I need a new dishwasher

[mom0299]

My dishwasher is on its last legs. It is about 8 years old and doesn't clean as well as it used to. The bottom of the silverware rack is broken so that things fall through. When it runs there is a burnt plastic smell. The handle broke a few years ago, but we still manage to get it latched.
So, I'm in the market for a new one. Tell me why you love yours and why I should buy it. I want a quality appliance and it needs to be stainless to match the rest of the kitchen. Features I'd like to have include delay start and quiet.

 

[clarkshel]

We bought a Kitchenaide last year to replace our 5 yr old dishwasher. It is an excellent dishwasher. The dishes come out incredibly clean and it is very quiet. You barely notice it is on. We were going to buy a Bosch, but it seemed to have a smaller interior than the Kitchenaide we where looking at.

 

[North of Mouse]

My dishwasher is on its last legs. It is about 8 years old and doesn't clean as well as it used to. The bottom of the silverware rack is broken so that things fall through. When it runs there is a burnt plastic smell. The handle broke a few years ago, but we still manage to get it latched.
So, I'm in the market for a new one. Tell me why you love yours and why I should buy it. I want a quality appliance and it needs to be stainless to match the rest of the kitchen. Features I'd like to have include delay start and quiet.

Don't most dishwashers last longer than 8 years (pp 5 years)? We have been in our home for almost 12 years and my GE Profile is still going strong like new. Mine have all lasted 12-15 years minimum.

What kind is yours? Sounds like a lot of things have broken. I definitely don't want my next one to be that brand. I have been thinking ahead to a possible Bosch, or Kitchenaid like PP, but seems like everyone I talk to with different brands has some things good to say, some negative. My GE has been great, it's the 2nd one of that brand. I might just stick to it.

Good luck!

 

[bankgirl05]

DO NOT BUY a Fridgedaire Gallery. I hate mine.

I actually hate all of my Fridgedaire Gallery appliances (Range, Fridge and Dishwasher) we bought them last year when we bought our new house, based mostly on looks/style and price. They have been nothing but trouble,and of course, dummy me reads Consumer Reports AFTER the fact....bad, bad bad bad bad.......

Read consumer reports, or at least look at a few models first and then read the reorts on the ones you like the most.

 

[Stephanie711]

DO NOT BUY a Fridgedaire Gallery. I hate mine.

I actually hate all of my Fridgedaire Gallery appliances (Range, Fridge and Dishwasher) we bought them last year when we bought our new house, based mostly on looks/style and price. They have been nothing but trouble,and of course, dummy me reads Consumer Reports AFTER the fact....bad, bad bad bad bad.......

Read consumer reports, or at least look at a few models first and then read the reorts on the ones you like the most.

I agree with this!! Steer clear of Frigidaire! Ours needed to be replaced after three years. We have a Bosch dishwasher now and I love it!! It's so quiet and the dishes actually sparkle . Good luck!

 

[mrsv98]

I have a Bosch Silence Plus 50 and LOVE it! It has a stainless steel tub and adjustable top rack. It is so quiet I have to look to see if it is running. It has a nice countdown timer, multiple cycles and sanitize option. The one possible drawback is that it is a touch small but there are only three of us so the vast majority of the time it doesn't matter. If I have a lot of pans, I will do them by hand and I don't mind.

 

[mombrontrent]

We have a stainless steel Bosch. It came with the house when we bought it, since the house is 8 1/2 years old I am going to assume the dishwasher is that age as well. When we moved in 2.5 years ago that dishwasher looked brand new and ran perfectly. Only recently have we had a few problems with it. Ours recently had a leak which DH managed to fix. Dishes have been coming out dirty on the top and cloudy, gave it a good cleaning and it has helped. Also last month we had that burnt plastic smell you described, my Dh took apart the piping and found a blockage, he cleared it out and the smell is gone, so maybe yours has the same issue. Also now the soap dispenser isn't opening during the cycle so I have to put soap in the bottom of the dishwasher instead DH says he can order a new dispenser and fix it. I would hope to get a few more years out of it but right now the prospects are not looking good and this is suppose to be a top quality dishwasher. I have never seen a dishwasher make it past 10 years though and still work well.

 

[Southernmiss]

We have a 9 year old ge lower end model that came as part of our builders appliance package. It is limping along and we will replace it with a new Bosch or Kenmore elite under 49 decibels. Dmil has a Kenmore that is so quiet, reliable and holds more than the Bosch. So I am leaning strongly towards a Kenmore of about 800 to 1000 dollars.

 

[clarkshel]

Don't most dishwashers last longer than 8 years (pp 5 years)? We have been in our home for almost 12 years and my GE Profile is still going strong like new. Mine have all lasted 12-15 years minimum.

What kind is yours? Sounds like a lot of things have broken. I definitely don't want my next one to be that brand. I have been thinking ahead to a possible Bosch, or Kitchenaid like PP, but seems like everyone I talk to with different brands has some things good to say, some negative. My GE has been great, it's the 2nd one of that brand. I might just stick to it.

Good luck!

The dishwasher we replaced was a GE. It was an excellent dishwasher the first 5 years we had it. I made a mistake, it lasted 6 years for us. What happened was it was not cleaning very well. We tried everything to get it working correctly, until my wife got fed up and wanted a new one. Who am I to argue.

 

[mombrontrent]

I have a Bosch Silence Plus 50 and LOVE it! It has a stainless steel tub and adjustable top rack. It is so quiet I have to look to see if it is running. It has a nice countdown timer, multiple cycles and sanitize option. The one possible drawback is that it is a touch small but there are only three of us so the vast majority of the time it doesn't matter. If I have a lot of pans, I will do them by hand and I don't mind.

How old is your dishwasher? I ask because I have the same one and I loved it and it worked perfectly. Then about 6 months ago at the 8 year mark the problems started. My post is the one after yours where I list the problems. I chalk it up to age and overuse (we run it everyday).

 

[taylor3297]

We had a whirlpool that the builder put in and it lasted about 9 years. It was very loud but it did clean well. Towards the end it was even louder than normal and just sounded like it was on its last let.

We bought a Kenmore Elite. It is so quiet. The first time we turned it on we had to put our ear up to it to make sure it was working. It cleans really well. I highly recommend this dishwasher.

 

[mrsv98]

How old is your dishwasher? I ask because I have the same one and I loved it and it worked perfectly. Then about 6 months ago at the 8 year mark the problems started. My post is the one after yours where I list the problems. I chalk it up to age and overuse (we run it everyday).

Mine is only about a year old. Does your have a filter in the bottom? Mine has a screen that catches large debris and prevents it from clogging.

I had a Maytag before and I hated it. It only lasted 3 years and frankly I was glad to see it go even if I hated spending the money.

 

[mombrontrent]

Mine is only about a year old. Does your have a filter in the bottom? Mine has a screen that catches large debris and prevents it from clogging.

I had a Maytag before and I hated it. It only lasted 3 years and frankly I was glad to see it go even if I hated spending the money.

Yes it has that filter/screen. We have had to remove it and clean it out a few times and it'd REALLY gross

 

[North of Mouse]

After reading all these posts, I'm thinking I must just have had very good luck! My GE is 12 yrs. and still works like new. My past ones have been that age or older. I do rinse my dishes before loading them though, don't know if that has anything to do with it. It's probably just me, but I can't stand the thought of food swishing around on all my dishes while washing. LOL

 

[Southernmiss]

After reading all these posts, I'm thinking I must just have had very good luck! My GE is 12 yrs. and still works like new. My past ones have been that age or older. I do rinse my dishes before loading them though, don't know if that has anything to do with it. It's probably just me, but I can't stand the thought of food swishing around on all my dishes while washing. LOL

Rinse our dishes, too. Our GE issues are with the starting mechanism and the fact that it's soooo loud. Have to time the start of the dishwasher to late night or when we leave.

 

[tvguy]

After reading all these posts, I'm thinking I must just have had very good luck! My GE is 12 yrs. and still works like new. My past ones have been that age or older. I do rinse my dishes before loading them though, don't know if that has anything to do with it. It's probably just me, but I can't stand the thought of food swishing around on all my dishes while washing. LOL

I think it depends how often you use it. My mom got 30 years out of the Westinghouse that came with her house, the Maytag she replaced it with only lasted 15 years, and since she now does about 1 load a month she bought a $190 Kenmore that is as quiet as my 15 Year old Bosch.
I see a wide spread on price, but not such a wide spread on durability.

 

[Baliezer]

I just bought a Fisher and Paykel drawer dishwasher and I am in love with it. We have a large family so it is so nice to be able to run a half load of dishes at a time to reduce the amount of water wasted. In fact, we have seen out water bill go down significantly for the first month that we ran it. I can also run two loads at two different times. It has also reduced the amount of bending over I was doing to load dishes, since the main compartment is now on top. My dishes now always come out clean and sparkly.

 

[amwildwood]

I spent 20+ hours researching my dishwasher purchased last oct. yeah, I'm a bit crazy and can't part with cash unless I've exhausted all research avenues.

I needed to replace a Kenmore elite that was seven years old. A junky dishwasher we spent more than $1000 on between purchase price and numerous repairs - many of which we did ourselves. Based on my experience with this, my Kenmore - I paid too much - elite range, and sears follow up to my safety concern (fire starter oops), I will never buy from sears again. Yeah, I am bitter a bit so take that for what it's worth. (Sears manager on Kenmore - "as you know we don't actually make it [kenmore], so it's not our problem.)

I would research a purchase with the following in no particular order:

Consumer product safety commission
Consumer reports
Online reviews
Yale appliance blog- they have good suggestions based in their sales and repair rates
That home site users forum

Since we spent so much on the last dishwasher, we decided to either spend under $500 and junk it as soon as it broke or spend over $1000+ for what we hope was nice features and quality.

We went for the big bucks. I then wanted a dishwasher with a water softener built it since its possible they may last longer without all the minerals building up. And I wanted a German made one for the better quality. That left Miele and Bosch. Went with the lowest priced German Bosch. It's model is 800 plus. The key is the made in Germany one - better engineered than the us made ones.

The dealer said it should have a lifespan of 10-20 years. But in any brand, the water inlet valve may leak. This dealer has many German made dishwashers last 15-20 years.

I love our new dishwasher and fingers crossed it lasts a while. It's quiet, actually cleans dishes, and has a cutlery tray that I love. I can put my plastic kid dishes on the bottom rack with no melting.

I'd be happy to share more of my experience and advice on how I run it.

Sent from my iPhone using DISBoards

 

[penn19]

Don't buy an LG. Ours lasted about 4 years. Needed new wheels for the upper and lower racks. So we did that. And then the silverware caddy got holes in the bottom so the uensils started falling through. We limped along with that. And then it started making a horrible grinding noise. We googled and think it was the compressor. So between all the parts etc we thought it was crazy to put more money into a piece of junk and bought a GE. The day before it was delivered the LG completely died.

We did however manage to sell it for $100 on craigslist. And yes we put that it didn't work. So far I like my GE.

 

[mom0299]

OP here.
Thanks for all the info. The one we have now is a Frigidaire. I don't think I'll get another one of those.