GE PDW9980N20SS

SaferProducts.gov consumer incident report 20180306-46304-2147389479. Matched catalog product: GE PDW9980N20SS. Incident: On 27 February, 2018 at approximately 3AM, I woke to the smell of melting plastic. I identified the smell as originating from my GE Profile Dishwasher as I noticed the counter top above the washer was hot to the touch. Upon opening the door, smoke rolled out and set off my smoke alarms.

SaferProducts.gov consumer incident report 20121002-74878-2147463196. Severity: Incident, No Injury. Matched catalog product: GE PDW9980N20SS. Incident: We loaded and started our GE dishwasher before going to bed last night and woke up this morning to find something had heated the inside of the unit to the point that all the plastic fixtures in the interior had melted and flowed to the bottom of the chamber forming a mound of cooled plastic, silverware, dishes and cutlery. We found out that GE had issued a recall on dishwashers manufactured in 2006 (we bought ours in 2007), but our model number was not on their recall list.

SaferProducts.gov consumer incident report 20160315-57041-2147420910. Severity: Unspecified. Matched catalog product: GE PDW9980N20SS. Incident: GE dishwasher PDW9980N20SS, element would not turn off and overheated so much that the plastic items melted onto the element and nearly caused a fire. Destroyed my sishwasher and house smelled horrible.

SaferProducts.gov consumer incident report 20171211-25792-2147394678. Severity: Incident, No Injury. Matched catalog product: GE PDW9980N20SS. Incident: My GE Profile dishwasher (model # PDW9980N20SS) got so hot, that it melted the bottom of my utensil rack. The element would not shut off. The plastic chemical smell was terrible. Had I not noticed the smell and shut off power to the dishwasher, there could have been a fire.

SaferProducts.gov consumer incident report 20130712-5D685-2147454245. Matched catalog product: GE PDW9980N20SS. Incident: Dishwasher dry cycle did not shut off following end of cycle resulting in melting of the silverware basket, utensils with plastic handles, the plastic parts of the lower water spray bar, and several plastic items on the top rack. The granite counter top and the adjacent cabinet walls were extremely hot to the touch, but no damage is visible on the cabinets. This is the second incident of this type that has occurred on this exact same model. I reported the previous incident to CPSC on Oct 12, 2008, and CPSC contacted GE, and their investigation determined that the dishwasher was not repairable and they replaced it with the same model, the one that I am reporting. Since this is the second incident of this type on the same model, it leads me to suspect a design defect and I believe a recall would be warranted. If I have experienced two incidents, there are undoubtedly many others out there with similar experiences. The fortunate thing is that we have been at home when both incidents occurred so we were able to intervene and turn off the dishwasher before something worse, like fire, happened.

SaferProducts.gov consumer incident report 20250531-AA93A-2147330939. Severity: No Incident, No Injury. Product: GE PDW9980N20SS (GE Profile PDW9980N20SS Stainless Steel built in dishwasher. Approximately 2008 model year.). Incident: We have a GE Profile Model PDW9980N20SS Dishwasher (approximately 2008 vintage). During the last wash cycle, the internal heating element failed to turn off at the end of the cycle. We were home and noticed the smell of burning plastic. By the time we discovered the problem, the counter above the dishwasher was very hot and the internal plastic spinner inside the bottom of the dishwasher was partially melted. The only way to shut down the heating element was to turn off the breaker. To check, we turned on the breaker the next morning and the heating element immediately turned on even though there was no cycle running. Had we not been close to the dishwasher when this incident occurred, and shut off the breaker, the result would have been a serious house fire. These older GE dishwashers that are subject to this failure should be recalled and taken out of service.