You have discolouration or mildew inside your Dishwasher

Discolouration

You will probably notice this on the plastic components in your dishwasher, the spray arms or cutlery basket. If you try to rub this discolouration you will probably notice that it will smear.

This effect has been caused by washing articles made or silver, particularly cutlery. Minute amounts of silver can dissolve and this oxides and forms the sooty deposits on the plastic parts of your dishwasher.

You could try cleaning the plastic areas with a normal detergent, such as Flash, which may help to remove the deposits. You may have to try to clean this off more than once to bring it back to a reasonable finish.

The only cure for this particular problem is really not to wash any silver items in the dishwasher, hand washing only. This will also protect your silver so is definitely the best option.

Mildew

Mildew is very often caused by leaving a dishwasher closed for lengthy periods, such as when you go on holiday. Try to leave the door slightly ajar to allow the moisture to completely dry out before you close the dishwasher door.There are a couple of methods for cleaning mildew from your appliance:

Run the empty machine through a hot cycle a couple of times, as this help to dislodge the mildew
You can also try to remove the mildew by cleaning with hot soapy water
A combination of both methods will probably give you the quickest results

Neither of the above problems are a fault with your dishwasher, and it is unnecessary to call out an engineer as he will probably just tell you the same as outlined in this article, and may even charge you for his advice.

Disclaimer: The information provided has been prepared as a guide only and the steps taken are likely to vary for different appliance models. We strongly recommend using a qualified engineer to undertake major repairs and fault finding.