So I have had two Bosch Dishwashers over the last 6 years (two different houses) and never had anything to complain about. My current one is the 800 44dB series with the third rack. Has been working without any issue since I bought it 3+ years ago.

A couple of weeks ago, mid cycle, the thing stops working. The unit kept cycling as it it was going on and off, and the cycle selection light kept blinking. I did some cursory checking, cleaned out the filter and drainage pump. There was water standing at the bottom since it went on the fritz mid cycle. After some checking online, I could only assume that the dreaded control board had gone kaput. Frustrated, I thought I'd fix it myself. In all of my research, it indicated that the control board is usually in the door, and bosch even had instructions on how to replace it. I ordered the part from Bosch ($150 all in), and went about replacing the board. The replacement itself went pretty well, and took me about 15 minutes all in. Very proud of myself, I flick the circuit breaker back on and... Yeah nothing. Same failure, no change.

The only other thing I could think of was if there was an internal electrical fault or ground in the main motor. I reluctantly called a repair shop, while I started to think about whether it would be better to get a new unit instead of getting it repaired. The repair guy came over to take a look, said that he had to do some research, but he was pretty sure that the problem was with the SECOND control board that's in the base of the unit. Huh? What the heck is so complicated about these things that they now need TWO control boards? seriously? Apparently the one I had replaced only controls the user interface. The second board controls the operation of the motor, the pump, etc.

The guy came yesterday with the OTHER control board, had to take the whole unit out. It took him a good while to figure out how to get the control unit out and replaced. Plugged in, and turned on the circuit breaker, and... the whole thing goes kinda crazy. all sorts of lights going on and off, beeps, not working. He looked positively frustrated. Said maybe the new unit is not programmed (huh?). I left him alone for about 15 minutes, as I started to research prices on new units, thinking ive paid hundreds of dollars already, should have just replaced it from the start. The guy tested every wire with a voltage detector. One of the connectors wasn't plugged into the right place, and apparently, a wire was damaged too. He fixed these two issues and started to put the unit back together. I asked him " Hey don't you want to test it before you put it together?". He goes "Well if this doesn't fix it then I give up anyway so either way no point in leaving it open". Through some crazy miracle, when he put the whole humpty dumpty back together again and turned on the circuit breaker, the thing came back to life. It took about 5 minutes to "program itself" and then it was ready to go. I've used it a few times since and seems to be working fine.

Keeping my fingers crossed that whatever it was actually got fixed (seems so) and it will stay that way. Pretty frustrating since I think 3 years isn't long enough to end-of-life a dishwasher, but ill keep using it until it breaks again. In the mean time, I have a perfectly functional control unit (the first one) sitting around in case I need it :-P

The second control unit, including the guys time (came out twice, spent well over an hour the second time, including replacing the bad wire, opening up the whole unit, etc. came to $350. A lot, but seemed pretty reasonable to me given how much work he put in. Why do we need two control boards Bosch?

Thought I'd share and wondering if anyone else has had any similar experiences.