The short answer
A SHXM dishwasher that leaks tells you where the fault is if you watch it. The ten codes in the table cover more than one build generation, so match your own code against it before a panel comes off.
What you observe on these models
- Water at the door sill, on the floor in front of the machine — The seal, the door alignment, or suds. Look for foam at the sill: foam means detergent, not a part.
- Foam or suds visible at the bottom of the door — Hand dish soap, or far too much detergent, or a rinse-aid spill.
- Water appearing under the toe-kick only during a cycle — Something under the tub is wet while pressurised: a hose clamp, the pump seal, or the sump gasket.
- A slow puddle that is there even when the machine has not run — That is the supply side. The fill valve or its compression fitting weeps whether or not the machine is working, and it will not stop on its own.
Causes, most likely first on the SHXM family
- The door seal is hardened, torn or out of its channel — Ranked high on a family whose codes span several generations, because the seal is the part that ages fastest on any dishwasher: it goes hard, takes a set, and stops closing on the tub lip.
- Over-sudsing from the wrong detergent — Checked early because it is free, instant and common: hand dish soap in the cup, or a heavy dose in soft water, foams until the foam finds the door.
- The sump gasket, heater seal or pump seal is passing water — Moved up on an older family: these seals are under the tub, they leak only under pressure, and their symptom is a wet toe-kick during a cycle and a dry floor afterwards.
- The drain hose connection or the air gap is overflowing — The clamp at the disposal loosens, and a silted air gap spits water onto the counter and down the cabinet side.
- The tub seam or a spray arm feed has split — Last and least common, but it is the cause that ends the machine: a corroded seam or a cracked feed cannot be sealed and the repair is rarely economic.
Check in this order, and why
- Dry the floor completely and put paper down — A sheet of kitchen paper across the sill and another under the toe-kick turns an invisible weep into a dated map.
- Run a short cycle and watch the first ten minutes — Stay with it. A leak that starts at fill is the supply side; one that starts at the wash is the door or the sump; one that starts at the drain is the hose connection.
- Look for foam before you look for a part — Foam at the sill means detergent. Run one rinse-only cycle with nothing in the cup and confirm the floor stays dry before you buy anything.
- Work round the door seal with a finger and a light — Feel for hard sections, tears at the corners and any length that has lifted out of its channel.
- Only then look under the toe-kick — Power off, panel off, torch in. A wet clamp, a wet sump seam or a stained pump body names the part — and names a job that needs the machine unseated.
Models in the SHXM family — Some codes here are pinned to a single build and the rest are patterns covering several, so match the longest entry that fits the tag inside your door frame. The ten codes fall into five leading groups, and that spread is the reason this page is written for the family rather than for one machine.
Reference| Model number | Family key |
|---|---|
| SHXM4A**** | bosch:dishwasher:shxm |
| SHXM63W5** | bosch:dishwasher:shxm |
| SHXM63WS** | bosch:dishwasher:shxm |
| SHXM65W5** | bosch:dishwasher:shxm |
| SHXM65Z5** | bosch:dishwasher:shxm |
| SHXM78W5** | bosch:dishwasher:shxm |
| SHXM78W54N | bosch:dishwasher:shxm |
| SHXM78Z5** | bosch:dishwasher:shxm |
| SHXM88Z7** | bosch:dishwasher:shxm |
| SHXM98W7** | bosch:dishwasher:shxm |
Before you open anything
Safety
Switch off the breaker before anything goes under the machine, and close the supply valve under the sink before you disturb a fitting. A capacitor can hold a charge after the power is off.
When to call a technician
Detergent, door seal, door alignment and the connections under the sink are owner territory on these models — none of them need the machine moved. The line is the toe-kick: a leak that only shows under the tub during a cycle means the sump gasket, the heater seal or the pump seal, and reaching any of them means unseating the machine with the supply and the power still connected.
Sources — The symptom-report corpus recorded in this snapshot is what put this symptom on the page for this brand and appliance.
Documented- amazon-reviews — amazon-reviews, fetched 2026-09-02
Other symptoms covered for this family
Lead Appliance Repair Technician · 12 years experience
Experienced technician with 12 years specializing in washing machine and dryer repairs across all major brands.
