recommendations for new dish washer

After 15 years with a Malleys/Simpson beast, we replaced it a few months back with the all-electronic control Electrolux. Initial observations:

1. Its about 30dB quieter, except that it creates a water hammer problem with its solenoid at the tap. The solenoid on the old one was ait the machine entry

- presumably the hose acted as the surge killer.

1. It doesn't stack anywhere near as much (i.e. as efficiently) as the oldie, despite our endeavours to wring the best out of it.
2. The top electronic model has one extra function that the next-one-down doesn't. But to share a common front panel, they omitted the rinse-only cycle.
3. The oldie had a counterbalance weight low down at the rear. Pulling out laden top and bottom racks never caused a hiccup. The newies (I understand across the board on "aussie" ones) don't have a weight, so sometimes even a fully laden bottom rack can cause it to tilt. (Ours is loose under a benchtop, not screwed or glued in place).
4. The new one has an interior light. A nice touch, possibly a bit more decorative than truly functional.
5. We had the serviceman out to replace a faulty top rack runner (warranty of course). He's been with them a few years. He and his missus bought a new machine a year back. A F&P 2-drawer!

That's my 2.2c worth. You may value it differently.

Can't recommend, but we've had one of the dual drawer Fisher and Paykel machines for a couple of years - excellent concept (depending on your load size) but ours has had a brain failure about every 6 months.

nothing but great results from our kleenmaid dishwasher -- but our kleenmiad oven has very weak door hinges - the warranty service guy reckons he's seen at least 1000 ovens with the same door hinge fault...

one good design, one kludge. I'd say that's par for the course.

Hello David,

No idea about the Australian market but we found that many brands here in the US didn't take the size of some of our plates or required a really inefficient stacking. Finally we found a good deal on a Whirlpool "Quiet Wash Plus" that could. Low noise mattered as well as we have an open kitchen. It's working just fine since six years or so.

The best ones in quiet operation were European brands but that would have cost us at least twice as much over here.

Regards, Joerg

David,

We had a Simspon unit with the electronic soft-touch panel; purchased in

1999. By the time we turfed it in June 2004, it had died in the soft-touch panel twice. About $280 to repair each time, and I think the whole unit was only about $799 new. We now have a Dishlex, which wasnt my choice, but was on the floor when we desparately needed to replace the dead one. It has turned out to be a very good dishwasher, albiet only just on 12 months old at this stage. The trays are designed to be adjusted to suit your needs (flip-up racks), and the water to the top tray comes from the back of the washer, rather than above. This frees up the middle of the top tray wheras the other style has a water pipe coming down.

As others have mentioned, many desings will fall over if not bolted in, and loaded top-heavy; especially the built-in versions that dont have any covering around them (The Simpson was like this). The Simpson did this a number of times (Fell over), and you had to be quite carefull when loading it. The Dishlex is much better at this, as it seems to have more weight low in the back.

And final appeal for the Dishlex was it has a grand total of 2 controls; an on-off button, and a rotary dial to select the wash program. Both buttons push in to set flush against the panel, which makes it hard for a toddler to play with the controls.

Hope this helps.

Cheers,

Rod.......Out Back

We had an Asko but it needed to be fixed three times in 6 years and wasn't very good at drying the dishes. When we moved into a new house we bought a Miele, not cheap but very quite, no problems at all so far and if there ever is they keep parts for at least ten years they say, even more. Great on water saving too, and the dishes come out clean!

Leon Gross

Before ASKO it was called ASEA, and the Cylinda 1500 model we still have is very reliable after 15 years. I think we had a defunct membrane control panel replaced on one occasion.

A mate of mine bought one with the ASKO brand and he had so many service calls he junked it and bought a cheap LG. It seems that something suffered in the quality area after the ASEA takeover and name change.

We got a Dishlex because it had the lowest water consumption of any model at the time (in addition to it's "Eco" mode), and was fairly quiet. They were on top of the list of our requirements. What are your requirements? - cost?, warranty?, looks?, water comsumption?, noise?, internal rack space?, or is reliability your only concern? Reliability is next to impossible to determine, you takes'ya chances. You'll find that someone somewhere will have something bad to say about every brand on the market. Get a good warranty.

No problems with the Dishlex so far, works well.

Dave :)

David

A couple of years ago we bought an AEG, basically on the advice of Choice magazine. Their take was: if you can afford it, there is no reason to buy anything else.

So far, so good. It works well & we have no complaints. The one thing it doesn't appear to like is avocado - if there is a scrap of avo in the wash, you can bet it will stick to a plate or cutlery.

My brother & siste- in-law have a Bosch which they overload mercilessly - it seems to do well, but it also has some crappily designed switches which need replacing periodically.

HTH

Dave Goldfinch

recommend

Don't get a SMEG anything. Crap quality and worse after-sales support.

Ken

We have a dual door stainless LG in the coast unit and at home use a Miele ( costs rather a lot) both are excelent and quite machines. ( one 3 times the cost of the other)

"David" wrote in news:e2wte.23928$ snipped-for-privacy@news-server.bigpond.net.au:

We had a Dishlex for 15 years. Only one solenoid replacement @ $25. Washed and dried well and pretty quiet. Used it FULL every day. Got rid of it 'cos wife wanted new colour. Replaced it with a European Franke brand. Only got it 'cos we knew someone to get a healthy discount thru. It's no better than Dishlex in performance. Had it for 1 year no problems.

When we got the new one, the trend for euro ones I noticed is for cold water connection only, while the old Dishlex had hot water connection. This is more economical probably because we have gas hot water. Anyone looked into why?

SNIP

It is possibly because of the fact that most dishwashers don't actually hold a lot of water for performing the wash cycle, and due to the quantity of dormant cold water stored in the hot water supply piping, the water coming in would still be cold by the time the washer was ready to go. If the washer heats its own water then the water can be guaranteed to be at the required temperature.

Further to this, I would think it removes the possibility the hot water is the wrong temp due to the HWS being set incorrectly.

I remember years ago we buggered 2 dishwashers over the space of 7 years(Whirlpool & a dishlex); most likely due to the wood-fired HWS regulating around 80-odd degrees most days... I dont think the average dishawasher is designed for this sort of temp on the inlet side of the plumbing, and one of the dishlex pumps was not well after the HWS got really serious one day. I note the later Bosch & Simpson dishwahsers never had these problems, as we had moved to letting them heat their own water. Of course, they had other problems, but neither in the water side of things.

As Ross said, at least if the dishwasher is heating the water, it should be happy with the temp of it...

Cheers,

Rod.......Out Back