@Dustin
The late 90s/2000s BOL models were pure trash. I had one in my apartment, it was horrific to say the least. This era was GE's rock bottom in the appliance industry. These machines had no filters, greatly reduced water levels, Normal wash where light wash would start on top of that, and these happened to go on recall since I first discovered that after only three years in use, filling the rinse aid dispenser would cause it to literally drain out all over the floor. At first I did not know that, because it started gradually (progressively) getting worse and would dribble down (from the inner door into the tank) while the machine was running causing it to froth and suds to spill. At first I thought it was residual detergent leftover from hand prewashing (you had to literally scrub every food particle away or it would redeposit itself all over the top rack) until I made the connection that filling the rinse aid resvoir would cause the next few washes to overflow. So I thought I was over filling the thing, or spilling it without knowing it... Until eventually I gave up, only to try at a latter time with RA dripping down the toekick. Thats when I knew it was not me lol.
Immigrants. Remember how it has been said here that BOL GEs got immigrants and new users hooked into automatic dishwahsing? Not these turds. Being that a lot of immigrants in the apartment complex, for many it was their first time with a DW. Boy did they think it was a gimmick. Those who tried it would say 'why do people even bother, when you have to wash them anyway' 'whats the point of this?' I do not blame them. Sadly when they would bring this up with US Home owners they would get a two headed look, and some even assumed that Americans ate with dirty dishes at first. (For many it was difficult to fathom that not all DW were created equal)
One immigrant couple had the same problem I did with the RA. First few times they used their machine they used regular dishsoap not knowing better. Of course it caused a ton of suds. Not knowing what they were doing wrong I told them they needed something like Cascade, and of course to fill the RA dispenser, prewash, use the Heavy cycle, expect mediocre results being a BOL GE, ect. It worked out for them, until their machine started doing the same thing as mine: sudsing from leaking RA. Of course they did not know that and could not figure out what they were doing wrong. They returned detergents, tried you name it, until finally giving up. Everyone including myself at the time thought they were somehow getting dishsoap into the machine- they couldn't figure it out- even thought we might be lieing to them. All this was before others started having the same problem.
I swapped the RA dispenser on mine after experiencing it much latter (wish I called the landlord, I latter found out they were replacing the whole machine with RA leaks). Finally before moving out I received a call from the rental office about a major recall regarding "detergent residue and electrical fires" and that maintance simply needed a weekday access to my apartment to resolve it. It was then when I Googled it, and where I thought it had just been a small freak set of manufacturing defects effecting a small batch of machines my complex got stuck with, turned out to affect millions of machines.
As for longevity these did not even come close to the 80s and mid 90s GEs. Being that this was a 1000 unit apartment complex that also had several other satellite properties it had a 24hr in house maintenance team. When ever they threw out water heater or appliances they would set them over by the bulk trash dumpsters where residents could drop of old couches, televisions ect. Needless to say I got to see two dozen machines a week if not in a single day- over the course of several years. Nearly every single one of these late 90s/early 2000s GEs had rusted or calcified drain solenoid brackets. A lot of them also had failed timers according to maintenance. This was of course side by side to 80s perma tuffs and porcelain Hotpoints which looked like they could have gone another 30 years. Why were they being thrown out? Simple, the properties from the 80s were gradually being renovated. Thats not to say that the older machines did not break, but the build quality was vastly different, ie the pump seals from the 80s machines were better with ceramic wear rings were as the 90s were thinner with already rusting metal wear rings.
Not mine but from a member who posted it a while back.
