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I had a loud one that got the dishes clean, now I have a quiet one that doesn't! Dishwasher blues


JL Sargent

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I want to go back to having a loud one again. You see our old dishwasher had a motor the size of a coffee can and our present one has a motor the size of a soda can. I want a dishwasher that sounds like a jet engine flying over and gets the dishes clean every time! What can you recommend.

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The new quiet dishwashers work very well. I have a GE model. I loaded up one with really dirty pans and dishes without rinsing and it cleaned all of them.

One thing that you have to do, place the dishes in the racks neatly. Read the directions. The water needs to be able to go where it is designed to go.

Which GE model do you have? I have a GE which is horrible when it comes to cleaning dishes which weren't pre-rinsed! The old builder's grade Maytag which I had before putting in the GE was amazing in comparison!!!

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I'm with ya JL. Another thing about a loud dishwasher is the swish swash lull you to sleep on a saturday afternoon effect. We have a mid eighties cheapo GE loud model which we love in one place, and a newer quiet GE profile in another which is hard to load, and does a marginal job at best.

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Check out some reviews...

http://www.consumersearch.com/dishwasher-reviews

I got a Maytag with sensor over ten years ago... gets the job done. A friend has a Bosch... it's more quiet, but it's filter has to manually be cleaned out as well as I found the racks hard to load (they seem oriented to quite small dishes and glasses)... but your milage may vary...

I also traded up a model similar to the one StephenM proposed... even though the dishes come out great, requires more input and is noisier....

ROb

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I’ve been in my house for 27 years. I’m now on my third dishwasher. The first one was a Magic Chef that was part of my appliance “package” when I built the house. It lasted 17 years and did a good job until one day it just died. Next was a GE Profile. It was horrid. It had this goofy filter thing in the back that when it got gunked up it would not get dishes clean. It took about an hour of disassembly and reassembly to de-gunk the filter. It lasted 7 years. After that it just sort of started to fall apart. I finally got disgusted with it and tore it out.

The one I bought 3 years ago (or so) was a Kenmore Elite. It was a display model on clearance so I got a pretty good deal on it. It’s just wonderful. I’m not certain who makes it for Sears. I’ve read Bosch and Whirlpool. Either way I’ve been very impressed with it. It has a stainless steel tub and three wash arms. I can’t speak to how big the motor is though.

I’m single and most of my meals come out of plastic trays straight from the microwave. As such it takes me a week (sometimes more) to have enough dirty dishes to justify running the dishwasher. Even after occasionaly a week of sitting in the dishwasher everything comes out absolutely spotless.

I spoke at length with an appliance repairman prior to buying the Kenmore about what to look for in a dishwasher. His advice was to look for (1) A stainless steel tub. It makes the machine quieter. (2) At least 3 wash arms. One in the top and one in the bottom is not enough. The middle arm makes a WORLD of difference. (3) Temperature boost. He told me that really REALLY hot water is the key to clean dishes.

While I was doing a pretty major remodel on my house I lived for a few months in a duplex with a cheap “builder grade” dishwasher. It purely sucked. It was a GE by the way and had the same goofy filtration system that my Profile did. BLECH!! I ultimately just hand washed my dishes rather than mess with the dishwasher. The lesson there is that when it comes to dishwashers you get what you pay for.

Good luck in your search. I really can’t make any specific brand or model recommendations but I’ve been very happy with the Kenmore that I have now. Enough so that when it craps out another Kenmore Elite will be at the top of my shopping list.

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Well as it turns out the chopper assembly was broken which allowed things like lemon seeds to get in the upper spraying arm. No wonder it wouldn't clean em all! Here is a internet article on the exact same repair by another person.

http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/How_To_Repair_Dishwashers/KitchenAid_Repair/Chopper_Replacement

Also, I got the part from these folks as they also have the parts diagram available online along with several "how to" uploads from other customers..

http://www.partselect.com/PS392939-Whirlpool-8268383-Chopper-Assemby.htm?SourceCode=7&ModelNum=665.17533201&Page=3#Instructions
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Don't forget the dishwasher detergent thing either.... I learned the hard way.... as in I neded up having to either pre-rinse to the point of just washing dishes by hand, or running it twice.... Then I tried different, and more expensive detergents; Finally discovered the "Cascade Action Packs". There are two kinds; normal, and one that guarantees it will remove nuclear oven waste..... That's the one. Comes in packs or "tubs". Sparkly clean!

The current dishwasher is 3 years old, three wash blade arms. It's a GE Quietpower-3 that I got on sale at home depot. Installed it myself. It's getting slowly but surely more noisy, and one of my buddies is the applicance dealer in town. He was initially pissed at me for not buying one of his, but when I told him how much I paid for the GE, he said he should have gone to home depot and bought all they had! LOL!!

The old one was an el-cheapo model with such a bad motor that it created RF interference on the tuner in the man-cave. That one only lasted about 3 years and by the time I got rid of it it was so noisy that it sounded like a gravel crunching machine...

Every appliance guy I spoken with has always said the same thing.... HOT water.... Little trick; before you run it, turn on the hot water tap in the kitchen sink, let it run for 30 seconds until the water coming out is HOT. Then run the dishwasher. The initial fill with really hot water is the key to getting the dishes clean. Another trick is about once every week or two, about midway through the cycle pour in about a cup of white vinegar. It really breaks up any residue, removes water stains (we have some rust from the well).

The current one's gonna last for about another 2-3 years (I run it every day, 365 days a year), and from what I understand new "mid-grade" consumer ones are only good for about 2500 cycles before things start coming apart. They want the product to last about as long as the warranty, then make you buy another one...

[H]

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