db54's Full Review: LG LDS 5811 24 in. Built-in Dishwasher
Initially, this dishwasher did everything it was asked to do. The features and functionality was plentiful and it did a great job on cleaning the dishes. It has super capacity and ran quietly for awhile. Then we noticed a small on occassion leak under the door and the drying was not fully drying the contents. Like many people we ignored the noise and the occassional leak until it turned into a flood. There is a reason why LG has discontinued this model. 1st and foremost it is a fire hazard waiting to happen and under the right circumstances can cause someone to be electrocuted. With two different repairman charging (figuratively and literally) over the hill (one the place where purchased and the other a "LG" authorized service) we were told that LG knows about the many problems of this unit and ought to have recalled it for a number of reasons but are hoping they would limp over the warranty line w/o major incident.
It seems that the wires/harness inside the front door can and do meld to the door due to shoddy insulation due to the heat generated. As such, the wires can have their casings melt or break due to the door opening/closing. In our case two wires were exposed meaning that electirical current was free flowing and needed to be electirical taped.
Their is a gasket on the bottom of the door that can and based on comments heard throughout does lift causing the leak that people speak of. There is noway to replace this gasket and requires a door replacment as informed by both. Since the wires were fried their was suspect that the upper control board would also need replacing as when the wiring has a problem there can be "bogus" errors such as OE (drainage problem) or allowing the drainage to run more than the general 2 minutes. In and around 5 minutes the OE light will generate and thus creates an issue with the Pump and the water float.
So a call is placed to LG Support who at first tell me it is completely out of warranty according to their official records for both parts & labor. One even went so far to tell me that the warranty starts at date of Manufacture ('06) for this unit.
It get's better - after I locate my owner's manual and advise them that it is one year labor and two parts - they still argue this point with me. I give one of them the Book ID number who verifies it with another area and determines the "official information" they are using is wrong.
Now back to the repair - their Tech Support rep says it can be repaired (or as the certified rep who inspected it - said be prepared for this as anything can be repaired but I can't guarantee if it will work properly as we are replacing pretty much every major component) but the labor is out of warranty but the parts are in warranty. The estimate of labor is anywhere from $300 - $500. Their cert SrvcRep said it ought to be replaced and the LG Tech Rep said that's the Customer Srvc Rep call. Except the CSRC kept pointing the finger back to their Techincal guy saying, "they said it can be repaired".
The mistake we may have made is not buying an extended warranty on this... and of course, we don't know what damage has been done to the floor.
What is problematic is that they evidently know about the product and even one CSR indicated, it appears we are rebuilding the entire dishwasher and you will have a new one when it is done... presuming all the parts work and let's not forget about the labor cost. One item he did not mention is that in 26 days hence the parts warranty would end and if any of the parts failed after thant - parts are no longer covered.
Worst Customer Service & Product I have ever experienced todate!
----Updt 7/3/09---
a couple of the advisors thought it would be further helpful if I described some of the features and functions. Frankly as I write these and think back over 23 months prior it would be nice if the product maintained it's quality & reliability.
Granted, these are the items that one looks for initially followed by the general experiences of others that are incurred in terms of product & support. Since we are 23 months into it, I would hope that when one reports, as I did above, that a number of major components have failed, it seems senseless to backtrack but for those interested -
The DW has the capacity for 12 place setting on the lower rack. One of the problems however of the lower rack is that the rollers are as sturdy as one thinks and easily break as the LR does not seat easily when pulled completely out. It also appears to put pressure on the lower door. In addition the lower rack has adjustable angular tins but care on these is difficult especially with teenagers doing the loading. The 3 piece bottom cutlery holder had some nice openings for larger items and standard utensils. One item that was cheap was on one of the catches as it breaks very easily.
The upper rack can hold a ten place setting and has a nice open cover rack on the right side where you can load smaller glasses plus placing larger untensils (i.e. grill utensils) on top of them. With the ability to adjust the racks (good and bad as sometimes when you pull them out, getting them to seed correctly can be a chore.
I never measured the energy guide but supposedly this unit will use 350kwh/yr when it was rated. fyi 194 is the low end and 531 the high end according to USGovt.
The dispenser had two features for main or pre-wash. We used the main wash most often and noticed at times that the dispenser would not open at times. We are still not sure why this happened. One nuisance item is that the pushbutton controls are on the fornt and if one accidently leans over it for something on the counter they can easily disrupt the programmed operations.
One of the nicer features is the delayed start and the capability to do a half load. The added features of being able to do a sanitary and extra rinse was useful at times. More often than not - it was Power on - Normal and that typically runs for 213 minutes. The Quick Wash typically ran for 113 minutes. While at times the various spray wash mondes of soak, power scrub, normal, & delicate played a role. Power On - Normal was typical even if on delayed mode.
There is an idiot light to depict if the Child Lock setting is on but with the potential for being shocked (see original update), I'm not so sure about this child protection feature.
Overall, for those prior 23 months we were satisifed (even though it grew noisier as time went on) as it did a great job with cleaning the dishes. As reported above, the 1st warning that we should have picked up on was the incomplete drying and then the water leak.
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