The short answer
F7E2 on a Maytag dishwasher is the control reporting a fault in the motor circuit. The documented wording sits in the table below; the ranking beneath it is what decides where to start. Leave it off until the sump has been cleared.
The documented code and its meaning
Reference| Code | Meaning |
|---|---|
| F7E2 | Potential Cause: Wash Motor Error |
What you actually observe
- Dishes come out dirty on the upper rack only — A partial circulation fault shows up unevenly first.
- No sound at all at the point in the cycle where the motor should run — Silence and a hum are two different faults.
- A grinding or rattling noise from underneath — Something hard has reached the sump and is being thrown around.
- NEAR MISS — the machine never fills at all — That is the water-inlet side and a different code.
Causes, most likely first on this dishwasher
- An obstruction jamming the impeller or the rotor — Glass fragments, a fruit stone and bones all reach the sump, and a jammed motor reports as an electrical fault.
- A motor winding or capacitor at the end of its life — Motors on this duty tend to start badly for weeks before they stop starting at all.
- The wiring or plug at the motor — It sits in the wettest part of the base, which is why the connector is checked before the motor is condemned.
- The control output that drives the motor — Last, as usual: the control is the most expensive and the least likely of the four.
Check in this order, and why
- Listen for what the motor does when it should start — A hum with no rotation, a click and silence, and nothing at all are three different faults.
- Check the sump and the filter for anything hard — Clearing an obstruction is free and it fixes a real share of these calls.
- Note whether the problem is every cycle or only some — An intermittent start points at the motor or its capacitor; a consistent one points at the circuit.
- Leave the motor connections to a technician — They are under the tub, in the wettest part of the machine.
What an owner can safely check
- Take the power off, then lift out the filter and clear the sump by hand — Wear a glove: broken glass in the sump is the usual reason an owner finds this one.
Tools: gloves, shallow containerAbout 15 min
- Sponge out any standing water before anything else is attempted — A base full of water makes every later check harder and wetter.
Tools: sponge, shallow containerAbout 15 min
- Restore power and start a short cycle, listening at the base — What the motor does in the first ten seconds is the most useful thing you can report.
About 10 min
Before anything is opened
Safety
Before any panel comes off, unplug the appliance or switch off its breaker: a capacitor can hold a charge after the power is off. A dishwasher keeps its mains connections close to its plumbing, and there is frequently standing water in the sump after a stopped cycle. Treat the base as wet. Leave the interlocking switches wired as they came. They exist to remove power at the moment it has to go.
When this stops being an owner job
This becomes a service call if the motor hums without turning, or stays silent with the sump clear. Everything past that point needs the panels off, and nothing under the tub can be reached without pulling the machine out of its space. A burning smell, scorching around the controls or a breaker tripping at start-up all change the answer to now, whatever else this page says.
Nearest error-code pages
What this page does not cover
Treat this as the family-agnostic reading of F7E2 for Maytag dishwasher models on the common control platform. Older control generations that reuse the same characters are not covered, and neither is anything family-specific: wiring colours, connector pin numbers, torque figures and part numbers all change from family to family and are deliberately absent. A family or model page, where one exists, is the more specific answer and should be read in preference to this one — the linked code index collects them.
Other Maytag dishwasher codes
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