I’ve always been keen on buying quality stuff where I can because it tends to last much longer and give better results. This applies to white goods just as much as anything else. I have had bad experiences with buying cheap washing machines etc in the past and so I now buy the high quality although expensive German brands – Siemens, Miele etc. This has worked out well so far and I’ve had years of good service from them.
The dishwasher I have is a Miele G975 SC Plus which is now pretty old (I bought it about 10 years ago). It has worked pretty much flawlessly all that time although there is one recurrent problem. They use a fan system to dry the dishes (so-called ‘Turbothermic’) with a vent on the front. Sometimes instead of blowing out hot air the fan starts spitting out water which makes a racket and a terrible mess. The reason for this is that there is a hose between the fan unit and the drain which gets blocked up with bits of food. The solution is to strip down the door and clean everything out.
Removing the front panel is a fairly simple matter of removing all the screws from the inside of the door and then various others round the plastic front panel. You also need to pull off the plastic mode selector knob:
Then you can get to the hoses and fan assembly (fan at top left in the picture below). You then have to unscrew and fold down the metal front panel which you can do without disconnecting any of the many wires.
The fan itself can then be unplugged and removed. There is a trick to this – it is held in place not by screws but by a circular grille on the inside of the door. To release it you need to twist the grille and the fan drops out. Be careful doing this or it can drop out unexpectedly.
Then you can dismantle the fan completely and clean out all the muck and old food, as well as cleaning out all the hoses:
It is then a matter of putting it all back together again, and hopefully it will all now work properly. It seems to go for quite a number of years between needing doing again.
I love the fact that these machines are so easy to work on and in my view they are definitely worth the extra money up front.
Universal Discovery Methodology 
It for this kind of thing that the internet exists for!
Massive help – thanks.
If I was going to add anything I’d say to be very careful when reassembling – particularly screwing on the plastic front panel. The plastic is probably old and brittle (mine is) so don’t overtighten.
That’s great to hear, thanks. I’m sure you are right about the plastic. Sadly I’ve had to move on to an AEG integrated dishwasher which came with a new kitchen, it’s not half as good. I should really have specified a Miele when I ordered it… well lesson learned for next time.
Thanks for your article – very helpful! This is the second time I’ve done this clean/repair and it’s so long ago i couldn’t remember the disassembly sequence – your article filled the gap. This time I’ve bookmarked it, but in 5 or 6 years will probably have forgotten where the bookmark is! These are outstanding machines. Ours must be at least 15 years old now.
That’s great Andrew, glad to hear it’s helpful. We have unfortunately had to pass that particular machine on having had a new kitchen with a built-in dishwasher. That one is an AEG and nowhere close to the quality of the Miele one… so I can see that I’ll be replacing it before too long.
Our Miele was very kindly donated to us by my mother-in-law – after she too moved to a house that had a pre fitted (and inferior) machine. There are thus winners and losers in such circumstances! 🙂
Thank you, thank you, thank you. We had this problem and I thought fan had had its day. When I picked myself up off the floor after I saw the price of replacement (w.o. labour costs), I found your post. I was way out of my comfort zone taking the thing to bits, but your instructions & photos were great. All now back together and good as new.
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Brilliant! I’m so pleased, this is exactly the reason I write this blog and it’s great when it does. We no longer have that dishwasher, we had a fitted kitchen with a built-in one by AEG but it is nowhere near as good and I am already scheming to replace it with an integrated Miele instead. I had to repeat the process a few years later on but once you know what to do it’s dead easy. Thanks again for letting me know!
Thanks for the article, a great help as my vent was dribbling and noisy, 2 hours later as good as new 🙂 ish – you always get one screw/or bolt left over !!
Yes indeed, keep hold of them though as you never know when you’ll need them again 😉
Fanastic article!
Thank you best regards from a random dude from Norway.