My mum's new dishwasher

[henene4]

My mum's Bosch slimline DW suffered a catastrophic PCB and pump failure.
Parts would have been 250€.
But she's moving to my late grandmas flat once that has been renovated - so next year probably - and will be getting a new kitchen at the same time. So she decided to get a cheap replacement instead. That way she has warranty on it until she gets her new kitchen and dosen't have to worry about it.

As the DW market is in a pinch currently, she just got a cheap store brand machine.
It's branded Hanseatic and from the looks of it made by Amica.

It's nothing special, biggest requirement was noise.

It got delivered today, delivery team refused to take the old one with them even though be payed for that service.
So currently working on getting that refunded.

Fitting the Bosch was a breeze.
Fitting this was a nightmare.

One of the front feet was locked up. So I had to chew into the sift plastic to be abled to grip onto it enough to screw it out. So that foot is broken basically, but it still sits level on it so what ever.

The machine came with one of these crappy foil steam protectors for the underside of the work service, so I kept the metal one from the Bosch.
That ment I had to fix the DW to the cabinets instead of the work top.
The screws provided are just to short to fit them through the holes and keep them on the screwdriver.
Luckily the ones from the old one weren't to long to use.
Still had to predrill the holes.
The side profiles intended to stick to the machine to bridge the gap there of course don't stick well and come loose, but what ever.

Fitting the front actually is quite easy compared to the rest of the procedure.

I ran the machine through an intensive cycle with quick.
It can run both spray arms at once as well as seperate and for quick it ran them simultaneously all the way until the last few minutes of the final rinse.

It has an automatic door opening at the end of the cycle.

Unfortunately they omitted the sprayer from the top of the cabinet since it doesn't have the cutlery tray.
And they added a super annoying beeper you can't switch off.

But we'll see how it cleans!

 

[henene4]

Pics

 

[appnut]

The baskets remind me of someting from China.

 

[henene4]

That's cause it is

I wasn't aware that Amica in fact is no longer building DW aswell and according to its own press material sources these from China and/or Turkey.

I haven't been abled to find out yet if any known supplier (something like Swan, Haier or Midea) is behind them.

Edit:
So it appears to be Midea. The utensil tray and the cutlery basket are the same there.

Though Midea features a drawer type dishwasher on their manufacturing capabilities website which as far as we know is unique to F&P.

Which either means that Midea manufactures DW for Haier or vise versa - but Haier DW are different from the looks of it?
It's confusing but most likely Chinese yes.

 

[jamiel]

There's one mfgr for all the slimline d/w worldwide...presume it's Midea.

 

[logixx]

Hm, the cycles sound pretty decent; 44dB and self-opening door - not bad. Not a fan of the lack of a ceiling sprayer.

I will say that Midea's IFA booth was one of the few ones that actually impressed me. Everything else felt mostly like "meh, seen it before".

As for brands: yeah, it kinda feels like if it's not Bosch, Miele, Electrolux etc... it might just be Midea.

 

[jerrod_six]

What are the signs that the baskets are from China? What about them gives that information?

 

[appnut]

Jerrod, my response to your question is this: When GE began transitioning to new dishwasher designs after being acquired by Haier, the low-end models first got new racks and they looked just like those I see above as well as some other models that were sourced from China, such as a WP model that's for ADA certification.

 

[henene4]

It's meh

The wash results are pretty decent.
Redeposition is quite bad though, probably due to that ridiculously coarse filter.
That is contributed by the fact it has no top sprayer and the racks are very oblong.
And since the one fan spray at the end of the upper arm goes both up and down, that really dosen't prevent the grit from settling in the front most items.

Drying really isn't the hit either, but not terribly worse than the Bosch.
The drain pump is very noisy IMO.

Loading though...
You can't use the front row for our large plates since they added a support bar there. Thus the plates just roll out of their position if placed there.
You can't load anything on the outer most times in the back since the plates then interfer with the side walls.
There is a bend in bar along 2/3 of the front of the top rack that limits loading capacity a lot.
The bowl holders in the top are quite poor as they are to small.

In another time, I wouldn't recommend it.
However, as even the cheapest BSH machines currently retail at twice the price basically, it really isn't that bad if you don't ask to much from it.

 

[rolls_rapide]

Reply #8

I like the fact that your upper basket spray arm seems to have round holes. Does it spray quite forcefully to the upper basket?

I wish Bosch would supply an upper spray arm with a multitude of round holes. I personally think the Bosch rectangular slots, coupled with slow speed circulation pump do not give a good wash action.

I understand what you mean about the 'fan spray' at the end of that spray arm. I had similar, on the original arm fitted to the Bosch Logixx Automatic. I always thought it was an insipid iteration - made the weak spray even weaker. The subsequent Bosch replacement arms did away with that fan spray slot.

Come to think of it, I wonder whether that Bosch fan spray was a throwback to the earlier Bosch Automatic... There was a model of dishwasher with some form of automatic water hardness sensor, built into the door. Possibly the fan spray's function was to sweep that sensor clean.

 

[henene4]

Can't say much about the spray pressure, but it's a single speed pump and it can run both arms at once, so.

Though I have to say with the current EcoSilenceDrive, at least on the slimline one we had until a few weeks ago, I can't say the spray pressure was weak in any way at least on the Auto cycles.

A few things I forgot to add before:

The Auto cycle is simple but effective.
Not quite sure yet how it actually senses load size, but it appears to have both load size and soil sensing.

It runs a 12min pre-rinse/sense phase.
It runs that with both arms at once.

Then it either drains and starts the main wash or it continues with same water adding the tab.
I think if it drains it switches to an alternating wash pattern.
If it doesn't it continues with both spray arms at once.
That makes the Auto cycle REALLY quick at just about 80min with low soil conditions.
Even when it did a pre-rinse it barely took 20min longer. But these loads were small so far.

I think it does thermal load sensing for the Auto cycle since time does vary depending on load independently of pre-rinse or not and that 12min pre-rinse would be enough for that.

The quick wash option is interesting. Where applicable it cuts the cycle time by basically exactly 50%.
The only exception is the 90min wash that becomes 55min.
From what I gather it just straight up runs both spray arms continuously and cuts all wash and rinse times in half as a result.

Being abled to select to only run one level is a way easier method for running the machine without the upper rack for trays compared to the spray head on BSH machines or the special cycle on high end Mieles.
However that dosen't affect time here meaning you could get some serious washing action on heavily soiled items that way doubling the spray time per rack which is actually quite nice for baking trays or hood filters.
You can still use the quick wash option if that isn't desired, though.

Another addendum on recommendations:

For slimline DW, this would still be a pick in the current market.
The only comparable machine price wise is a Beko.

And if we were talking full size DW I would push anyone towards the Beko.
More cycles, more options, probably better racking.

However the slimline offerings from all Arcrelik brands have one fatal flaw.
It is totally normal for all cycles on the slim versions of a DW design to use basically the exact same amount of energy and water - which is unfortunate, but fine.
However, the one huge exception is the Auto (Sensor) cycle on slimline machines like Beko and similar.
For years without a fail those use way more water. According to their manuals, the slimline machines uses more water on the low end (around 13l) then the full size machines on the upper end (12 1/2l). Those slimline machines can apparently use close to 18l on the Auto cycle - more than any cycle on the full size ones.
Which is just stupid.

So if you are currently in the market for a full size machine I'd go Beko before these.
If you need a slim one, I'd tend towards these still.

In a normal market, I would steer anyone towards an entry-level BSH machine that is 46dB or less.
With normal pricing those are only 50-100€ more expensive and while more "basic" they have everything you really need, are still way more thought through and perform way better while still being as efficient or more often than not even more efficient.

 

[rolls_rapide]

Ah - a single speed pump. That means that when it detects extra soiling and drains the pre-rinse water, the alternating spray arm pattern allows the single speed pump to deliver powerful blasts per basket. Good.

On the other hand, if it detects the pre-rinse water being relatively clear, it washes with a reduced pressure, courtesy of both arms requiring water at the same time. Simple but effective.

I'm still not a fan of Bosch's lily-livered spray to the upper basket. I always think it is too slow, underpowered. It just irritates me.