A little History Lesson Here..
Many people do believe that the 18 was the best machine that Hobart ever made and that is most likely because it combined the multiple cycles of the past models with the addition of the upper wash arm and the constant rinse. Whether it has the original arm or the longer arm of the later series, the second arm allowed more random loading capabilities. I once asked why they added the second arm and I was told it was in response to customer demand since nobody else had a one armed wonder and K/A was looking like it was falling behind the times with the competition. It was also explained to me that no matter what you do, there is only so much water a pump will pump and what any manufacturer was doing was splitting that capacity up between multiple arms.
I am sure many members who have the earlier one armed machines will tell you that under certain conditions, those machines would flip bowls over in the top rack. A testament to the power of the pump.That happens much less with machines with dual arms.
As far as the 19 series goes,mst will agree that it was not Hobart's best design, but the main reason given is usually the poor drying results. What Hobart attempted to do was to be the first manufacturer to have a more energy efficient machine which came out at the time when we were all lowering our thermostats at home to save on heating costs and they offered a machine that could work on incoming water of 120 degrees at the hot water heater instead of the usual 140-160 required by older machines and those still being made by others. And of course they took out the heated drying and figured if they heated the last rinse to 150 in all the full cycles, the residual heat and the pulsed air drying would do an adequate job of drying. Too bad it fell short more often than not. They also depended on the machine being installed in just perfect environments like on an inside kitchen wall and not an outside wall where the cold winter air could cool the area that the dishwasher was installed. Maybe if they added more insulation to the tank it might have worked better and maybe if they admitted that most people let the rinse dispenser go dry they would have kept the heated dry and left the option up to the customer.
So then they fixed it all with the 20 series.. basically the same cycles, but now you could decide if you wanted heated dry or not, but the machine was still designed to work with 120 degree water. Final rinse temp for the sani cycle was raised to 165 and it seemed to satisfy the consumers' demands for a return to what they were used to.
People still dog the 19's yet forget what we have to choose from in the marketplace.
We are at the mercy of electronic boards that think they know how to clean dishes and designs that need to run for hours just to be able to spray the dishes with a proper amount of water as required by NSF. When everyone had at least a 1/3 hp or 1/2 hp pump, the gallons per hours were more than adequate to meet any standard set for them in a reasonable amount of time.
And all those machines that lack any additional means of drying the dishes except to use condensing walls and residual heat..nobody complains that the dishes may not be dry at the end of a cycle..but that's okay because it is a European design so it is acceptable. For those of us in the know, we will select higher heat washing and perhaps a longer cycle because we know that the extra time and heat will clean better and result in dryer dishes.
We seem to have one set of standards for domestically produced machines and another for designs that originate overseas.
As was and is always the case with anything from Hobart..If you buy something made by Hobart, you always hold it to a higher standard and anything that seems amiss,seems to be more of a problem than the same problem may be in a lesser brand.
I think if you look at the satisfaction surveys done by testing magazines, you will find Whirlpool machines score higher in customer satisfaction than the identically designed Kitchenaids because people expect less from a Whirlpool than the higher priced Kitchenaid.
