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Best dishwasher


Michael M

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Couldn't really find an appropriate forum for this, but I see a camera-for-food-pix thread just above, so I figure I'm in the ballpark.

I'm not looking for a high-end dishwasher, but want the quietest I can afford that washes well and has no repair issues. Well, don't we all? Does anyone have any favorites?

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I can say with a fairly high level of confidence that the perfect dishwasher has not yet been built. I have two dishwashers, an ultra-quiet, high performing Bosch and a fairly high-end Sears Kenmore. With the Bosch, you get an amazingly quiet machine that does a great job with the dishes, but it was not designed for American households. What I mean by that is that the Bosch doesn't have a drying cycle and it's harder to arrange the dishes in it. It's sort of like a Mercedes: great performance, but their cup holders suck.

I love the Bosch, but my wife prefers the Kenmore for the reasons stated above. One day, someone will combine the best of both worlds for the perfect dishwasher.

Dean McCord

VarmintBites

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Bosch again. We also don't have much trouble loading it.

It is really quiet, but what ultimately sold us on the Bosch was the *lack* of a steam vent in the front. It uses a hose that runs along the top of the unit to condense the steam back into water. At the time, they were the only dw I could find with that feature.

No steam vent means no scalded toddler fingers (or daddy's butt :raz:)

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A friend of a friend has a Bosch and loves the quiet but hates the fact that they were constantly scraping food out of it. Apparently it is so quiet because it does not have a food grinding mechanism that other machines do. Worth asking about I suppose.

No high-end appliances in my kitchen. We got a Maytag (I think they usually make the Kenmore stuff too) from Best Buy a few years ago and love it. Nice and deep and designed to hold a ton of dishes.

Bridget Avila

My Blog

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I can say with a fairly high level of confidence that the perfect dishwasher has not yet been built.  I have two dishwashers, an ultra-quiet, high performing Bosch and a fairly high-end Sears Kenmore.  With the Bosch, you get an amazingly quiet machine that does a great job with the dishes, but it was not designed for American households.  What I mean by that is that the Bosch doesn't have a drying cycle and it's harder to arrange the dishes in it.  It's sort of like a Mercedes: great performance, but their cup holders suck.

I love the Bosch, but my wife prefers the Kenmore for the reasons stated above.  One day, someone will combine the best of both worlds for the perfect dishwasher.

I have an Asko and Kenmore and agree with Varmint. The Asko is quiet and has a short cycle time and uses less water, but the Kenmore is easier to load and dries better.

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I have one of the newer kitchen aids. It's almost as quiet as the bosch, but it's bigger and very easy to load and does a fab job on cleaning.

"Godspeed all the bakers at dawn... may they all cut their thumbs and bleed into their buns til they melt away..."

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I purchased a stainless Kenmore Elite dishwasher just about a year ago. I chose it based on Consumer's Guide. I am pretty happy with it. It is very quiet, but has quite a long cycle time. One of the things I like about it is that most of the controls are hidden on the top of the door so you don't see them when it is closed. It also has an area called a Turbo Zone for power washing pots and pans. I am quite happy with that and use it all the time. The Whirlpool I had for 19 years was supposed to be quiet, but just wasn't and had started to leak. I think I was happier with the rack arrangement of the older dishwasher, but maybe that is because I had such a long time getting used to it.

Cheers,

HC

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We have a Miele. While it is great for washing dishes, a number of things suck about it. None of my sheet racks or my big stock pot fit in it. I'm washing more things by hand these days which I loathe. It's small, so I seem to be running more loads every day than I did before. And you have to feed it salt. Don't ask me why, but you do. This thing sucks up more salt than Canadian roads during winter. I quietly pray for this to break down every day so I can get a new one.

We had a Frigidaire Gallery in the old house. It wasn't as quiet as I would have liked but it handled all the things above and more.

Marlene

Practice. Do it over. Get it right.

Mostly, I want people to be as happy eating my food as I am cooking it.

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We have a Miele.  While it is great for washing dishes, a number of things suck about it.  None of my sheet racks or my big stock pot fit in it.  I'm washing more things by hand these days which I loathe.  It's small, so I seem to be running more loads every day than I did before.  And you have to feed it salt.  Don't ask me why, but you do.  This thing sucks up more salt than Canadian roads during winter.  I quietly pray for this to break down every day so I can get a new one.

We had a Frigidaire Gallery in the old house.  It wasn't as quiet as I would have liked but it handled all the things above and more.

Marlene,

The salt is used if you have hard water, if your water is OK you don't have to use the salt, I think there is something in the manual about disabling the feature.

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We have a bosch and love it. The main reason we purchased it was because of how quiet it is. We have an open kitchen that adjoins the dining room, so we wanted to be able to have the washer going while dinner is on. If we didn't have the lights on the front of the machine on while running we wouldn't know it was going.

It is true that it doesnt have a grinder, but we tend to pre-rinse out dishes anyway. The machine does have a double strainer in the bottom that can be cleaned very easily for anything that gets caught.

As far as the no drying cycle, meaning it doesn't have a heating element like most dishwashers it does take some getting used to but we found if you leave the machine closed for 30 minutes to an hour after the cycle is done it will dry most of the dishes almost completely. We do find some leftover water in any dishes or glasses that have depressions that will retain water, but it really isn't a big deal.

As far as loading -- we find it a breeze.

John Deragon

foodblog 1 / 2

--

I feel sorry for people that don't drink. When they wake up in the morning, that's as good as they're going to feel all day -- Dean Martin

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I have a Bosch and we love it but there is just 2 of us and we also prerinse everything that goes into it. As suggested above, we just leave the door closed for a half hour or so and everything is dry except the plasticware that gets flipped over. We love the quiet , the simple controls and the fact they are hidden when the door is closed.

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When I moved here the dishwasher was a White-Westinghouse. I had it replaced with a Whirlpool for three years and it was only fair. Then had a GE and it never worked as advertised. I replaced it with a Kenmore and had some significant problems - it wasn't the Elite, described above, I don't think they had that line at that time.

I considered the Thermador, which was recommended by a couple of caterers I know, however even the "quiet" ones were pretty noisy and all had cycles that lasted so long it was annoying to me. At that time the Bosch was not widely available and not a lot of evaluations available.

I decided to spend the money on a commercial unit, (Hobart) partly because I do a lot of canning and wanted something in which I could sterilize the jars. It was VERY expensive but it has been in use for several years and never a problem.

It is noisy but, and for me this is was the big plus, the cycle only lasts 90 seconds. 1 1/2 minutes and it is done and everything is squeeky clean.

Great for cleanup after parties. My next door neighbors, who are really good friends, have used it many times when they have big parties (I am usually included) as they have a very large family.

She doesn't know it yet, but she is getting one for Christmas. It is sitting in my garage at the moment and will be installed on Christmas Eve when she will be gone from the house from 4 p.m. to 1 a.m. Her husband, sons and gransons are paying my plumber a big bonus to install it. (He installed mine and knows how to get it done right!)

Considering what I had spent on other units, which did not work well and needed to be replaced within a short time, this has probably saved me money over the long haul. It should be good for another 20 years.

Edited by andiesenji (log)

"There are, it has been said, two types of people in the world. There are those who say: this glass is half full. And then there are those who say: this glass is half empty. The world belongs, however, to those who can look at the glass and say: What's up with this glass? Excuse me? Excuse me? This is my glass? I don't think so. My glass was full! And it was a bigger glass!" Terry Pratchett

 

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We have one of the higher end KitchenAid dishwashers. I tried to look it up, but since we got it 5 years ago, they seem to have changed. It's very quiet. Our kitchen and family room are one room, and we can watch tv with the dishwasher running. It's much quieter than the fan that vents the cooktop. It does have a lot of insulation, and it has a stainless steel interior (not exterior). It does vent out the front though, and just recently I noticed the vents were gunky looking, but I cleaned them with a q tip and they looked fine now. It has an adjustable top rack which I don't like. I never adjust it, and it seems like it's wobbly all the time. It doesn't have the tower that comes up from the base, which I like because it saves lots of space.

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I have a Fisher & Paykel..I love it.  It's the double drawer style, which is great when you have a small load.......use one drawer.

My friend has the same thing and she loves it. It's cool that you can get Fisher & Paykel stuff in California...just goes to show you seppos New Zealand makes something besides Lord of the Rings movies. :)

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Check out the March 2005 Consumer Reports, if you can-there's a lot of info there. You have a lot to choose from in terms of quiet-this is becoming more the norm. We bought an inexpensive Kenmore and I can't believe how quiet it is. In their repair ratings, Whirlpool, Kenmore and Hotpoint were the top 3. Asko, Bosch and Fridigare were the bottom 3.

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Ok - I'm also in the market. My criteria are this:

Must be quiet

Must be big inside

Must be able to put wine glasses in top rack

No pre-rinsing

Not a ridiculously long cycle time

GOOD CLEANING required

Is this too much to ask? Price is no longer an object - I am willing to pay for all this. Suggestions?

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i have an asko and we been pretty happy with it (I wanted Miele but couldn't justify 2x the cost). It is supposed (never took an actual thermometer to it) get the water hotter than most dish washers and we can put a lot of dishes without having to rinse. Pretty quite and it comes out clean and dry. We've had it for 6 years and it is still going strong. Not bad for a dishwasher.

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Under NO circumstances should you buy a GE, I said, and someone posted:

Reasons?

Here's why:

Ours broke 3 times in 5 years, twice causing leaks and a damaged ceiling below.

The second time the $150 part died was 2 weeks after the warranty on that repair expired. It's been behaving since the 3rd repair, but I'll never buy another one. I might not ever buy another GE branded appliance...

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I have a stainless Kenmore Elite, it's about 5 years old now. I absolutely love it. Never had a problem, it's practically silent, the buttons are in full view (must be a newer model that hides them), I don't need to rinse dishes at all and they always come out clean (including egg yolks!), and the racks are very adjustable - I can fit just about anything in it, including wine glasses on the top rack. I don't know whether it's cycle-time is longer than average or not, never really noticed. Plus, different options are different lengths of time. There's a "Quick Wash" that's about 20 minutes I think.

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  • 10 months later...

Hi -- I'm reviving this thread because I'm about to get rid of my Asko -- 8 years, small pieces starting breaking off after first 2 or 3, now it's a total mess -- and wanted to hear what people are liking this year. Seems like the American machines are catching up in the quietude department. Anyone else like the Kitchen Aid or Kenmore?

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I'll reiterate my post above that I love my Kitchen Aid. I don't remember the model name/number, but it's the stainless steel one that only has a handle on the front, buttons are on the top edge and accessible only when open. It holds a sh*t load of dishes, and gets everything really clean. No problems after 2 years, and my husband installed it himself which took maybe an hour and a half.

"Godspeed all the bakers at dawn... may they all cut their thumbs and bleed into their buns til they melt away..."

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