Dish Washer

I bought a Maytag about five years ago when we built our house and I use it daily with having four children, and I love it. It still cleans the dishes wonderfully. It is the model that has the third rack at the bottom for skillets and cookie sheets. That really comes in handy too. It still amazes me how well it will clean everything regardless of how full I stuff it!

Whatever you buy, do NOT buy Kenmore from Sears. I learned the hard way that even though there is a Kenmore name and logo on a lot of their appliances, they are really made by Goldstar (a really cheaply made bunch of junk from China!!!). All three appliances (dishwasher, fridge and microwave broke down within 18 months of each other and Sears will NOT stand behind their products.)

The new stainless steel interiors from KitchenAid are the absolute best on the market. Bosch would be right up there with Kitchen Aid.

Good luck!!

I love Whirlpool dishwashers. The main reason is the silverware basket is in the door so all of the rack space is usable for dishes. I recently bought my second one at Lowe's. It's a Quiet Partner I and middle of the line price wise. It holds very large items as well as 12 place settings of dishes, not at the same time of course. It is also energy efficient. The only down side is that you have to be careful of the placement of some of the silverware/utensils near the area of the soap dispensor, which isn't much of a down side.

Hi E.
I have a Whirlpool...LOVE IT! The only thing I would change would be to buy the "Quiet" version. My kitchen/dining/living area is all together and when the dishwasher is running(most of the time) the TV is hard to hear without it blaring. Didn't think of it being a big deal at the time, but it is--at least to my boys! I've had it 9 years next month and it has been used hard. Usually run it every other day to daily. I DO NOT wash my dishes before putting them in, rinse only..if there's alot of stuff on them. I've never had it worked on. My racks are starting to show a lot of wear, rusting and breaking areas. I would recommend Whirlpool or Kitchen Aid...I have both brands in my kitchen and have had very good luck with them. Good luck.

I absolutely hate my G.E.dishwasher, salesman talked my spouse into it, me telling him all along no.no,no! Also hated my GE microwave, Nebraska finally replaced it with a whirlpool after 4 repairs!

Hi E.,

We just bought a new one this past year and I like it. It's a Bosch. One of the things I really like about it is, it's VERY quiet!! We bought it from Lowe's and the guy who sold it to us said it's probably one of the best on the market for the price. ~ls

We just recently moved and had to buy a dishwasher to replace the 15 yr old one that didnt work, we bought it from Lowes.Its a Kitchenaid. I previously had a Maytag with 3 racks I loved that dishwasher and didnt think Id find one to equal it. I was hesitant about 2 rack ones....but I just love this dishwasher...The stainless
steel interior is a must and the hidden buttons are great, the fact I can get big pots in it too all made it a great choice. Plus its really quiet!! And of course it cleans very well!! I love it!!

I cant wait til I can afford a new dishwasher. I hate the GE one I have, don't even use it cause it doesn't work. Don't get GE

We like our Jennair. Works great, very quiet. A friend of mine bought all GE appliances for her house, because she used to work for GE, and she has replaced all of them already. Her house is only 6 or 7 years old.

Bought a Bosch but have a few complaints about it...1) doesn't seem to get the dishes clean on regular...only on heavy duty, 2) controls are hid at the top of the dishwasher, which hidden under the counter is sometimes difficult to get to, 3) it seems to take 2-3 times LONGER to do my dishes with this model than it did with my old dishwasher. Plus side, it is VERY quite...but so much so you barely know it's running let alone done. The bottom rack is nice in that you can put taller stuff in it but the top rack isn't as well proportioned as I would have liked. The racks for the silverware are narrow and small so it makes it a unique trick to get bigger handled stuff in it. Overall, it's ok but don't know that I would go out of my way to buy one again...seems overhyped.

My in-laws got a dishwasher from Sears and it's been a pain in the butt...I think they've had the repairman out some 6 times before they got Sears (Kenmore) to finally replace it with a new one but they still aren't happy with how long it takes to do dishes. They have a 5 course meal on New Year's and we used to run dishes in 20 minutes through there...now we have to do them all by hand because a load takes well over 2 hours.

I bought a dishwasher about 6months ago and did a lot of research beforehand. I wound up with a Maytag quietseries 300. I'm sure I could dig up the model number if you are really interested. I couldn't be happier. Great value for the money, not too loud, good kid lock feature for the buttons, cleans really well. Best prices at Nebraska Furniture Mart. Good luck.

We recently replaced all of our kitchen appliances with LG brand. I love our new LG dishwasher. The dishwasher we found has the buttons on the very top so when it is closed they can not be seen (or accidently pushed by little ones) It also has a feature (no other brand had this)for washing top rack only for when you have a smaller load. Best Buy has a lot of LG appliances and they negotiated price on each one we bought. Good Luck

D. R.

We have a Fisher/Paykel one that has two separate drawers. We absolutely love it. You can run both drawers at different settings, at different times, etc. You don't have to wait to run out of forks before you run it since they get filled sooner with it split in two. I think they retail about $1000, but we got ours new from a clearance thing for $600.

We got a Kenmore Elite for Christmas from Sears. It's the best dishwasher I've ever had! It was a little pricier but worth it because I don't have to wash my dishes before I wash my dishes! It even has a food disposal at the bottom. It's cut my dishwashing time in half. LOVE IT!

I have a Kenmore that we got at Sears about 7 years ago. It works great! I don't pre-rinse or any of that and it gets the dishes clean. I've had absolutely no problems with it, either.

DON'T get a Frigidaire Ultra Quiet III. We have to get the dishes spotless before they go in or the food will never come off. Also leaves spots on our dishes unless we use a special powder along with the dish detergent, but I think that is just from having very hard water.

I've had a few dishwashers, so i feel semi-pro in that department;-)
Most Maytags are good. I have a Viking right now, I love it, but only got it to match my other appliances. I have to say my favorite was the Kitchen Aid. I think we got it at Best Buy, they deliver and hook it up and most the time you can get that stuff free! I am not sure wy I loved that one so much, but I do know it fit almost every dish from every dinner or party I ever had in one cycle! It was great. My MIL lives in our old house with my old dishwasher and I find myself rearranging the dishes, because she doesn't utilize the space as well as should could ;-0

Hi E.!

I wouldnt buy anything LG. We have a LG frig and dishwasher and have problems with both of them, unfortunately they were extremely expensive and we pretty much bought them for looks, figuring if they are that expensive they would work good....nope! We have had our dishwasher for a year now and it used to be whisper quiet and now it makes a horrible noise. We have warranties but apparently that doesnt mean anything, they came out and looked at it and said its normal.....hmm horrible noise normal! AND they said if they dont find anything wrong they should charge me $175 for coming out, even though I bought the stinkin warranty! Yeah I didnt let that fly! So thats what Im stuck with. Also ALL the cycles on it is two hours! There is no way to make it shorter, its ridiculous. But our oven and microwave its Frigidare and they work great!

Hey E. - We recently (last August) bought a new Kenmore Precision Wash Quiet Guard Standard at Sears Grand in Liberty, MO. We love it. My husband installed it himself without any issue. It has nice extras but not a ton that we don't need. I love that it has two spray arms. It really gets the top clean. Our old one still worked but it didn't seem to get that top level clean. This one has a built in disposal so that it grinds up any little food particles and washed them away so they don't end up on the top of your dishes. I will say that if we overload the top it doesn't get them clean but that is our erro not the machines :) It is pretty quiet and I love that it has a delay feature that allows me to get it ready to run but it doesn't start until 2-4-or 6 hours later. So it will kick on while we are in bed and be all ready to empty in the a.m. Hope this helps and feel free to email any questions. I researched forever before deciding on this one. We have a fmaily member that has it as well and hasn't had any trouble. Reviews seemed to be pretty good. We got a great deal at Sears on the price. I want to say it was under $300 on sale. - D.

I would avoid GE. We had a builder-grade dishwasher when we built our house and it recently broke down after only about 4 1/2 years, and we are far from "hard" on our dishwasher. We replaced it with a Whirlpool which I am happy with so far. It is much quieter and has the silverware rack in the door which opens up much more space for dishes. We'll see how it holds up!

We have a maytag and its pretty loud, but works ok. I know that Factory Direct Appliance in lenexa has a clearance center with dishwashers, if you want to save a little money by getting one that's scratched or whatever. Good luck!