Maytag Dishwasher Repair in Toronto — Not cleaning / dishes still dirty

• The signature dishes-dirty fault on the Maytag MDB tall-tub is the diverter, and it reads as the 9-family. 9-1 (F9E1) is the control unable to detect the diverter disc position; 9-3 (F9E3) is the disc itself missing or damaged. The diverter alternates water between the lower and upper spray arms, so when its motor seizes or the disc strips, water is stuck feeding one level only — the classic complaint of a bottom rack that comes out clean while the top rack still has food stuck on. The cure on a confirmed motor/disc fault is the genuine diverter motor & disc assembly W10537869; we enter the service diagnostic cycle (a 3-key sequence pressed three times in a row — 1-2-3, 1-2-3, 1-2-3, under a second between presses, per the model's tech sheet behind the toe panel) and run the diverter test to hear it cycle before condemning it, because a disc gummed with hard-water scale can sometimes be cleaned rather than replaced.
• 9-4 (F9E4) is the lower-spray-arm error and is read on the same circuit as the diverter on this platform — the lower arm motor is integral to the diverter assembly. Most 9-4s are mechanical before they are electrical: a long utensil dropped through the rack, a chunk of label or a chicken bone jamming the arm so it can't sweep, or a bearing-ring full of scale. We clear the obstruction and free-spin the arm by hand first; only a 9-4 that persists with a clean, free arm and intact wiring gets the W10537869 diverter/lower-arm motor, never a part sold on a jammed arm that a 30-second clear would have fixed.
• Film and redeposited grit on otherwise 'washed' dishes on these MDB units is most often the food chopper, not the spray system. The chopper assembly (genuine OEM W10083957 / W10083957V, the 4-blade unit inside the pump) minces food fine enough to drain instead of re-coating the load; when its blades dull or a popcorn kernel or glass shard jams it, particles survive the cycle and settle back onto dishes as a gritty film. We pull the lower rack, spray arm and filter to inspect the chopper directly — a worn chopper is a cheap, high-impact fix that owners rarely suspect.
• Cold wash water leaves a greasy film that looks like a wash failure but is a heat fault: 7-1 (F7E1) means the heating element isn't heating, so the main wash never reaches the temperature that dissolves grease and activates detergent. The cure is the heating element W10518394 — but on any 2006-2010 plastic-tub unit we serial-check against the June 3, 2010 CPSC recall before touching the heat circuit, because melt marks or a scorched element on that era is a stop-work recall conversation, not a parts quote. We also confirm the thermistor reads sane before condemning the element, since a wrong temperature reading mimics a dead element.
• When dishes come out cloudy or filmed but the wash mechanics check out, the soil-sensor/thermistor assembly (OWI — optical water indicator, genuine WPW10705575 / W10705575) is the suspect. A scaled optical lens makes the sensor read the water as permanently dirty, so the unit drags the cycle out yet never adjusts heat or rinse properly; a failed thermistor in the same assembly means the controller never confirms wash temperature. We clean the OWI lens with white vinegar first — a no-part fix — and only fit WPW10705575 when the lens is clean and the sensor still misreads or the thermistor is open.
• A large share of Toronto dishes-dirty calls on these Maytags are not a broken machine at all but hard-water chemistry plus a clogged filter and blocked spray-arm jets. We pull the coarse/fine filter (quarter-turn counter-clockwise), flush the sump screen, and clear scale-plugged jets in both arms, then set the rinse-aid dispenser to level 4 as Maytag's own guidance specifies for hard-water areas and recommend an affresh cleaner run. Cloudy film that wipes off with vinegar is mineral deposit, not a parts problem — we demonstrate a clean load on the way out rather than selling a chopper or diverter on a water-quality issue.
• Underneath the badge this is the same Whirlpool tall-tub as the KitchenAid and Kenmore 665 sister units (Whirlpool-prefixed WDT/WDF consoles ride the identical platform), so the dirty-dishes diagnostics, the diverter W10537869, the chopper W10083957 and the OWI WPW10705575 all cross-reference the same Whirlpool parts book. We say so plainly when a customer is weighing a diverter repair against 'upgrading' — the upgrade is frequently the same wash platform in a different cabinet.

Maytag not cleaning / dishes still dirty in Toronto — the local specifics

• The recurring Toronto pattern on Maytag dishes-dirty calls is the clean-bottom-rack / dirty-top-rack split that points straight at the diverter (9-1/9-3) or a jammed lower arm (9-4), layered on top of hard-water scale that has clouded the OWI lens and plugged the spray jets. We routinely find the homeowner has been blaming detergent when the real story is a worn food chopper redepositing grit plus a diverter that no longer feeds the upper arm.
• We roll to these calls carrying the genuine diverter motor & disc W10537869, the W10083957/W10083957V food chopper, the WPW10705575 soil-sensor/thermistor (OWI) assembly, and the W10518394 heating element — plus filter screens, rinse aid and affresh cleaner for the no-part hard-water fixes — so most dirty-dishes diagnoses are resolved on the first visit.

For the full Maytag dishwasher module — every fault, part number and code — see Maytag dishwasher repair in Toronto, and for the same fault across all brands the dishwasher not cleaning / dishes still dirty guide.