If your dishwasher is sitting there full of water, the drain pump is one possible cause, but it isn’t the first thing to check, and it may not be the actual cause at all. I went through about 130 individual repair narratives on this problem, out of roughly 390 reviews across seven pump families, and 17 percent of them turned out to involve a non-pump cause, or a clog that was found sitting right alongside the pump. At least six of those were buyers who said, in so many words, that they replaced the pump and that wasn’t it. I can’t say which single check accounts for the most cases, so I’m not ranking them.

Free checks before you spend anything

Before you take anything apart, switch off the dishwasher’s breaker and shut off its water supply.

Work through these first. None of them cost anything.

  • The sump filter. This screen catches food and debris before it reaches the pump. A clogged one can stop water from draining even with a perfectly healthy pump.
  • The drain hose. One buyer put it simply: “most of the time when it will not drain it is because of a clogged line.” The hose runs from the dishwasher to the drain or disposal, and it can clog.
  • The air gap, if your sink has one. It’s worth checking for a clog here, too.
  • The garbage disposal knockout plug. If you have a new disposal or one that was never fully connected, an unremoved knockout plug can block drainage. One owner replaced a drain pump before realizing this plug had never been removed.
  • The check valve on the pump outlet. One owner hadn’t even considered it as a possible cause, replaced the pump, and still had standing water until the check valve was addressed.
  • The drain pipes under the sink. In at least one documented case, the pipes beneath the sink itself were full of gunk, nowhere near the dishwasher.
  • A service-program reset. One buyer’s dishwasher needed this. That buyer had already bought a new pump, didn’t need it, and kept it as a backup.

None of this costs you anything but time, and it’s worth doing before you order a part.

Confirming the pump is dead

If you’ve ruled out the checks above and still have standing water, the next step, by the retailer’s own diagnostic order, is a multimeter test before you replace anything. A multimeter set to resistance (ohms) tells you whether electricity can get through the pump’s motor windings at all. You do this with the power off.

But a passing reading doesn’t settle it. In one documented case, a pump passed a continuity test and was still mechanically dead. And in a Whirlpool WDTA50SAHZ0 case, the pump measured 38 ohms against a 15 to 60 ohm spec quoted for that model, meaning the pump itself was fine. The dishwasher had thrown fault code 8-2, described as a drain motor electrical problem, but only 22 to 25 volts were reaching the pump instead of the expected 120. The fault turned out to be the wiring harness or the control board, not the motor the fault code pointed at. That 15 to 60 ohm figure is specific to that model; check your own model’s spec rather than assuming it applies to yours.

The takeaway: a normal resistance reading tells you the winding isn’t open or shorted. It does not tell you the impeller turns freely, and it does not tell you voltage is actually reaching the pump.

Does the pump you’re looking at fit your model?

Across the roughly 130 narratives I read, there were zero cases of someone ordering a pump and having it not fit the model the listing said it fit. That’s a reassuring baseline. A few corrections apply to specific models.

Whirlpool. A Whirlpool WDT780SAEM1 does not take the pump commonly listed for other WDT/WDF/WDP models; it takes a different part number entirely. If you have this exact model, check it specifically rather than assuming it matches similar-looking Whirlpool models.

KitchenAid and Kenmore. A pump sometimes cross-listed against Whirlpool WDT/WDF/WDP models fits KitchenAid KDFE104K, KDFM404K, KDFS424S, KDPM604K and Kenmore 66514145N120 models, not the Whirlpool ones it was previously listed against.

Maytag. Similarly, a pump listed for Maytag MDB4949SK, MDB7959SK and MDB8959SK fits those Maytag models, not Whirlpool WDT models it had been associated with.

Bosch. Bosch part 00631200 did not replace Bosch part 00611332. Bosch still sells 00611332 as a current product, with no successor listed anywhere. These are two parts that both cover overlapping Bosch SGE-family and Thermador models at the same time, not an old part and a new one.

Samsung. I couldn’t find which specific models take Samsung pump DD31-00005A, so check your own model number against the listing rather than assuming. Two more caveats here: a replacement part number, DD81-01527A, is confirmed by RepairClinic but doesn’t appear in other retailers’ cross-reference lists. And only about 10 readable reviews exist for this pump, too few to say anything about how well it performs.

Frigidaire. There isn’t one Frigidaire drain pump. One retailer lists six different Frigidaire dishwasher drain pumps spanning $77 to $199, and I couldn’t confirm the full list of model numbers that take the most common one. Match your full model number and suffix, not just the prefix.

GE. One retailer’s GE listing shows fourteen separate GE drain pump part numbers, none of which match to specific models in what I read. In the one documented GE no-drain case, the owner replaced the drain pump, then the control board, then the UI board, and the actual problem was the circulation pump. If you own a GE and have already ruled out the pump, the circulation pump was the fix in that one documented case and is worth considering before more electronics.

DC versus AC. You may see sellers warn that a Bosch pump is DC-only and won’t work with AC pumps. No buyer in my reading was caught by this, and the seller listings making the warning don’t name a specific part number it applies to, so it can’t be tied to one product. Bosch’s own store describes 00611332 as a 3-phase pump, while another retailer’s listing for the same part says 55Hz. Those two descriptions point in different directions, and I can’t resolve which is right. Treat any DC/AC warning as something to verify against your own dishwasher’s documentation rather than a settled fact.

Durability. Amazon’s reviews couldn’t be read for this research, and every other retailer with readable reviews sells OEM parts only. That means there’s no public review data comparing how long an OEM pump lasts versus an aftermarket one. I’m not going to guess at an answer the data doesn’t have.

Installing it: what goes wrong

The swap itself is short. Reviewers repeatedly describe the pump change taking 5 to 15 minutes once you can reach it. Getting to the pump is the real job: expect 1 to 2 hours of access work before you ever touch the pump itself.

A few things to know going in:

  • The O-ring is the whole job. Getting a good seal on this small rubber ring is what makes or breaks the install. Buyers lubricate it with silicone grease or dish soap before seating it.
  • The wiring harness is fragile and not repairable on its own. One buyer pulled a wire loose from the connector while disconnecting the harness and was told the entire harness had to be replaced, not just the one wire.
  • Expect water on the floor. Have towels ready; there’s standing water in the system even after you think you’ve drained it.
  • Clamps ship with the pump, so don’t buy a separate clamp kit.
  • Bosch and GE dishwashers often need to be tipped onto their back to reach the pump from underneath. Whirlpool and Samsung use quarter-turn mounts, which make the pump itself easier to remove once you’re in there.

Debris destroyed pumps in documented cases, including broken glass lodged under the impeller, hair wrapped around the axle, and a rubber band caught on the pump’s washer. These are individual cases, not a measured failure rate, and I can’t compare how often debris kills a pump versus ordinary wear.

One more thing worth knowing if you’re reading star ratings while you shop: the ratings at AppliancePartsPros come from customers who completed the repair and then left a review, so you’re looking at a success-story corpus. It’s useful for figuring out what goes wrong during install, since people are describing their actual experience, but it’s a poor way to estimate how often these pumps fail, since people whose repair didn’t work are less represented.

FAQ

The drain pump is new and the water is still sitting in the tub. What else causes that?

Several documented cases, each its own story rather than a ranked list: a check valve on the pump outlet that one owner hadn’t considered, a garbage disposal knockout plug never removed, drain pipes under the sink full of gunk, and a service-program reset that one buyer needed instead of a new pump at all.

What goes wrong when you install a new dishwasher drain pump?

The O-ring seal is the part that determines whether the install works, the wiring harness is fragile and can’t be repaired if a wire pulls loose from its connector, and you should expect water on the floor during the job.

Are aftermarket drain pumps as good as OEM ones?

Unknown. Every retailer with readable reviews sells OEM pumps only, and Amazon’s reviews couldn’t be read for this research, so there’s no public data comparing the two.

Did Bosch 00631200 replace 00611332?

No. Bosch still sells 00611332 as a current product with no successor listed.

Is it worth replacing the drain pump, or should I replace the dishwasher?

I don’t have data on that comparison. Frigidaire pumps alone range from $77 to $199 depending on the exact model, and in one GE case a buyer replaced the drain pump, then the control board, then the UI board, before finding the fault was the circulation pump.

Sources and Citations

Research checked 31 August 2026.