anyone else disappointed by 2 in 1 action pacs?

[vacuumfreeeke]

I recently decided to give Cascade 2 in 1 action pacs a whirl in my GE Nautilus. I usually use Great Value brand gel or powder with no problems. So, I figured the more expensive name brand Dawn laden stuff would be even better right? WRONG. It is leaving dirt on the dishes like crazy. I used a glass measuring cup to melt some butter. I used the butter leaivng only a little bit of residue in the cup. When I opened the machine after using the action pac I found the glass measuring cup still greasy. Wooden spoons still dirty. Glasses filmy. Bowls not clean... sauce left in them. Even the gladware that I had some ranch dressing in was still dirty! My white plastic cutting board was still brown from when I made an Oreo cheesecake a few days ago. The action pack had dissolved, so I know it was "used" by the machine. I've washed all of those things before and even dirtier/greasier loads with the powder and had excellent results. I rewashed everything with powder and it came clean just like always. Next load, I tried two action pacs. Glasses still had film, and plates were still dirty after washing. And, yes I have plenty of rinse aid! Awful! I don't see what is so convenient about opening a ziploc bag and having to make sure my hands are dry before picking up a pod and closing it in the dispenser. The powder is just as easy if not more so. I think this is just a terrible advertising gimmick. I wonder if the store will give me a refund, I've used three of them already. Just had to vent and ask if anyone else shared my experience. I expect a lot of people to say they love them... I don't know why they didn't work for me!

Maybe Electrasol is better? But those are tabs, not "pacs" and I know they come individually wrapped... I'd never use them!

 

[~sudsshane]

I am currently using the Cascade 2 in 1 action packs with Bleach. Publix had them on sale for $3.99 so I thought I would give them a try. They work very well in the Bosch. I hate Gel dishwasher detergent. can't even come close to the cleaning ability of powder or gelpacks.

 

[~sudsshane]

Sunlight~

Sunlight also makes powerpacks with Oxy boosters. I have used them and they work very well in the Bosch. If you purchased the Cascade gelpacks at Publix, they will give you a refund if you still have your receipt.

 

[washernut]

2 in 1 Action Packs

They work the best for me...I've used the blue, orange and the bleach ones.

 

[pturo]

Cascade 2 in 1 with Dawn did a horrid job in my Maytag Talltub. Very sudsy and foamy, poor cleaning compared to plain old powder Cascade. It's a gimmic. Dawn is good for greasy things hand washed. The dishwasher is a totally different dynamic. Cascade and Dawn are P&G's top brands, so the thinking obviously was to create brand synergy. To me, it's like fabric softner and detegent combinations trials years ago. PS, a disaster.

 

[parunner58]

I have used the gel-pacs, tabs and currently use the cascade gel-pacs with bleach. I have had a KA Superba, Frigidaire Gallery, and now a Bosch and never had a problem with any of my gel-pacs in my DW's. I have been told by the GE, Frigidaire and KA repairmen that the tabs or gel-pacs are the best to use. They siad you always get the right amount for every load. He had told me never to use the the liguid. Said it was not good for the machine or your dishes that it casused a lot of etching.

Did you have a problem with every load you washed or just the one. Maybe at that time your water was not hot enough. All the DW's I had heated it's own water.

Mike

 

[maytagbear]

When I tried them,

in my Nautilus, they were all right, but not any better than Cascade powder, and considerably more money per use.

I've had ok success with the Electrosol 3-in-1 tablets, but right now, (this very second, even!) I'm using Cascade Pure Rinse POWDER.

I think water hardness has a great deal to do with it, as well as water temperature.

Lawrence/Maytagbear

 

[DADoES]

No pacs or tabs in my DishDrawer, never tried them so can't say how they do (or don't) work. My mother uses some ilk of tabs in her GE, apparently likes them.

 

[frigilux]

I was always very skeptical of the Action-Pacs, but tried the blue ones with Dawn and they work extremely well in my Maytag tall-tub---even on pots/pans. It made no sense to me not to use detergent in the first wash, so I resisted trying them---but I love 'em. I have softened water, so that may make a difference.

As for the blue liquid in these pacs, I don't think it's plain Dawn dishwashing liquid, because the warning label on the container says not to get the blue liquid on your skin.

I've never opened the door during a cycle when using the Action-Pacs, so I don't know if there is more suds/foam than with Dish-Drops or powdered Cascade Pure Rinse (which used to be my daily driver detergent).

 

[petek]

Strictly Electrosol tabs or Cascade gel paks here. I luv em to bits. No problems. Usually I get Electrosols because you can buy them in the heap big tub on sale quite often which makes them much more cost effective.

 

[jakeseacrest]

I always use either Cascade or Electrasol powder in my Maytag Tall Tub. I tried the pacs and tabs, but I end up with excess suds also.

 

[drhardee]

I have one word for you..well, two really.

Miele Tabs

'nuff said.

If you must have your detergent premeasured, there really is a difference in using the expensive (not heart-stoppingly so) stuff. These are now in dissolvable wrappers for those who don't like to touch detergent.

 

[launderess]

Cascade "Pure Rinse"

All the way.

Tried Cascade "Complete" but didn't see any difference over "Pure Rinse", so that was that.

Plain Electrasol tabs were ok, however the powerball variety caused too much sudsing in my dw. Eventually went off dishwasher tabs as like to be able to adjust dosage of detergent as required. Also my dishwasher guy told me that it isn't good to have all that food and muck hurled around during the pre-wash cycle without any detergent. Guess if one was running a very quick rinse cycle it wouldn't matter.

Cascade PW cleans very well with next to no sudsing, which one supposes is part of the pure rinsing.

 

[mattl]

Cascade Complete here, or some other Cascade version. I can't say I've ever seen any advantage to using pre-measured detergent, some loads are dirtier that others and I adjust the amount accordingly. Powdered Cascade is a bargain if you get it at places like Sam's, huge box for $6 or $7.

I just picked up a bottle of the new Jet Dry "Power Drying" rinse agent. Not sure if it's an improvement or not, claims to dry plastics better, but then I rarely use plastics and even more rarely put them in the dishwasher.

I actually got it to experiment with. I was washing the crystal chandelier, a classic from the '60s - 15 lights, hundreds of crystals - used to take 3 hours or more. My most efficient method is to use hot hot water with a bit of Dawn and ammonia in it then rinse the crystals in hot hot water and then put them in hot vinegar water. Then I drain off the rinse water and they are so hot they dry very quickly. Jobs done in about an hour. This time I sub'd the Jet dry for the Vinegar water at the end, just a few drops in a gallon of water, and it seemed to work the crystals dried very fast. The test will be to see if the crystals stay clear or get cloudy quickly.

 

[rp2813]

Sudsing, but first . . .

I don't buy the gimick that tabs provide the correct amount of detergent since it strikes me that the dw's detergent cups were designed to hold a certain quantity of detergent for a reason, presumably to produce optimum cleaning levels.

I tried Cascade gel once and that was enough. It was inferior to the plain old white liquid version in its cleaning ability. I have not used powder in probably 20 years as my experience with powders has been that specks of powder residue could be found on cleaned items, even after switching from powder to liquid. This was the case with my mom's 70's Kenmore MOL model.

So, just as I have never used an abrasive cleanser on my kitchen sink since new, I have never used powder in my KA dw either. Tabs seem to be an expensive alternative that provide mixed results at best.

Re: sudsing, I have trouble with suds when my partner decides to let a mixing bowl or whatever sit in the sink with Dawn water in it. No matter how much I rinse that bowl, there seems to be a residue that remains and ends up sudsing things up in the dw. I can tell when there's a problem because the dw runs much more silently and I don't hear the jets of water hitting the walls.

Does anyone know if this type of sudsing can do the same kind of damage to a dw that oversudsing can do to the bearings on a FL clothes washer? If that's the case, I will need to start an anti-soaking campaign with my partner.