most top "arms" come off (dont ask me how yours does) you will probably find its blocked, or very blocked

 

[stewarth]

Sorry - should have said that i've made sure both arms are clear. If i put the top arm under the tap & turn the tap on then water comes out of all the holes in the arm so i'm pretty certain that there's no problem there. The filter is clean as well.

 

[towman]

Make sure the top basket is pushed right back onto the connection lug at the back of the machine - sometimes the loaded baskets creep forward off the connection.