Nick, Zanussi dishwashers were good right up until the mid-late 90s IMO, my school had a 1994 Aquasave (similar to the Jetsystem washers with the grey display and pop in pop out dial) and the upper rack on that was actually very different to the model we had, it's only the later ones that I've personally found to leave a lot more to be desired. We had to put up with an equivalent for 3 years as I've already said, and I still maintain it is the worst dishwasher I've ever had to load, even my parents hated it and usually they're the sort of people who don't care. To me, they are no better than Hoover or Indesit dishwashers, except for the fact that they are made by a company with much better ethics. BTW we owned one, my auntie & uncle have the same model (mum recommended it when we first got ours, she also recommended our Hotpoint WM64 to them but look where that got mum LOL) plus I know a couple of others with Zanussi dishwashers from the same era who all HATE the racking and have had various repair problems (I think my auntie's has had something like 3 new elements), not to highlight Nick's original post here.
Maybe I'm sounding snooty, but fact is cheap is cheap and I'm not going to excuse it when I see it especially when you can buy a more decent dishwasher for only £300 or so - when I used to sell dishwashers I would often show them the Bendix we had ondisplay then step them up to the Bosch models, which for a little bit more money are a lot better and most of he customers who weren't tight bastards agreed. They're very popular dishwashers too (everyone seems to haev a Bosch dishwasher nowadays), and I think the PCB complaints may just be due to the reason that there are just more of them around.
To be fair on Zanussi, though, their newer models (within the past year or two) seem to have dumped the sump design that mine had to a similar one to what AEG use, and even though they still have those silly upper baskets there is every chance that they have improved in quality over the version I had, but still there's little point in buying a Zanussi for £250 when you can get a better Bosch for £300 or so.
I have to agree with you about the 1980s Indesits, they seemed to be built like tanks. Our Hoover Crystaljet was too and it was put through 2 or 3 washes a day every day between 1989 and 2001, only repair it had was at the very end of it's life which was the door hinges. Though it did look very sorry when we got rid of it, the control panel had yellowed in the soon and there was scorch marks on the top right of the door panel where steam used to escape during the drying cycle when the door hinges were wonky! But there are still days when I lie in bed, hearing the end of cycle beep go off on the Miele dishwasher downstairs, and wish it could be the Hoover Crystaljet dishwasher I can hear! Used to make a great whooshing sound as it filled as the pressure built up... has anybody else noticed that dishwashers don't do that nowadays?
Should catch you on MSN Nick, I will be on most of this evening
. We do need a good catch up!
Jon
(Of course, I must put the disclaimer in that these are purely my opinions based on my personal experiences and what I have put together from listening to others, and not an attempt to sound snooty or cause any personal offence).
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