Ahh, where to start. I guess a little background would be in order. I've lived in my home for 40 years now, my parents built the house and we moved in when I was about 10. I just installed our 5th dishwasher. Initially we had a builder's grade 1965 Hotpoint, that did a poor-fair job - it lasted about 5 years. It was replaced by a top of the line Kitchen-Aid Superba. It lasted about 15 years and did a good job, but it too succumbed as the Hotpoint did of a rust out problem. In those days most dishwashers were porcelain coated steel and rusted out where the pump and heating elements came in. At this point I installed a top of the line GE 2800. This was one of the most informative units I've ever encountered the display screen gave a variety of info, even indicating if the wash arm was blocked, all in all a very good machine. The wash-arm indicator however was part of it's downfall, after about 13 years it went bad and it thought the arm was blocked so it stopped the unit. At that point the gaskets and seals were failing and the interior was streaked with black rubber smudges - time to go. It was replaced with another GE, a GSD 4810. This was a very good performer, it wasn't top of the line as the unit it replaced, but it was rare to find a dirty dish after a cycle. All of these models had the wash tower and it we learned how to work around it. A few weeks ago the latest GE sprang a leak in the neoprene sump and as happy as I was with it's performance this and the fact 8 months ago it would randomly flood the kitchen and the finished basement below, meant it was time to go.

I searched the Internet, bought Consumer reports that just did a dishwasher review this month (Feb '06), and looked at my options. I was a little disappointed in the last GE only functioning 8 or 9 years so I focused on other brands. I really do not like stainless interiors, it makes the inside of a dishwasher look like a dark pit in my opinion, plus I see no advantage to stainless, I've never had a stain in the plastic units and we use lots of tomatoes and beets - typical things that might stain. I look at stainless as a ploy to boost the price of a unit with no real benefits. That said, I hit my local retailers, looking at models including Whirlpool, GE, and Bosh.

I decided on the Whirlpool 2500, mainly because I have a year old Whirlpool top of the line refrigerator ( see my review...) and a Whirlpool G3 micro-oven that I really like, both have organic rounded doors (for some reason Whirlpool doesn't offer this design in dishwashers). Added to that was a number of features I though would like. The lower rack design was flexible, allowing the back section to be used either for dishes, or flipping part of the rack back large pans dishes, or flipping the second part of the section back, creating a flat surface for large pots or whatever. In addition to the silverware rack could be mounted in the door, on the outside of the basket, or in the basket along the side. This option freed up the entire lower rack for maximum use. The salesman said the unit was quite quiet, in line with other tall tub units. This all looked good on paper and in the store.

I saw the unit at Sears, price was $625, I shopped around and found the identical unit on Lowe's website for $477, Sears did the price match so I was happy with the price. Most of my other appliances are bisque, and Sears had to order that color in, took about a week and a half for in-store pick up. I patched up my old dishwasher and it worked OK for that time. I installed the new unit and ran a short cycle to check the unit out. I was astounded by the noise level. My old GE was quiet, at most you could hear the water swishing past the door. This unit had Whirlpools "Quiet III" sound package, to me it had no sound package. I checked it out again, running another cycle to see if I could quiet it down. The unit went through part of a cycle and then stopped with the "Normal" light flashing. That was it. I pushed the clear/drain button and the unit would drain. I tried another cycle and the same thing happened. Basically the unit died after one cycle.

I went to the store and spoke to the salesman. He suggested I call a repairman and have the unit fixed, I said I was not about to buy a new unit and have it repaired the first day I owned it. He agreed to order in a new unit, and it was quicker to have it delivered, so he arranged to do that and have the old unit picked up too. Normally there is a delivery charge and often Sears has a mail in rebate to cover this cost, but he got the charge waived, Sears is a very good place to shop and I can't fault their customer service in any way. I had replaced the defective unit with my old dishwasher during the 10 day wait for the replacement, I again uninstalled it and put the Whirlpool in place. It was still loud so I bought a Fermco rubber coupling at Home Depot, these are used to join cast iron drain pipes as well as other pipes and are thick rubber. I cut it up and placed it under the units contact points, the wheels in the back and the legs in the front. This tamed the noise to some extent but not enough. My old GE had a very heavy blanket of insulation which I then cut up and stapled to the inside of the cavity the unit occupied. The Whirlpool does come with a very thin blanket too. To this I added several chunks if 3" insulation the old GE had on the access panel at the bottom. After this the noise level was acceptable, I called it an upgrade to "Quiet pack 3.9".

I used the unit for about a week, found it hard to load, the tines that hold the dishes are straight where the GE design had a little bend at the bottom that allowed the dishes to stand up straight rather than tip over as in this unit. Also the silverware basket is awkward. I assumed it was just a learning curve since the design was substantially different for the units we've been using for 25 years, and that may be the case. The first thing I noticed was the door mount option for the silverware basket was very impractical. The way we work in the kitchen is to open the door of the dishwasher part way and drop used utensils in it, we could not do this with the basket in the door. I repositioned the basket to the front of the rack, and it was OK, but it is very narrow and it is difficult to aim right, so we basically had to open the door most of the way to drop a used fork or knife in, kind of annoying. That issue led to another major issue with this unit, the silverware just didn't get clean. The dishes were fine but the design of the basket has a solid back so the water can't flow through the basket. To unload the silverware I had to lay down the basket - it's too narrow to stand on it's own when loaded - and open the front panel, again awkward. Then I would find pieces of food laying in the basket, not what I would expect from a Whirlpool unit, and gritty stuff on much of the silverware, reminding me of our 1965 Hotpoint!

After a week I sent the unit back and I ate the 15% restocking fee, There were just too many issues with this unit. To recap: It is noisy; It is awkward to load (for me...); The first unit was dead out of the box as other here have mentioned; Silverware basket is had to use; Silverware does not get clean; Kind of boring styling. Look elsewhere for a good unit.

Read as my saga continues with my review of it's replacement, the GE 7800.

Recommended: No

Amount Paid (US$): 451

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