KitchenAid is no stranger to manufacturing excellent kitchen appliances. The company has been building innovative dishwashers for 30 years now. The Architect Series II is especially popular, and is rated highly in just about any KitchenAid dishwasher review you will ever read. You can trust that every dish, glass, and silverware piece you put inside will come out sparkling clean and dry!

They are designed to fit in any kitchen. Furthermore, they offer a great deal of versatility in compacted space.

Keep in mind there are two KitchenAid companies. The one that established the brand was owned by a company called Hobart. Hobart Kitchenaids were designed and built to last for decades. In the late 1980s, Hobart sold Kitchenaid to Whirlpool. Whirlpool eventually eliminated Kitchenaid as an independent design and manufacturing concern, and now simply treats it as a brand name-tag.

This means that kitchenaid dishwashers are built with the same Whirlpool design that is used in all their dishwashers. I have a 10 year old Kitchenaid top of the line dishwasher and have discovered, once it started to have issues, the culprit(s) are the same Whirlpool components/design that are put in their bottom of the line dishwashers. For example they use the same circuit board in their plastic tub washers as they do the premium ones. The poor cleaning problem you mention is caused by an absolutely insane design of the Whirlpool pump where food particles can clog up a check valve. It requires that it be disassembled every couple of years or more to clean out and/or also to replace the badly built chopper. (do a google search on Whirlpool chopper)

My advice, if you are looking for a premium brand is to go with one of the smaller companies that has not been taken over by Whirlpool, GE or Electrolux.

My parents have a KitchenAid dishwasher and whatever mechanism it is that slows the opening of the door (so it doesn't slam down) has been replaced twice and has since broken again. My mom has finally given up on it and plans to replace it with a Miele or Bosch when she does her kitchen later this year. I just bought a Bosch myself, but it's not connected yet so I can't comment.
I do hope the problem isn't wth KitchenAid as a whole though. I have a KA fridge and just bought a KA oven/micro and retractable downdraft.

Have had nothing but problem after problem with my higher end KitchenAide appliance. I will never buy another one. Mine is 3 1/2 years old. In that period of time, it has had at least 6 major repairs, including the motherboard and motor, the racks and the chopper. Does that sound like quality to anyone? I doubt it. I still have my extended warranty (thankfully) or I would have definitely had to dump this thing in the garbage--where it probably belongs anyway. Today it stopped working again--no water is coming into it even though it's running. Hello, repairman: It's 3 days before my 4th of July party. Can you come out and fix my dishwasher? His reply will be: Hahahahaha.

I have a KA KUDS30IVSS dw, since 2009. Have had no problems with it other than a couple of replacements for the rinse dispenser (one serviceperson put it in backwards!).

I'm gentle with the door after I read here it has plastic hinges and some have had problems with them. It's not the best DW - I would have bought the Miele but it absolutely did not fit my dishes. Thanks to GW folks here, I came to the store with a cardboard box full of my most oddly shaped/largest dishes and pans. The salesmen were shocked, LOL.

Anything with electronics, I get the extended warranty. Despite what many say on this board and elsewhere, these days we think it's well worth it.

Our KitchenAid dishwasher had been leaking water that was not visible to us. I thought something was odd when I cleaned the filter, I felt a familiar electric tingle as I touched the metal part of the interior. We had a Pergo floating floor which became saturated. The tingle was water leaking to the AC voltage to the dishwasher. I don't know if it could have killed me or not under the right circumstances. Out Pergo floor was ruined and had to be replaced. The repair insurer, AIG, attempted to fix the machine 3 times. They finally gave up and gave us a few hundred dollars to junk the machine. As far as I am concerned, both AiG and KitchenAid are both worthless. It costed me a new machine and several thousand dollars to replace the Pergo floor.

Bought kitchenaid dishwasher 3 years ago. Now wash motor has shorted. If i had called them first and bought a post-purchase service policy the would replace it. But since I'm a non-mechanical woman I stupidly call a repair service who want nearly $500 to repair it. It cost $700. Customer service is very unhelpful. Makes me realize all these high scores are a big lie. JUNK JUNK JUNK.......

I have a kdfm404kbs dishwasher.  Paid over $1200.  It is 2 yrs old.  Sat in a box for 6 months. Won't drain, just beeps.  Kitchenaid wouldn't cover it.  Spent almost $500 in repairs and still doing the same thing.  I bought this because Kitchenaid was supposed to be a reliable product.  Wish I had went with the Bosch!

I had a Bosch. It lasted 12 years, but it never cleaned that well and I always had wet dishes. I just bought a Kitchenaid, the same model in stainless. It is working beautifully so far. I did buy the extended warranty as I always do with every major appliance I buy. I really don't understand the obsession with Bosch. It was Okay, but nothing special, and I couldn't get my hands on one anyway since they were backordered for months. So I went with the Kitchenaid.

Anita Baker, I truly hope that your experience with your new dishwasher is better than ours. Thank god we purchased the extended warranty when we bought it in 2016, because we had to have a repairman out, on average, every 6 months. Mostly it was to have the detergent cup replaced, but we also had a shorted out motherboard twice. The part that enabled you to switch the height of the upper rack also broke, but I was able to reattach that with silicon tape. Now, with yet another broken detergent cup, dishes that only are clean when run on the most intense cycle, and an expired warranty, we’re waiting for our new Bosch to be installed. Will never buy a Kitchenaid ever again.

GeneralFactotum, I'm curious in what way is your detergent dispenser malfunctioning. What type of detergent is used ... pods, powder, gel?

I’ve had a KA for a year and a half. It’s been flawless. I, however, put Dawn instead of rinse aid in by mistake. That wasn’t fun.

Dadoes, I use pods, although I can’t remember when I made the switch from powder.

And finally having my Bosch dishwasher installed has been a dream come true. I can barely hear it running, while my KA groaned like a dying animal. My dishes emerge clean and shining, regardless of how dirty they were to begin with. I am never, ever going back to KA.

Dadoes, both of my KitchenAid -produced Kenmore Elites purchased in 2006 and 2015 developed "leaky" detergent cups due to the seal that kept the comparment dry and secure until time to dispense detergent and by the time the detergent was supposed to be dispensed, some of the detergent had already been leaked out. Also, both rinse aid functions eventually couldn't be used because the plastic holding tank began leaking and I stopped using Rinse Aid. So far, the Bosch has surpassed these issues in similar time frames.