Product review (5 stars): Resolved an issue of sporadic functionality
I ordered the Thermal Fuse due to sporadic functionality on our Whirlpool dishwasher. The controls would become unresponsive, sometimes working, sometimes not. At times, the dishwasher would become completely dead and at other times I would be able to run a load with limited options. Before ordering the Thermal Fuse, I bypassed it with a paperclip to see if the behavior changed - which it did restore all options. Since the fuse was failing, it only made sense that the thermostat was beginning to fail, causing the fuse to overload. I ended up ordering the fuse and thermostat ($12) and replacing them at the same time. I didn't want to take the chance of destroying the new fuse due to a bad thermostat. Since you're going to be tearing apart the appliance anyways, I highly recommend replacing them both to cover all of the bases.