Kitchen Aid all the way...first one lasted over seventeen years. The racks are much easier to load than Bosch and it has a drying cycle.

I miss my F&P DD SO BAD! I have a Viking DW-I "think" made by KA, and hate it so bad. I am just waiting for it to go out. I've had DD in my last two houses and loved them, however, we downsized and not knowing how long we would like it here, I went with a package deal w/all Viking appliances. We absolutely love it here, 7 years later, so I'm tempted to just go get them.

I've only had problems with the racks on this DW (they always fall down), but I miss those Dish Drawers-so easy. The only thing we had a problem with, on the first house we had them, we put wood fronts, and the steam warped the top drawer and wouldn't shut all the way. Hubby is a trim carpenter, so he fixed it. Next house, we went stainless fronts.

Our DW died in December and I was all set to get a Bosch, because we need the salt softener (mineraly well water), and not many manufacturers have that option. While perusing the Bosch offerings at my local appliance store I found a year old Jenn-Air display model, with salt dispenser, for half of the price of the Bosch. I was skeptical, because JA is made by Whirlpool, but it was $900 cheaper than the Bosch, and with full warranty in hand, we took the plunge and bought it. It's excellent, cleans everything without rinsing, dries well, stainless in and out, has a large capacity, including the 3rd rack (I'm meh on that) and is unbelievably quiet. I never thought I'd tout a Whirlpool product, but it's the best DW I've ever owned, and we've had Maytag, KA and Smeg, and there is no comparison, especially the KA, a total piece of junk from the get-go.

olliesmom, Viking dishwashers were sourced from Asko at one point. Some current info says now from a source in Turkey. Unlikely KitchenAid is involved.

Whirlpool has owned the KitchenAid brand since 1986.

Maytag bought Jenn-Air in 1982. Whirlpool has owned Maytag (and JennAir) since 2006.

Bosch, we have 2 in our home right now and over the years have installed them in our beach homes and flips. Never a problem other than the cycles are long but I believe that is the case with all the newer dishwashers. I had dish drawers 5 years ago and had a love / hate relationship with them.

Lakefffect, my sister also found a Jenn-Air floor model that she’s been happy with.

I lived without any dishwasher for 20 years in our previous house and that became my Scarlett O'Hara principle when I remodeled: as god is my witness, I will never hand wash dishes again!

Got a Bosch and it was very nice, cleaned well and was quiet. When we bought our current home within the first year all the appliances in both kitchens (we have a downstairs apartment) failed one after the other. Our upstairs kitchen is open to our living room where we spend our waking hours and I am phobic about noisy appliances, ambient sound REALLY bothers me. When the DW up here failed I didn't want to spend a lot on a replacement since at the time it was a weekend home. Bought a Whirlpool with good noise ratings from reviewers...and was extremely disappointed at how noisy it was. Bothered me every.single.night.

Within six months I couldn't take it so when my son's DW died I offered him the Whirlpool and got a Kitchenaid based on visiting my SIL and noticing hers was *silent*. And I've been beyond delighted with this machine! It's quieter than my Bosch; literally the air conditioner vents make more noise. Cleans wonderfully well and as noted the only thing that's a bit annoying is remembering to refill the rinse reservoir (Bosch had a reminder light, this doesn't). It has the third rack on top which is handy, and so far it's been a gem.

dadoes, there was apparently a owner change in Viking when we bought ours, there was a bunch of hoopla happening with that, when we bought ours. I just know the guy who we bought it from and a guy who fixed it a couple of times, said it was made by KA- I would have remembered if it was ASKO, because I thought ASKO was a good brand. But, whoever makes mine, I don't like it. I used to be up on all the appliances a few years back, I could tell you everything about most of them-but lost interest the last few years. I'm sure I'm behind on things now. LOL

We have had significantly less etching since we started cutting the Miele tabs in half (thanks to a rec I saw here a while back - thank you GW!) - dishes still come out clean, and obviously happy to save/use less. We do have to soften our water, it is so, so hard in our area. As far as vacuums, we have both the Miele canister and the Dyson V8, I prefer the superior performance and construction of the Miele when deep/weekly cleaning but you can't beat the convenience of the Dyson which is much easier to grab and do a quick pass as needed, especially with pets, kids, and open windows - it definitely was a good investment and I recommend both often. However, you can definitely tell the Miele was built to last many, many years (have had ours for 10+ now, in fact). We've had a couple of Dysons over the years, and they are nice, but far more "plasticky" feeling - I don't think you can go wrong with either but ymmv.

Back to the dishwashers: my parents have a newer KA which they love and works quite well. One thing I don't like that I found I missed when visiting/cooking for the holidays: there's no cycle length display. There's dots to show "progress", but no countdown timer, not sure if that's just the flat-front models or all now. Might not be a dealbreaker, but might be something to consider when trying to narrow down selections/models. I know I like knowing how long is left on a cycle personally. First world problems, lol

The only thing I don't like about my Bosch is the bottom rack needs constant rearranging. I only run it at most twice a week, and once you add a baking dish, everything needs to move around. My old Kenmore was so much more accommodating. There was always just enough room for one more casserole dish.

ETA: I don't buy in to the premise that if you don't have food residue on your dishes they will either etch or not clean properly. Since I only run my DW a couple of times a week, I don't want food residue sitting in there and ripening. I rinse my dishes before putting them in, I can't help myself. Only if I plan to run the DW right away do I put dishes in with food residue. My glasses aren't etched and rinsed dishes come out sparkling.

I haven't rinsed before loading in years and sometimes don't run the machine for 4 days until a load accumulates. No problem with odor.

Not related to hand-rinsing ... I found wayy back in the 1970s that running the machine on Rinse/Hold to rinse a partial load in the machine caused a foul odor vs. not running Rinse/Hold. All dishwashers hold some residual water in the pump/sump. Since Rinse/Hold is not a wash with detergent, the residual water from it is dirty with food residue and sours quickly.

My $900 Bosch went 14 years after about $400 at year 10. New the model is about $1400 so I got a $225 dented Amana as a temp. Crazy loud but effective. The trick with Bosch is keeping the filter clean. I'd buy again.

The boss says rinsing before loading is a reason not to buy. Dog argues for the job.

Dadoes - trust me, I spent months working with Miele and trying every combo of temperature, soil, detergent, etc. and my glassware quickly and regularly etched in my top of the line Miele unless I used the lowest temperature cycle - china/crystal - which didn't clean other things very well. The dishwasher I had prior to the Miele never etched and none since has etched. So there was some mysterious combination of circumstances with my Miele and soft water that couldn't be resolved. I finally resolved it when I moved out of the house and bought a Bosch for my new house.

When we remodeled in 2012 I got a Bosch and was very happy with it. It did have odor problems but we found a brand of detergent that solved the problem—can’t remember which one. When we moved two years ago the builder had Whirlpool. Not happy with the stove or dishwasher, more so the stove. Im just afraid this Whirlpool DW will leak at some point on the wood floors even though it’s not a low end model, but I’ll wait to replace now until things get back to at least semi-normal.

I have a XXL capacity ASKO with three racks and absolutely love it. When we got it five years ago it replaced a KA that did a terrible job of cleaning dishes. I would never buy another KA, nor would my two children who both have 7 or 8 year old KA dishwashers they hate because they keep breaking and don't do a good job at cleaning.

@Bunny, the bottom rack is my complaint about my Bosch, too. The racks aren’t adjustable, someone made a determination of what people put in their dishwashers and how things should be loaded and it was designed for that, and that only.

I wish all dishwasher racks were interchangeable.

Btw, just the other day our Bosch didn’t run. We figured out it was the latch, had gotten off-kilter (we aren’t the most graceful when it comes opening and closing it), we fiddled with it (that’s a technical term) and it ran.

Well, last night it didn’t clean the dishes again. But, it’s because I’m out of powder! So just ran a rinse cycle and will pick up more this morning. It’s one of the perils of DH doing almost all the shopping now. Powder was on the list one week, but he didn’t get it, and it didn’t get on the next week’s list, or the next, or the next.

Update: tech came out. It is the heater element. The replacement part I ordered is not an exact match to the part that is in the DW. The rubber gasket is not thick enough and it leaked when he installed it. So, they have ordered and LG one and it will take a couple more days.

So weird! In a good way! My Viking DW just stopped working yesterday. I actually did try to google the problem, and had hubby look at it, but it would be a service call. He knows I've hated that thing-so I'm off to buy my DD today!

Add me to the broken dishwasher family. I went to turn it on last night and there is no power. It has been a little glitchy like that for a year or so, just randomly would not work when pressing any of the buttons. I’d fiddle with it a little, then suddenly the buttons would work again. Last night I tried everything, reset the breaker, etc. Finally gave up and went to bed. I forgot about it until this morning when I heard dishes clinking downstairs and heard a weird man’s voice. I thought it was my husband on a conference call on speaker. Nope, it was Dh watching a “how to” video. I apologized for forgetting to tell him the DW wasn't working but he’d already messed around with it and thinks it is a fuse (fingers crossed, b/c with five of us here, we go through a ton of dishes every day so handwashing will be a pain!)

Ours is a KA, but it’s somewhere between 7-10 years old. For the most part, I love it. It is very quiet, cleans the dishes well and I like the way my dishes fit. I opted to not get the third rack at the time and not sure whether I would prefer to have one as we have some tall glasses. As mentioned, we did have issues with the wheels being plastic and breaking often, especially on the top rack, probably due to heavy items. The last time it happened, Dh discovered they had redesigned the replacement part and they are now very sturdy.

About two months ago, I noticed the bottom was not draining. Dh watched some videos and decided it was probably the pump, ordered a new one and replaced it. Thankfully he is handy. I’m hoping a new fuse is all that is wrong with it this time (bad timing, dh‘s company just decided two days ago on a 20% pay cut to avoid layoffs, so we are trying to curb any unnecessary expenses).

Overall, I’m happy enough with our KA that I would buy another. I think with any appliance, there are going to be problems no matter the brand, with only a few that have across the board terrible ratings.

Boy really hard to decide what to do with our dishwasher. Normally, being the environmentalist that I am, I would try just about everything to fix it. So if it was a motor that could be replaced, that's what I'd opt for. But considering the age of the appliance, (23 years) and my not wanting to complicate my life right now any more than it is already . . . but then the expense of a new one . . .

Hubs and I decided on a Whirlpool model. We don't want to spend the amount of money on the kind of Bosch that would live up to their reputations, and at our price range, they are all more or less the same, kind of a crap shoot as to quality. We like that Whirlpool is made in the USA actually near us, and historically Whirlpool had a connection to my home state, although not any more. Not sure if that would make the dishwasher a source of sad irony or not, but that's not really a factor, just a musing. All things being equal, we like the model, can get it locally, and we're thinking repairs will be at least somewhat possible if we go with this scenario.

Oh man, I wish I hadn't looked up the dishwasher motor replacement model from partselect.com. It's available and is relatively easy to replace with a great instruction video and manual. But expensive, can only get a whole kit for $171 and with shipping it would probably be close to 200 bucks. New dishwasher slightly over $600. A lot of stuff on the old one is worn out but functional, such as the soap dispenser. Hubs does not want to fuss with it. But I dunno, we are going to have to take the old one out anyway. . . I think my marriage may be on the line here . . . (half joking) We are also trying to be on the austerity plan because we have no idea what the future will bring for either of us job and expense wise.

You could buy a new one at Home Depot for $300. Why bother with repairing a 23 yo unit.

I always fix my appliances (and family, and friends who ask for assistance) if the part(s) required are available. Manufacturers have manipulated the market in an effort to entice consumers to buy new instead of repair. I'm bucking against the trend on that.

I Pinkmountain, IDK if I'd repair one that old, but I am also one to want to keep stuff out of landfills. I will attempt to repair this LG once.

dadoes, I have fixed the washing machine multiple times! I seem to have a real talent for that one. But a couple of times it was the door lock assembly that was easy to access. the other time it was the circuitboard, which we did other than we messed up the dial so the settings are off from what is the actual cycle. Not worth taking it apart again to fix. We can tell what it is by the cycle time length.

Well, there is no logic to, "Why spend 200 when you could spend 300 or more." On the one hand. But on the other hand, when handy hubby is burnt out and this is not the last in a long line of fixes needed to your home, one does have to know when to "fold 'em." It's not that I can't do it myself or help him, but he likes to work alone. I've tried to help and he usually shooes me away and if I need help and ask him, he still shooes me away. He has built in "foreman" reflexes.

Over the past 15 years in two houses we've had a Bosch 500 series and now a Bosch 800 series. Loved them both. Super quite and gets everything very clean. Love the third rack for cutlery and utensils. Ours doesn't have the door that pops open to dry the plastic. Even with out that the slightly damp plastic doesn't bother me. If I were on the market for a DW the only two I'd look at are Bosch and Miele. Worth the price you pay.

We are FP Drawer fans. We have them in both houses. They aren't perfect, but for us having the versatility of the two drawers outweighs the noise. We are also tough on them. Not everyone around here is great at rinsing dishes beforehand and DH tends to overload them.

The lower drawer of a 2-drawer DishDrawer unit generates a bit more noise than the upper, due to the sound bouncing off the floor and coming from beneath. The lower drawer muffles the operational sound of the upper drawer. I stepped-up the installation when I set my unit back in place after the aforementioned drain hose repair. My cabinetry cut-out is a bit too large/wide so I added a strip of closed-cell adhesive foam around the unit's front edge to fill the gap. Noticeably quieter, although I never found it to be objectionable.

Operational noise from any dishwasher will emanate from any gap around the unit. Proper installation, i.e. filling-in the space, helps block it.

Bosch here and I love the third rack. This is one of those brands worth it although I've had the upper lines.

My 25 year old Miele died about a month ago. Yes, I bought a new Miele. It is so quiet you can't tell it's on. It works great, and I like the lighted interior.

The part is finally in, and we are scheduled for Monday morning. Glad it's just DH and me.

My DD were installed on Tuesday! It feels like old times LOL

After having the Viking DW for the last 7 years, performance-wise, I notice the DD are much more quiet and dry much better. I did notice the bottom drawer was a bit louder, but nothing like the horrible Viking! I had to wait at night to turn it on, it was so loud. Actually, the loud swishing sound of it got to be part of my sleeping ritual.

Another Bosch fan here - mine is 2 years old and I love how quiet it is, the speed cycle - 60 minutes - and the fact that it heats the rinse water at the end so that the dishes actually dry without having to use the heated dry function.

My MIL has a Bosch and I hate it - the racks are ridiculous to load, and she's had to have it repaired more than once. When our old one died we did a bunch of shopping and wound up buying a Kenomore with the pot scrubber feature on the back wall. We only ever really use a basic was cycle, maybe heavy duty or china once in a while. I wasn't really interested in a lot of the additional bells & whistles - wanted to not have to wash dishes before loading them, a good drier, quiet operation, and clean dishes. Got the Kenmore on sale and have been very pleased. Save your $$ for something more fun than a dishwasher!

Miele!! 7 years, nary a problem! (fingers crossed as i type) :)

Update: The LG part is the same as the part I ordered. They somehow have changed the parts over the years and the part I need is no longer supported. The only option is to get another major housing that the new part fits, so it's a new DW for us. I will start to look at what can be delivered fairly quickly, starting with Bosch. We bought this one from hhgregg, which hasn't been in business for quite a few years already. So, it's Lowe's, HD, BestBuy, or local chain.

We've narrowed it down to these three models of Bosch. Can't really discern what is different among them. The side by side comparison on Lowe's lists pretty much the same thing for all.

The ones on the right and left are in stock at Lowe's, and the one in the middle is in stock at the local chain. The local chain also has the Benchmark for the same price as Lowe's. Trying to find out what can get here the soonest.

Ipink, these models use less than 4 gallons of water!

Any feedback on these models appreciated.

Gscience, that’s a bummer about the part! I’m sorry you have to replace the DW!

As an update to my own DW dilemma mentioned way up thread, after some online investigation, dh ordered a new fuse and paid for next day delivery. Of course, that didnt happen and we waited at least five days for the part. He used a youtube video to take apart the door of the DW and replace the fuse. Thankfully, that had our DW back in working condition. While I had no problem forcing my kids to handwash dishes, when everyone is eating 2-3 meals per day at home, it was a bit chaotic in my kitchen trying to keep up.

I hope your new DW, once you choose the one you want, is able to be installed quickly!

gsciencechicrk, just make sure and get the one that dries well. My sister got one years back, I think a lower end one, and it was the model that didn't dry very well. Unless, that doesn't matter to you. I had a Bosch WAY back, an upper model and it was very good, and good at drying. I'm just a Dish Drawer girl, but so many people love Bosch.

We went with the one in the middle. Like you I had problems discerning the differences other than the decibel level. Given my hearing issues I didn’t feel the lower 2 decibels were worth the extra $200. That, plus I seem to recall reading that this little difference would not be noticed by most people.

Also, saved additional $ by getting it with a pocket handle rather than the bar. To me, the bar made it more difficult to clean the front panel. I’m noticing fewer smudges in that area now as well.

Olliesmom, these are all the crystal dry, which is their most advanced drying that is supposed to be good even on plastic.

Jrb451, right, what is the 2 decibel difference we were talking last night. The LG we had was pretty quiet. The ones with the pocket handles are not in stock until early June, so I don't want to wait that long for something to come in. I'm only looking at what's in stock.

And I had the something similar with our old Samsung range. The burner part did not fit the earlier models and we had to get a new stove.

I think you will really love your Bosch and notice a huge improvement in cleaning power.

If you go to the bosch website you can find better and more specific comparisons.

I just ordered the middle one because the local chain Queen City has 8 of them in store and can install this week on Friday. The first one at Lowe's, although it says in stock, it's not really at the store, but in a regional warehouse, so it has to come in and then it gets on the list to be installed. The person at my local Lowe's said the website is not real time on what is available, and calling another store would not make a difference because they all use the same warehouse. Also, for the first one at Queen City, it would be another two weeks because it's not in the store. I know we don't know what day it is, but it is the Memorial Day weekend next weekend and potential for things to get further delayed until early June. So, I'm going with the simplest option here. Thanks for your help!

Good luck with it! I hope it serves you well. Let us know how you like it.

It’s here! The guys did a good job with the install and removal. We all wore masks and socially distanced.

We will use it tonight!

I’ve been away caring for my DH and just saw this. That’s the one I ordered and spoke about above. It’s sitting in my dining room waiting to be installed (long story) but am hoping for an install on Tuesday.

My sister & brother in law have had the same model as well for a while and love it. I recently discovered something not so obvious (and not found w/any of the store models I saw) are the drop downs on each side of the top basket to make it deeper when you have lots of thicker items to put there.

See those white buttons on each side, when you slide them the side drops. One side of mine was kind of stuck the first time I tried it, so had to remove the basket and fiddle a bit with it.

Thanks, Lukki! We were just reviewing the manual and looking just how to do that. We did not run it last night. Yesterday was very crazy with the install, our bathroom sink has developed a leak, and we had tornado warnings again.

Gscience, sorry I didn't see this earlier, and about your sink and tornado warnings. I researched those models to death when I had to replace mine. The differences at that level will be perhaps one or 2 cycles or even what they are called -- usually not all that important when most folks use 1 or 2 cycles for most loads. The other thing they vary on the models is the racking -- as you go up the chart, you get more tines that can be folded down to give you more loading options -- also that drop down on the upper tray and possibly one set of fold down tines along the side for thicker handles. I wound up ordering the Benchmark because I have a panel and the only panel ready at the big box stores had more limited racking than what we wanted. Hope you love yours.

Thanks, lascatx! Fortunately, we don't need a panel-ready, though if I got one, I could get the Big Chill front to match the fridge. :) And lukki, we figured out how to lower the middle rack, so all should be good. We ran it today, and it was super quiet. Wow. We most normally use just a general wash when it's pretty well filled.

The weatherman said there have been 10 tornado warnings for our county this year, but 4 of them have been in our region where we got alerts. One of them I was at school, but the last three I was home. This is crazy because we are in a pretty densely populated area. Luckily, no damage. We get our trees regularly pruned, but we got about 5 inches of rain this week, and the ground is very saturated.