Horrible Dishwashers, but good customer service :-\
Written: Apr 02 '02
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Pros: Quiet, reasonably well built, good styling.
Cons: MANY! Doesn't clean or dry for starters!
The Bottom Line: A horrible piece of junk. My condolences if you're stuck with one!
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| dr_michael's Full Review: Kenmore 15872 Dishwasher |
I really wonder about Consumer Reports. This isn't the first occasion I've bought a top-rated product, only to be horribly disappointed.
Just to clarify, the dishwasher I bought was the Kenmore 71919. As best as I can tell, this is essentially identical to a whole slew of other current (2001-2002) models: Kenmore, Kitchen-Aid, AND Whirlpool! Only minor differences exist between them -- e.g., stainless/plastic, racks and accessories, number of cycle types, front-panel... In fact, after studying the technical sheet that came with the unit (which covers about 25 basic models - many more with all the variants!), I figured I could probably add a couple of "high-end" cycles simply by wiring in a couple of switches!
The only good news is that Sears was quite responsive to my problems, sent over three service people, of which the last two were highly competent, and finally, replaced this junker with a Maytag, that, while having problems of its own, at least cleans and dries reasonably well! That *is* the main criteria, n'est pas? They even gave me a $100 refund to compensate me for having to do two installations.
What follows is basically my original letter to Sears, with a few added comments:
I recently purchased the Kenmore model 71919 from you, and I'm afraid I must say that I'm quite unhappy. The problem list seems endless.
My first concern was that the heating element was not being submerged. After getting various explanations, it seems that this is correct after all. Seems an extremely inefficient way to heat water. (Yes, the water just falls back over the element for heating.)
The so-called "Ultra Wash" system doesn't seem to be functioning in any useful sense. Even when washing an extremely soiled load, the machine never runs any purge cycles. The only times it has are when I've purposely put in a whole bowl of leftover stew. On the two occasions I did this, it ran 1 and 3 purges respectively. Also, it's clear that ground-up dirt just gets sprayed back onto dishes -- purge or no purge. There is also food sitting in the pump assembly which has been there for several washes... (Yes, the wonderful soil sensor is so poorly designed that it does NOTHING. The Maytag's sensor works like a charm. And, ground-up food does not get filtered -- just re-sprayed onto the dishes.)
The unit simply does not clean that well. The top rack in particular is very poor - a combination of low pressure from below, and poor coverage from above. Even the bottom rack is pretty poor. (Both racks have spray arms below, but the topmost sprayer is just a little spinning disc in the center. One service person told me its main purpose is to spray debris out of any pools of water that collect in dishes, but it didn't even do that!!! I was using the heaviest-duty wash cycle too. The added downside is that this uses more energy, and wears out your machine even faster. The pressure of the water from the middle spray arm is so low that even a light plastic container in the upper rack is not budged by it.)
It dries very poorly, even after shaking off excess water by hand after the last rinse. I just assumed all decent machines had exhaust fans, but obviously not. The decrepit 20 year old Maytag that this machine replaced washed and dried far better. *Noise* was *its* only weak point! (Seems very few machines these days have vent fans (Though they *do* use misleading terms like power-vent or active-vent, which simply means that the air vent closes during operation to reduce noise!!!). For some reason, this stupid machine keeps its vent CLOSED during drying, opening only at the end of the heat cycle! The Maytag opens as soon as the rinsing is done.)
The unit was missing the basket lids when it was received. *One* of these has since been sent.
There have been 2 service calls for this machine. The second tech suggested replacing the motor/pump and APF sensor. This does not seem to have helped anything.
The manual has errors. Examples: 1. The pots/pans cycle NEVER runs a rinse after the first wash. 2. The normal cycle always seems to do WWRR. I've never seen it do EITHER of the cycles described in the booklet.
I find the cup shelf poorly designed, in that it retains water when up, then easily dumps it all over the floor. (I removed THOSE! It couldn't even clean things sitting right on the top rack. As if it could do anything to an item sitting on the higher-up cup shelf!!!)
Installation was a bit of a nightmare. There's so little room to use a wrench when tightening the water supply connection. (Yes, it has a nice big tub, but I can live with a bit less as a trade-off for a doable installation.)
Well, other than all that, a great little machine. What action do you suggest?
(The fact that the sales guy at the Sears store told me no one else had complained just goes to show how sheepish most people are, or perhaps they simply don't notice how poor the machine is, or don't expect any more from it...??? This is simply a poor, poor, poor design.)
Recommended:
No
Amount Paid (US$): about 600
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Epinions.com ID:
dr_michael
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Location: Ontario
Reviews written: 5
Trusted by: 0 members
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