Maytag Dishwasher Start Capacitor: Causes & Fix

Safety. Kill the breaker, and treat the capacitor as charged until you have deliberately discharged it. Insulated tools, no bare fingers on the terminals.

Is it the capacitor or the motor?#

The hum is the whole diagnosis. A motor that hums has a healthy winding and simply cannot break into rotation, which is the capacitor's job. Use this to separate the three outcomes:

This failure is common past 5-7 years and it is one of the cheapest ways back to a working dishwasher, since a whole circulation pump motor is in an entirely different price bracket.

Finding and discharging it#

With the breaker off, take out the two 1/4-inch hex screws and drop the lower access panel. The capacitor sits near the circulation pump motor at the bottom centre, about the size of a C-cell battery, black or silver, with two terminals and its rating printed on the body. Some models clip it to the motor housing, others mount it on a separate bracket nearby.

Before you touch the terminals, lay an insulated screwdriver blade across both of them at once and hold for 2-3 seconds. A small pop or spark is the stored charge leaving, and it is normal. Skipping this earns you a painful shock.

Reading the rating, which has to match#

Write down two numbers from the body: the microfarad value and the voltage. Maytag circulation pump capacitors typically run 6-10 uF at 250-370V. The microfarad figure must match exactly, because it sets the starting torque handed to the motor. The voltage rating may be equal or higher, never lower.

Fitting the replacement#

Photograph the wiring, then pull the two spade connectors and free the capacitor from its clip or single screw. Start capacitors are not polarity-sensitive, so either wire suits either terminal, but the connectors must grip firmly — a loose spade arcs, heats, and kills the new part early. Corroded or slack connectors are worth replacing with fresh crimp-on terminals while you are in there.

Testing and what happens next#

Refit the panel, restore power and start a Normal cycle. After the fill, the pump should start immediately — under a second from power to rotation — and the spray arms should come alive. The delayed humming is gone. Listen through the first cycle for any noise the capacitor failure might have been masking.

Then watch the next few cycles. A capacitor that fails again within weeks means the motor is drawing excessive starting current through tight bearings, and the pump assembly is the real repair. A single failure after five or more years is simply end of life.

Why they wear out at all#

Every wash phase charges and discharges the capacitor to boost starting torque, and the internal dielectric weakens over thousands of those cycles as the electrolyte evaporates. A household running two or more cycles a day, especially with PowerBlast, starts the pump far more often than the design assumed, and reaches that end point sooner.

If the new one does not fix it#

Verify you fitted the correct uF value, since too low a rating cannot produce enough starting torque. Then test the motor winding for 3-20 ohms — an open winding may have burned out during all that humming — and check nothing is jamming the impeller. A motor that starts but trips its thermal protector within minutes is overloading.

Not comfortable around capacitors, or seeing burn marks on the motor? Book a repair and we will bring the meter and the part.