New Dishwasher Shopping

[wayupnorth]

There is no way I would ever buy any appliance thats not dial operated and NO electronics. My 25 years old stuff still works just fine turning a dial. I dont want a china and crystal setting or pots and pans. I just want a few days worth of dishes to get clean on regular wash. I do rinse dishes before loading, old habit.[this post was last edited: 4/15/2019-20:29]

 

[nerdvana]

I've just measured our water bottles at 3" overall dia (2.5" at the neck) and 8.5" tall without the lid.

With the lip of the bottles over the rightmost set of tines, I recall them rubbing against the top of the doorframe when the rack slid in and out. In fact, there was one position along that row where the bracket extends a fraction of an inch inside the rack, and that would push the bottle bottom high enough that it would actually *catch* the doorframe. I'm starting to have flashbacks here...

So yeah, I'd definitely say the right-hand side of the upper rack is normal-height, and the left-hand side is very shallow (presumably to allow room for taller items like baking sheets in the lower rack). Had we taken the jump to the two-rack model with an adjustable upper (79xx, I think?) it's very possible we'd still have it, the more I think about it. We wanted the countdown display, though--but that's a moot point with the redesigned panels. In fact, if those are capacitive (feather touch) buttons, you might specifically want the top-control model to avoid inadvertent activation when standing next to the counter! (My mother is forever turning her Bosch OVEN on when she leans against the island, as an example.)

 

[iiijohnnymaciii]

Thoughts on Bosch?

What do you all think about the Bosch 300 series? Thanks.

 

[jerrod6]

So far a lot of comments have been about Maytag or Whirlpool. Both of these are of Whirlpool design. Why not look into Bosch and see what they offer, it will at least be of a different thought process.

I have a DW with a filter(not a Bosh). There is no problem having to check it once a month or in my case every 40 days. It ends up that there is very little in it to worry about, and I never have crud on my dishes.

 

[jerrod6]

Link to models

https://www.bosch-home.com/us/products/dishwashers

 

[thatrobguy]

We picked up a Bosch dishwasher about 2 years ago. I really like it. Dishes come out clean 99% of the time. Sometimes if there's something that is especially stuck on it doesn't do a good job at it, but that's generally from dried oatmeal or rice. I got around to cleaning the filter out for the first time last month, it took about 10 minutes from removal to install. Not a huge deal to do, and the only reason I even bothered is my husband was doing a lot of juicing and the dishwasher started to smell like whatever he was making.

Upsides: It is extremely quiet. Most of the time you don't hear much of anything. Occasionally you'll hear dishes clanking if they get put too close together. Fast wash works well for moderately dirty items, or things that need to just be quickly washed that have sat for a while.

Downsides: Cycles are long. Heavy duty, with sanitise, and extra dry will take nearly 3 hours. Regular cycle is about 2:15. It guzzles rinse aid. Our old Hot Point dishwasher probably used 12 oz of Finish every year, the Bosch uses about 12 oz per quarter. The HotPoint did have a heated dry. The fast cycle is fast, but the dishes are not dry when it is done washing.

Mild annoyances. The tines can be an issue the way that they're sloped. They don't just stick up like most do, so that can limit what fits in it.

Overall I like it. We usually run a cycle overnight, or when we leave for work, so the long cycles aren't an issue.

 

[whatsername]

@thatrobguy have you set the rinse aid level? A Bosch I had a while back had something like 6 or 8 rinse aid settings and it came from the factory on the second highest level. If you haven't set it it could probably be dialed back quite a bit.

 

[iiijohnnymaciii]

I've always tried to stay true to Whilrlpool and their companies. I'm from Stevensville, Michigan and they built our area. Half our population was employed by them in some way or another. Everyone could afford to buy a home and there wasn't money problems to speak of. Growing up in the 80's in the Stevensville and St. Joe area in the heart of American made appliances (we had Zenith as well) was a life to behold. To be honest though, those days have gone. All that's left is the headquarters. Benton harbor has been abandoned and in the Stevensville/St. Joe area you rarely come across anyone that works for Whirlpool. I moved away in 2005 for work.

I haven't had luck with my last dishwashers from them and I'm going to give Bosch a go. I like the SHEM3AY56N. Going to purchase should be delivered 5/3.

 

[jerrod6]

User Manual

Before I buy anything I download the user manual to see how it works and find things I might or might not like. You can find the manual at A.J. Madison, or the Bsoch web site. I found it at Madison and have included the link. If it doesn't work you can go to A.J. Madison and search for the model number.

The user manual PDF link is near the end of the page.

https://www.ajmadison.com/cgi-bin/a...smWUZsMX4SIILnbIUuDfDLi0q2J-hayhoCXacQAvD_BwE

 

[yogitunes]

I think we need to get Johnny into a vintage Kitchen Aid

once he sees the cleaning power from a hurricane in a box, he wont ever turn back....

 

[murando531]

Not sure where the misinformation is coming from, but the smaller magnetic motors that Whirlpool and KitchenAid dishwashers use do NOT run for 20 minutes and sit for 10. Whoever thinks as such has clearly no actual experience using these machines. Once past the prewash, these machines don’t pause at all through the entire main wash and final rinse portions. And I can verify with johnb300m after owning now a WP WDT920, KitchenAid KDFE104HBS, and a WP WDF520, that these things will absolutely flip lids and plastic containers in both racks, even the Whirlpool 520 that uses the same smaller motor but doesn’t have a diverter valve and runs all arms at once.

 

[henene4]

I honestly miss you sometimes

It's funny.

That question has literally been settled dozens of times on here. Pictures, videos, what ever.
Even a backing dish literally oven backed just with cheese and other residues coming spotless (a test that by the way to this day not ONE of the people claiming these machines are junk even dared to try themselfes in one of their beloved old machines) is enough.

(https://www.automaticwasher.org/cgi-bin/TD/TD-VIEWTHREAD.cgi?64218 Reply #26 onwards if you need any questions answered)

Some people just don't even try to look at facts and shout stuff around that has literally NO value to the discussions.

I don't care how many decades you do dishes or laundry, how you feel water levels and designs should be and how many thousands of machines you sold.

And when ever this discussion comes up or when murando531 shows up - or both in conjunction - the resignation of this fight hits me again like a freight train from my blind spot.

The Bosches are good and probably the most efficent option of the US market. Miele might be more efficent, but far more exoensive. These machines clean everything and never even use more then 5gal, with 3gal being more of an average value.

The WPs are cheaper and parts for them are far easier to get and you only trade minor efficency losses, noise and time increases for more US market optimized racks.

 

[logixx]

I honestly miss you sometimes

Same

 

[appnut]

Andrew, I'm so glad you showed up.  I miss your contributions profoundly!!!

 

[Chetlaham]

20 minutes on 10 minutes off

Its a thermal duty cycle rating based an indefinite motor life. Because the machine is not designed with a 100 year life expectancy in mind nor will it run 24/7, it makes sense from a manufacturing standpoint to economize the most expansive parts.

In other words the motor is specified with a loss of life consideration around say 20-30 years (or what ever the engineers had in mind)- meaning the odds of burning out increase after that time period. This saves on copper and iron that would otherwise to to waste when the machine is eventually scrapped.

With the precision manufacturing quality of today, its possible to get a motor like that to outlast a machine a dozen times over when used within its rated duty cycle.

 

[combo52]

Dishwasher Motor Life

Thank You Chet, for the great explanation, You are very correct manufactures all designing things to be good enough rather than trying to build things that have motors that could outlast 5 DWs which we have gotten used to over the last decades, a failed main motor in a washer' or DW was a rare problem.

 

We are replacing a lot of these cheap intermittent duty motors on newer DWs, both the drain and main pump motors are failing much more often than before, Customers will repair many DWs once or even twice when the product is less than ten years old but after that the people willing to repair falls off and otherwise perfectly good DWs get scraped.

 

John

 

[johnb300m]

Motor duty cycle

Very interesting thank you!

I am flummoxed as to why the small magnetic motors would be failing so much.
Since they have no wound rotors. Maybe a single winding for the horseshoe stator, what is failing?
Is it really maybe the electronics used to control then that doesn’t have that 30yr lifespan?

 

[henene4]

Heat

What technicly degrades in any motor is the coating on the wire. It's a thin polymer layer which - as any plastic - naturally ages.

There is of course close to 0 mechanical and UV caused aging, but thermal aging is a huge factor there.
Not only is there close to no ventilation but the pump naturally gets hot as the tub above it and the medium it transports are - in polymer technology world at least - hot enviroments.
Especially with heated drying that effect could be dramaticly increased.

That might also explain why the Maytag motor fails less often: If I am not mistaken, that should be a more typical motor design with partly exposed windings.

Maybe that is why EU DW seem to be better durability wise.
By now basicly every DW runs on cold as the savings - especially on typical house water line runs here - are close to nill.
And cold fills cool the pumps and temperature spikes are reached and kept in a verry short amount of time with our uber powerfull 2kw flow through heaters.

 

[48bencix]

I really like this Maytag

You may want to look into Maytag MDB8989SHZ. I really like this unit because it has the built in grinder with no filter and also the Premium ball-bearing rack glides.

"Our premium ball-bearing rack glides give the upper rack a glide so smooth you can pull it out even when you're hauling an armload of bowls, or when the rack's lugging your heaviest dishes and baking pans."

The ball bearing rack glides are on the upper rack and were available only on the Kitchen Aid dishwashers.

This unit is more expensive than the other Maytag but those units have had complaints about the racks. $749.99 at Best Buy.

I know a lot of users say the filters do not need that much maintenance, but I do not understand why any manufacturers use them if they do not have to. I really like the upper end Kitchen Aid units with the clean water system and no filters, but they are a lot more expensive. I just think that if I know there is any food down in there rotting away, I will want to get it out. Also I tried to remove one of the filters in the showroom and cut my hand on some piece of sharp plastic. Plus they are really hard to reach.

Right now this is my choice for a new Dishwasher.

https://www.bestbuy.com/site/maytag...l-tub-stainless-steel/6272910.p?skuId=6272910

 

[henene4]

Cut your hand on a sharp piece of plastic

Like, what?

I had many filters in my hand, none had any sharp edges.
Especially as we are talking DW, if you cut your hand on the machine, I would not trust you unloading knifes...

And yeah, if there is food down there you would want to get it out there.

That is why the filters are removeable.

Unlike on machines with grinders, where you have to disassemble quite a bit to even get close to the sharp blade by which you most definetly are more likely to get cut then by a plastic and metal screen filter.

Are you even listening to yourself sometimes?

If I throw 750$ at a DW I'd throw it at a Bosch.

Quieter, more options, better sensing and perhaps even a variable speed pump.