Dishwasher Suggestions

[BLTtinkerbell]

We need a new dishwasher & I am interested in hearing what brand other people like & why. I am looking for a quiet one because it is near our family room. Thanks

 

[Christine]

I have a Whirlpool Gold series. I was going to get a Bosch, but it wouldn't fit in my opening. This one can run either normal with a heat dry or the "European" way, like Bosch, without. It is VERY quiet. I have an open floor plan so my kitchen is pretty much in my family room, so I needed quiet and it very much is quiet.

It does take about 2 hours to do a load, which is going to be the case for most energy efficient ones.

 

[mnrose]

I have a kitchenaid architect series that has proven to be a reliable dishwasher (ours is going on 9.5 years now), cleans great, lots of interior storage, third rack (on the top for cutlery), and ridiculously quiet.

I'd also be taking a hard look at Bosch if I were in the market today. When I bought my dishwasher, Bosch did not have the third rack (which I wanted). It does now.

 

[bluezy]

I have a Bosch 800 series and I've been extremely happy with it. It's very quiet (has the little red light the shines on the floor so you know when it's running) and gets everything clean -- even silverware with dried-on peanut butter, cream cheese, and oatmeal. I like the flexibility of the racks -- it's easy to load normal every-day dishes but it's also easy to flatten the dividers/tines and load a large pot or pan. I absolutely love the 3rd rack for large utensils and knives -- *very* handy. Some people have complained about wet dishes with this model because there isn't a "heat" cycle for drying but I haven't had a major issue with that. 99% of the time all of my dishes are dry. If I have a lot of plastic items in the dishwasher, they will sometimes still have some water on them when I unload the dishwasher, but it's not a big deal to me. I dry them off and put them away. I'd rather have to dry a few pieces of plastic on rare occasions than to have to pre-wash and/or scrape every little piece of food off of *all* of the dishes before I load them each and every day. And if there are a few pots or pans in the dishwasher, everything gets dry because the metal items hold the heat and assist with the drying cycle.

My sister has a low-end Bosch dishwasher and she's extremely happy with that model as well. She said it performs better than the mid-range dishwasher it replaced.

After bad experiences with Kitchen Aid and Samsung dishwashers over the last 10 years, I will probably never buy anything but Bosch from now on.

 

[Kellydelly]

I have a GE, not sure what model. Hate it. It takes about 2.5 hours to wash a load of dishes. The dryer feature leaves all of my plasticware still dripping. I didn't even think to read reviews when we purchased this a couple years ago. I was just looking for a dishwasher in our price range with racks that I liked. Lesson learned, read reviews! They all had the same complaints about my washer that I have. Too bad these things last for years....

 

[wishesuponastar]

We need a new dishwasher & I am interested in hearing what brand other people like & why. I am looking for a quiet one because it is near our family room. Thanks

Hello. We bought a new dishwasher in June. Very happy with it, it's quiet. It has a stainless steel inside tub and stainless door. Maytag model no. Mdb4949sdm. Purchased from Sears for the best price and their delivery was on time and excellent. Home Depot had it on display and they were closer for us to go there to just look at it.

 

[Christine]

Hello. We bought a new dishwasher in June. Very happy with it, it's quiet. It has a stainless steel inside tub and stainless door. Maytag model no. Mdb4949sdm. Purchased from Sears for the best price and their delivery was on time and excellent. Home Depot had it on display and they were closer for us to go there to just look at it.

I agree that Sears does an excellent job with price matching. We got our Whirlpool there. When we bought it, they brought up all the ads (Home Depot/Best Buy/etc) for the same day and they gave us the lower of all the prices. Delivery and set up was good too.

 

[Gracie09]

I had a Kenmore Elite in our last house that I loved. It was stainless steel and so quiet.

 

[Cannot_Wait_4Disney]

We need a new dishwasher & I am interested in hearing what brand other people like & why. I am looking for a quiet one because it is near our family room. Thanks

Well, you have several choices to make. And before you consider what brand you want, you need to consider what you want in a dishwasher. But first, if you have an older dishwasher, your new dishwasher will be quite a bit less noisy. Also, one thing that really helped us is we looked at our dishes and took some of the bigger wider and taller ones in and tried em out in several models.

1. Stainless steel tub vs not. The steel tub means that heat is retained in the tub longer to the point where the residual heat can dry the dishes better and a a heated dry may not be necessary. You can get away with a less powerful element and some models don't even have one. The heating of the water is done in a separate chamber. On the non stainless steel tub, you will have to have heated drying. The drawback is stainless steel tubs are quite a bit more expensive. We got the stainless steel tub. I highly suggest it. We found it well worth the money. Though going in, it didn't seem so at the time, in hindsight, this was our most important choice. And we made the right call. Stainless steel.

2. Heating element at the bottom vs separate heating chamber. On some stainless steel models, there will be a heating element at the bottom of the tub. Others use a separate heating chamber to heat the water. The separate heating chamber is just a bit more quiet and more efficient. We chose element at the bottom because we don't have to worry much about plastics melting on the bottom rack simply because we don't use them much. Note that if you have plastics, even with heated drying, they still come out wet. To be honest though, we've never had to use heated drying except on a few things. But having it there and not using it is better than not having it there and needing it. Plus, the element at the bottom units were a bit less expensive. My suggestion. This is a big issue for some. There are many complaints about the lack of heated drying. But it didn't turn out to be for us. Given the element at the bottom was less expensive and we have it for those few things we need it, we made the right choice for us. And to be honest, I think many models that lacked a heating element were eliminated because they couldn't fit our dishes as I recall.

3. You probably won't run into this as much as we did. But we ran into several models that for the sake of quiet, and they were quieter than our dishwasher, some things were moved to the back of the dishwasher. This resulted in 2 inch or so less deep racks. For some of the dishes we washed, that 2 inches was critical. So those models were out for us from the get go.

4. Do you need to adjust your top rack height often? Not at all after initial adjustment? or seldom? Some models have easier rack height adjustment than others and which you need may make the choice for you. Would you like the convenience to be able to fold down tines? Would you like a convenient third shelf for spatulas and big utensils? We had to forgo the convenient rack for large spoons and spatulas because we needed the space. I'd have really liked to have it rather than have to fill up the top rack with them. But it wasn't to be for us. We got the quick adjustment racks. But we don't need them. They just happened to come on the model we picked for reasons other than that. We have just one row of fold down tines. But to be honest, we never even fold that down.

5. Do you want a filter at the bottom that you have to pull out and clean or would you like the disposer unit? The latter is noisier. But you don't have to pull filters and clean them. We chose filter. We only have to clean it once every so often. It's not a big deal for us. We some how ended up with two of them. So we can make a quick change and clean the one coming out whenever.

6. Would you rather have controls on the front of the unit or the top? The top looks nicer when closed. However, when the unit is on, the only way to stop a cycle is open the door. The dishwashers cut right off when you do that though, so it's not a big deal. With the front controls, you have access to the controls while the cycle is running and can easily just press a button to suspend the cycle if you're headed out or off to bed something. We chose top.

7. What cycles would you like? Most models these days have an eco cycle which saves water and electricity by getting dishes wet and in effect letting the gunk steam off. These cycles actually take longer than dishwashers used to and many can take up to 3 or 4 hours to complete. Of course the plus is you no longer have to prewash. Ours also has what it calls a 1 hour wash. This is the old style full spray wash that dishwashers of yesteryear used. But we also have a smart wash cycle which is sort of a hybrid between the two. Ours has a standard pot scrubber cycle plus a separate turbo jet wash (using separate water inflow sprayers at the back of the cabinet.) We can have heated or unheated drying. We can have even hotter rinse temps if we want. We even have a delicate cycle for china. Pretty much if it's available, we have it. All the bells and whistles. It's all what you prefer here. To be honest, we don't use the pot scrubber water sprayers at the back and find ourselves hitting smart wash 96 out of 100 times with the other 4 being potscrubber. Waste of $50 for the turbo jets for us.


Determining what you want in a dishwasher will go a long way toward determining what brand/model you choose. Hope that helps. As to what we own it is a Whirlpool manufactured Kenmore Elite. It has served us well.

 

[minnie mum]

By the sounds of it, we have the same Whirlpool dishwasher as Cannot Wait, but its not the Kenmore label. It's very quiet, and I love the stainless steel interior. We refuse to buy Kenmore anymore only because their service/repair is now so horrible.

The dishwasher that we installed when the house was built died after only 3 years. The plumber who came out to give it last rites discussed the pros and cons of a few different brands we were considering. Mostly about reliability and ease of repair/parts. The Whirlpool model we eventually settled on was high on his list. Bosch was just too expensive for us.

 

[Cannot_Wait_4Disney]

By the sounds of it, we have the same Whirlpool dishwasher as Cannot Wait, but its not the Kenmore label. It's very quiet, and I love the stainless steel interior. We refuse to buy Kenmore anymore only because their service/repair is now so horrible.

The dishwasher that we installed when the house was built died after only 3 years. The plumber who came out to give it last rites discussed the pros and cons of a few different brands we were considering. Mostly about reliability and ease of repair/parts. The Whirlpool model we eventually settled on was high on his list. Bosch was just too expensive for us.

Probably. I'd have had the equivalent Whirlpool model but for a couple things. Mine was on a huge sale and the Whirlpool wasn't. Also, the baskets were just a bit different on the Kenmore and worked a bit better for us. Had the prices been reversed, we'd have had the Whirlpool. As for service, one doesn't have to go through Sears. Anyone that can handle a Whirlpool can handle the Kenmore they manufacture. I really don't have a complaint with their service itself. My complaint is with their call screeners. They really don't have a clue and because they're clueless, they think there is not any chance that you're not also clueless.

 

[ImDMous]

We have a low end Bosch and love it. It's stainless steel with no heating element. It's super quiet.

 

[nkereina]

I have a GE, not sure what model. Hate it. It takes about 2.5 hours to wash a load of dishes. The dryer feature leaves all of my plasticware still dripping. I didn't even think to read reviews when we purchased this a couple years ago. I was just looking for a dishwasher in our price range with racks that I liked. Lesson learned, read reviews! They all had the same complaints about my washer that I have. Too bad these things last for years....

We also have a GE (also not sure which model) and agree with this post. While ours doesn't take 2.5 hours to run a full cycle, I do agree that the heated dry feature doesn't really do well drying anything. It also doesn't clean all that well and I often have to re-wash things. I don't think the capacity is that great either. The one positive about it is that it's *super* quiet. We've even had guests say "is your dishwasher running?" because you can barely hear it.

My parents have a Jenn Air dishwasher and its incredible. It's 16 years old and works better than mine ever has. Jenn Air can be expensive, but all of their appliances are Jenn Air and they have lasted so long. Worth the money.

 

[tvguy]

Find a high end appliance store, they should have all the models they sell set up so you can hear them run. To be honest, it is very hard to find a dishwasher that isn't nearly silent.
Look at the dish rack, and silverware rack, do you like the layout?
We had a Bosch with a stainless steel tub for 14 years and replaced it with a Whirlpool with a plastic tub a year ago. I don't remember the reasons cited by the sales rep, but basically his view of stainless steel tubs was only going to cost you more money and not buy you any better function.

 

[Jafar30]

I've had the same dishwasher for 41 years. My two hands

 

[gottaluvPluto]

I am also looking for a new dishwasher. My current GE dishwasher is 3 years old and broke. I talked to a friend of our that does appliance repairs and he suggested Bosch or may tag. I love Bosch; I have one in my rental for 10 years and so far so good. So I am looking for a Bosch.