What Dishwasher Repairs Actually Cost, By Fix

Every fault code on this site eventually turns into a real dollar figure once a technician is standing in your kitchen — this page breaks the national ranges down by which part is actually failing, so you know roughly what to expect before that visit, and when the smarter move is a new dishwasher instead.

How these ranges are put together

The figures below come from cross-referencing three independent, nationally focused home-service cost guides — Angi, HomeGuide, and Forbes Home — each of which aggregates real completed-job cost data reported by contractors and homeowners across the US, rather than list prices from a single retailer or repair company. Where those guides disagree, the wider combined range is shown here rather than picking whichever single number looks best. Every range is also sanity-checked against typical retail pricing for the replacement part itself (valve, pump, element, board), since parts cost is usually the bulk of the spread between a cheap fix and an expensive one.

None of the numbers below are a quote, an invented statistic, or specific to any one repair company or region. They describe what published industry data reports homeowners nationally have paid for that category of fix. Your actual bill depends on your region's labor rates, your specific brand and model, and whether the part used is OEM or a generic equivalent — always get a written estimate from a local technician before authorizing repair work.

National cost ranges by repair type

Repair	Typical range	Notes
Diagnostic / service call	$70–$130	Most independent repair companies credit this toward the repair if you go ahead
Water inlet valve	$80–$200	Part itself is usually only $10–$60; labor is typically well under an hour
Door latch or door switch	$100–$250	The latch part itself is often only $10–$50 — labor and the service call make up the rest
Drain pump	$100–$400	Part alone typically runs $20–$100
Heating element	$150–$350	Mains-voltage component — see the safety note at the bottom of this page
Control board	$200–$600	Higher end for OEM boards and on premium built-in brands like Bosch and KitchenAid
Wash / circulation motor	$300–$500	One of the pricier single-part failures
Any single repair, overall average	$100–$300 (full range roughly $75–$600)	Blended figure across all fault types, per Angi/HomeGuide/Forbes Home

Cost by fault-code family

If you already have a code on the display, it usually points at one of the part categories above. Grouped by the most common fault families documented on this site:

Drain faults (typically drain pump range, $100–$400, though a clogged filter or hose is a free fix): Bosch E24, Bosch E25, Samsung 5E/SE, LG OE, Whirlpool F9E1, KitchenAid F9E1
Fill faults (typically water inlet valve range, $80–$200): Bosch E14, Samsung 4E/4C, Samsung 9E, LG IE, Whirlpool F6E1, KitchenAid H2O
Heating faults (typically heating-element range, $150–$350): Bosch E09, Samsung HE, LG HE, Whirlpool F7E1
Leak-detected faults (a gasket or hose fix can be free; a pump seal or float-switch replacement runs closer to the drain-pump range, $100–$400): Bosch E15, Samsung LE, LG AE, Whirlpool F8E4, KitchenAid F8E4
Control-board / electronics faults (control-board range, $200–$600): Bosch E01, Bosch E27, Whirlpool F1E1, KitchenAid F1E1

A code page's own "Call a professional when" section is more specific to that exact fault than these general ranges — use this page for the ballpark, the code page for the diagnosis.

Repair or replace?

A commonly used industry rule of thumb is worth applying here: if a single repair would cost more than roughly half the price of a new, comparable dishwasher, replacement usually makes more financial sense than sinking more money into an aging unit. Age matters alongside cost — a control-board or motor failure on a dishwasher already well past a typical service life is a very different call than the same failure on a two-year-old machine still under warranty.

A few practical guidelines that follow from that:

A door latch, inlet valve, or filter/drain-hose fix is inexpensive enough that it's almost always worth repairing regardless of the dishwasher's age
A control-board or wash-motor failure on an older, budget-tier unit is the classic case where a new dishwasher can cost about the same as the repair
If the same unit has needed two or three unrelated repairs in a short span, that pattern itself is a signal, since another failure elsewhere is more likely on an aging machine
A recurring leak that keeps returning after DIY fixes carries water-damage risk on top of the repair cost, which tips the calculation toward paying for a proper diagnosis sooner rather than later

Call a professional when

Any repair that touches the heating element, the control board, or house wiring involves mains-voltage parts and isn't a place to guess — get a licensed technician rather than opening that housing yourself. The same goes for a leak that keeps coming back after you've checked the door gasket, hoses, and detergent type: an active leak left alone risks water damage that costs far more than a service call. Get at least one written estimate before authorizing anything above the diagnostic fee, and ask upfront whether that fee is credited toward the repair if you proceed.

Sources

This site is an independent reference, not a substitute for a licensed appliance technician or electrician, and is not affiliated with Bosch, Samsung, LG, Whirlpool, KitchenAid, or any other manufacturer named here. Dishwashers combine mains-voltage electrical parts with water. Always shut off both power and the water supply before opening the tub, pump, or heating element housing, and if a repair goes beyond checking filters, hoses, detergent, and visible debris, call a licensed technician.