What is it with appliances these days?

[sseelhoff]

I also have the same dishwasher, sometimes it is a little noisy but it always calms down all by itself.

You have the SAME dishwasher? Is she cheating on me, or you?

 

[sseelhoff]

And what would you have them do?

They should treat their prisoners like we treat ours. Weight room, cable and a nice library.

 

[MinnesotaEric]

We just had a major problem with our dishwasher, that is only 1.5 years old, and this was one of the top-rated dishwashers on Consumer Reports. When shopping for appliances for our new house, I had come to the conclusion that online ratings and reviews are only some guidance, and it's really a roll of the dice. No matter how well rated, I was able to find bad reviews for almost every appliance we looked at. I am starting to understand why.

This Kenmore Elite dishwasher (made by Whirlpool/etc) is super quiet and has performed well, but Tuesday night, the pump motor fell off the bottom and began belching water all over the place before the dishwasher shut itself down. It only shut down because of a computer error code, triggered by water getting all over a circuit board, so in that sense we were lucky that the stupid thing sabotaged itself. Water ran down to the back of the cabinets, under the edge of the wood flooring, and slowly dripped into the crawl space through holes drilled for plumbing/electrical rough-in. Probably only 2-3 gallons of water, so we were lucky.

Upon googling, I found hundreds of posts from people who had the same problem with multiple brands associated with Whirlpool/Kenmore/Frigidaire/etc, some who experienced thousands of dollars in damage to their floors and cabinets. Turns out that during assembly, the manufacturer used a crimp-style hose clamp that was a little too big, so that over time the main pump hose would wiggle loose. The hose is also one of the supports for the pump motor, so that would cause the pump motor to FALL OFF THE BOTTOM OF THE DISHWASHER and spray water all over the place.

I was able to fix this by ordering a worm-screw style hose clamp with a narrow 5/16" band (all the hose clamps I had on hand and saw in stores were 1/2" band), which let me snug up the hose properly. It was amazing to see the old too-large clamp let the hose slide on and off the fitting like it wasn't even there. So it was basically a time bomb waiting to go off. Also used zip ties to add a second support to the pump motor and prevent it from putting all pressure on the hose. Finally, for some insurance, I bent up a drip pan with some galvanized sheet, and flashed all around it with window flashing membrane:

View attachment 402341

There is a bead of caulk under the front edge, and caulk near the front openings of the cabinets. If we ever have leaks in the future, this will at least keep water from running down behind the edge of the floor and walls, and will instead move a puddle out the front where we'll hopefully see it. At some point, I may drill a drain hole in that pan and run it down into our crawl space to a catch basin that the washing machine drip pan drains to. Could put a water sensor in that pain to be alerted to leaks.

I'm sorry but I'm laughing at your remark, "we were lucky that the stupid thing sabotaged itself." I have two kitchens in the city house which was built in 1969. I have replaced the stupid fridge once, the dishwasher 4 times, I fixed a $1200 stove with over $1400 in parts before I threw up my arms and replaced it with a $1800 slide in, which in an epic beacon making incident, I burned the bezel surrounding the front-mounted controls, and spent another $200 for parts to fix that. Then there is the bloody garage disposal: even when it works, it is sabotaged by long-stemmed wine glasses getting sent through it. Anyway, that bugger I've replaced 5 times over 20 years. I'm putting the house up for sale in three months.

 

[KiotiKowboy]

And what would you have them do?

I assume you're speaking of government? Reduce taxes to something below a confiscatory level. Same should go for personal taxation as well.

If you mean the prisoners; Nothing. If I was in their spot, I'd build crap as well.

 

[MinnesotaEric]

I assume you're speaking of government? Reduce taxes to something below a confiscatory level. Same should go for personal taxation as well.

If you mean the prisoners; Nothing. If I was in their spot, I'd build crap as well.

I want my appliances manufactured by free range labor.

 

[KiotiKowboy]

I want my appliances manufactured by free range labor.

LOL - me too.

I'm building in the spring, so I'll have to figure all of this out pretty soon. First is to decide if I want my kitchen on electric or propane - maybe there's a thread for that

 

[dave1949]

I've had good luck with Bosch appliances. Dishwasher, range, washer & dryer are eight years old and no issues except the washer has the stinky front-loader syndrome; the Amana over-under frig-freezer is the same age. The dishwasher (made in USA with imported parts) and frig (assembled in Newton, Iowa) are probably typical in that parts come from all over.

Kitchen Aid is supposed to be a good dishwasher brand.

 

[MarentetteService]

I like my maytags. Made in the usa, no problems.

 

[MinnesotaEric]

Bosch dishwashers were so bad I wrote an Amazon review as a warning, writing,

We were promised that this Bosch dishwasher was not only quiet, but very good at cleaning. After we got it home and properly installed, I was impressed at how quiet the Bosch dishwasher really was. Sadly, I now know why the Bosh dishwasher is quiet: This Bosch dishwasher is quiet because it isn't getting anything clean! It didn't blast salad bits out of a salad bowl. Instead, it made them shiny and hard and with the uber heat cycle, doubtlessly sanitary as well. Chucks of rice resumed their former glory before they were boiled and goo left over from cutting a pie was left on a serving knife. Ewe. The new Bosch SHE43P22UC dishwasher didn't clean or dry dishes and its racks are such a bad design that I'm going to try and return it today and buy a different, not-Bosch dishwasher after two whole days of frustrating Bosch dishwasher ownership. If the shop won't take it back, this thing is going onto Craigs List.

Who thought this was a good dishwasher?

One star for living up to the hype of being quiet, negative stars for not getting anything clean and making me uninstall it and install another dishwasher. Bad dishwasher, no dinner!​

We've had good luck with Ammana, Maytag, and lately with Fridigaire Gallery. Oh and Panasonic microwaves. Not. One. Failure.

 

[dave1949]

I like my maytags. Made in the usa, no problems.

They are owned by Whirlpool since 2006 and closed the Maytag factory in Newton, IA.

I just replaced the Maytag range in my Mom's condo because the oven was not controllable. If the problem was just the temp probe, it would cost $65 parts and labor. The control board + temperature probe parts and labor would be half the price of a new range. It was at least 10 years-old, not sure because it came with the condo. I live 935 miles from the range.