---
title: "The Two-Letter Codes on an LG-Built Kenmore Washer"
description: "The Kenmore washer OE code is LG's water outlet error. What the other two-letter codes mean on a 796, and the one that changes meaning by machine type."
url: "https://kenmoremiami.support/blog/lg-built-kenmore-washer-codes-explained/"
date_modified: "2026-09-01"
Category: "Troubleshooting"
---


# The Two-Letter Codes on an LG-Built Kenmore Washer

## Kenmore washer OE code: what LG actually calls it

If the plate under your door starts **796**, the machine is an LG. That single fact turns an unfamiliar two-character code into something with a documented meaning, because LG names each of these in plain language in its own material.

OE is LG's **water outlet error**. Not a pump code, not a hose code — an outlet code, meaning the water did not leave in the time the machine expected. That distinction matters, because it tells you the machine has observed a result rather than diagnosed a component.

## The pattern the whole set follows

Once you see it, the rest of the letters stop being arbitrary. Each one names **a stage of the cycle that did not complete**, not a part that has failed.

IE — **inlet error**. The tub did not fill to an adequate level. Supply valves, hoses, screens, pressure.

OE — **outlet error**. The water did not leave. Filter, hose, suds, pump.

UE — **unbalance error**. The laundry piled up on one side of the drum, so the machine stopped rather than spinning a load it could not control. Almost always a bedsheet or a single heavy item, and almost always fixed by redistributing the load.

LE — **motor locked error**. The tub did not turn. LG's own help material describes overloading as a common cause, which is worth knowing before anybody prices a motor.

dE — a **door** problem on a front-loader. Laundry caught in the boot is the everyday version.

That last one carries the trap on this badge, and it is worth its own paragraph.

## The one code that means two things

On a front-loader, dE is a door error. On a top-loader, the same two characters are LG's **lid** error — a different machine, a different mechanism, and a different check.

Both machines wear the same badge. Both may say 796 on the plate. Somebody reading a code list that does not distinguish them ends up looking for a door latch on a machine that does not have a door.

This is the whole argument of this site in two characters: **the code is only half the information, and the machine is the other half.**

## The ones that are not problems at all

tcL is a **tub clean reminder**. LG notes that on a narrow display the tc appears first and the L after it, which is why people search for it as two separate things. Nothing has gone wrong; the machine is asking for its cleaning cycle.

CL is a **control lock**. Also not a problem.

A power-failure indicator tells you the supply was interrupted. Also not a problem.

Filing these with genuine errors is how a working washer gets a service call, so this site keeps them in a separate group and says on each page which it is.

## Where to start with an OE

In this order, and the first two are free.

**The drain pump filter**, behind the small door at the bottom front of the cabinet. It is designed to open by hand. Put a tray and a towel down first — it holds more water than you expect.

**The drain hose behind the machine.** Kinked against the wall, or pushed so far into the standpipe that the machine siphons.

**Detergent.** A machine cannot pump foam. An HE drum given ordinary detergent produces exactly this ending.

**Then the pump**, which is the part most often blamed and least often responsible. A pump receiving no signal is a control problem wearing a pump's clothes, and telling those apart takes a meter rather than an opinion.

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**[Read full article: The Two-Letter Codes on an LG-Built Kenmore Washer](https://kenmoremiami.support/blog/lg-built-kenmore-washer-codes-explained/)**