Can't speak to the whole package. I can tell you that with soft water, those Finish quantum paks are about 4x overdose of everything. Not joking.

I have soft water with a new Whirlpool machine similar capacity to yours. I use scant teaspoon Cascade Complete powder prewash and scant two teaspoons main wash for a full dirty load. Rinse-aid setting is #1. Excellent results every time. Your KA is practically identical to mine. Actually, I'll bet your dispensers are exactly the same.

To begin with, I'd run your next load with nothing in it. Then begin with reduced dosages. Over not too much time, you're going to be etching everything in there otherwise. Serious. Back off on your dosages.

I'm getting ready to order the KA dishwasher you have. I'll be anxious to see if you get more feedback on this issue.

I have the KUDE60, and I also use Rinse Aid. My plastics are usually still drippy right after the heated dry cycle finishes. I crack the door open and they're dry after several hours. However, my dishes are CLEAN, and the DW is reasonably quiet, so I'm not bothered by wet plastics.

Hi Asolo, How are you liking your new machine? I agree that it's probably too much detergent. It was all I had on hand at the time and also the sample that came with the D/W.

How is your drying with your plastics? We use a lot of the rubbermaid refillable 20 oz drink containers (instead of buying bottled water) those came out dripping wet both on the bottom and the top racks of the D/W.

Hi Fiddleddd, I was just thinking about you, wondering if you had decided on a D/W. I did take some pics for you of the D/W, just hadn't gotten them posted yet. Probably will need hubbys help with that since loading the pics onto the 'puter is always a pain.

I can tell you the vent on the side does appear to be a vent. You can feel warm air coming out, and when I put a mirror up next to it, it fogs up. It's venting during the washing cycle. I didn't notice it yesterday, as when I held a mirror up to it, it was not fogging up. Perhaps it only happens at parts of the cycle. I really don't know what to think of this, as all the newer higher priced (quieter) K/A D/W's are moving to this system. It doesn't make any sense to me to vent towards the cabinets.

There is also vent is on the bottom of the door, it's rectangular shaped, and blows the air straight out, not down at the floor. It does blow out the air during the drying cycle, and does NOT stay closed for 4 hours as they told me. they don't seem to know much about this model at all.

But I can tell you that the air blowing out of either vent could not be seen, meaning it didn't look like steam, and felt fairly "dry".

I know you were wondering about the depth of the unit, our cabinets are 23 and 5/8 deep, and the D/W sticks out 1.5 inches from the base cabs (not including our doors, they stick out about an inch) so it looks ok, but doesn't sit flush.

The D/W is very quiet, but I can definitely hear it. I do have pretty sensitive hearing though. Please let me know if you have any further questions, i'd be happy to help if I can. I'll work on getting some pics posted for your ASAP. :o)

Hi Warmfridge, thank you for the info. I let them sit for a few hours and then opened the door, and most were dry except the Rubbermaid drink containers. Perhaps they are a difficult shaped item to dry.

I was trying to respond to this thread earlier, but I was getting a login error.

Re: the plastic stuff. Might as well make a mental adjustment early. You'll always have some degree of difficulty with it regardless of rinse-aid or anything else. I've read that Miele's and Bosche's with condensation drying systems are better at it but their owners still complain. Plastic is annoying that way.

Still beats washing/drying by hand, doesn't it?

Hi Asolo, LOL! yes it definitely beats washing and drying by hand. I thought the Miele and Bosch were supposed to not dry plastics well at all? I know that is why I avoided them. Mine are still drying right now, so i'm going to see if the turbo dry made a difference. it really helped a lot with our last D/W.

Now the vent that is on the side seems to be taking in air. The venting it was doing earlier was right before the cycle was almost done and ready to dry. I wish I understood what is actually going on with the side vent/air intake. I don't mean to be ignorant, but I didn't know it could perform both as a vent and air intake. I'll have to call K/A directly, and hope someone has some info on this. I emailed them yesterday and their response about the bottom vent not staying closed for 4 hours was that they don't have all of the info on the new machines (even though they previously told me it did stay closed for 4 hours)

Basically, no machine dries plastics well or consistently.

Not familiar with your side-vents and "turbo dry" feature so no further "wisdom" (ha!) to offer.

My own new (Whirlpool) machine is good. Excellent cleaning and quite acceptably quiet. I can live with this contentedly for another decade.....provided I can keep my BiL from filling the damned detergent dispenser. (He doesn't understand soft water.)

I have the KUDE60. I either read a tip here or in the manual to crack open the door after the cycle is complete to aid in drying. I don't use the drying option but a couple hours of the door being opened a couple of inches drys the plastics very well. There's still a little moisture but nothing to complain about :) And they're far from "drippy".
Monica

LOL Asolo. Yes keep your BIL away from the detergent dispenser. I'm glad to hear your new machine is performing so well. I probably didn't explain myself very well, I meant I was going to use the rinse aid called "jet dry turbo dry", it's made for drying plastics better. The new D/W does have a "prodry" feature though, but I'm not sure it dries any better than the regular K/A models do. And I appreciate you sharing your wisdom! :o)

Hi Monica, thanks for your input. I think cracking the door would be helpful for me to do. I also think I opened the door right after the cycle was over, and it might have still been drying a bit then.

Yesterday I used the jet dry Turbo dry and did go ahead and leave the rinse aid set at #2. The plastics were much drier. One thing I noticed with this last load is that when the load is done cleaning, and it says its done drying, a little bell goes off to let you know the load is done. when it does this, there is still warm air venting out of the bottom vent, even though the load says it's done. The manual unfortunately does not explain many of the features very well at all. I'm hoping soon they make an updated one available online.

Thank you all for your input! :o)

DW drying....secret "professional" trick......

At the exact moment (on penalty of ...... I don't know what) your DW goes to dry cycle, open it up and dab up all the puddled water on various items that collect puddles. Then close it up and let it complete the dry-cycle. You may be amazed. (If you miss the exact/precise moment by 30 seconds, don't worry about it.) : )

Seriously....if you dab up the puddles early and continue the cycle, good things happen. If you miss it, just wipe off the plastic and be happy you're not down by the river scrubbing with sand.

Dishwashers that are particularly good at drying plastics are the Miele machines with AutoOpen drying and the Bosch units with Zeolite. The Miele basically opens the door automatically at the end of the cycle to let residual moisture escape - something one can do by hand. The Bosch unit isn't available in the US yet.

I suppose the extended fan drying is similar to the extended tumble on dryers. It's kinda like the DW thinking "Well, since no one opened my door now that I'm finished, I might as well continue drying." And since the fan is silent and hardly consumes any energy - why not? Fisher&Paykel DishDrawers do just the same. And I think GE dishwashers, too.

Where are those vents you mention located? There's a round one inside the door (near the top). Then there one near the toe kick, right? Where is that side vent?

For what's is worth: I suppose this is how your KA dries as well. LG, Samsung and many more use a system like this. Have you tried adding Sani Rinse to the cycle along with ProDry and running the unit overnight?

Alex