Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Domestic appliance conspiracy theory

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Posted by Leo Enticknap (Member # 534) on 03-18-2016, 12:06 AM:

Last November my wife and I moved house, and in the process doing so bought a new washer, drier, fridge and dishwasher in a Thanksgiving sale at one of the big home improvement store chains. She was able to negotiate a hefty discount on top of the sale prices for buying all four appliances in one transaction, too. I thought this was too good to be true. And sure enough...

About a month later, the drier failed - motor control board burnt out. The guy who came out to look at it under warranty didn't even have to open it up. When I described the symptom he told me that this board had failed, they did so in this model "all the time" and that he'd have to order a replacement. It was over three weeks before it arrived and was fitted, with us having to hang our clothes up to dry in the closet all the while. Not fun.

On Tuesday morning, the dishwasher decided to take Donald Trump's advice, and go [insert verb here] itself (and yes, it was made in Mexico). We left a cycle going overnight, and in the morning, there was a pool of rancid, slimy water in the sump at the bottom, and pressing the start button for three seconds to tell it to empty only gave me a buzz from a solenoid trying to make the pump run, but failing. Same thing again: repair guy came this morning, listened to me describe the symptom, diagnosed a failed drain pump without feeling the need to investigate any further, because they are well known for failing on this model, and I guess we'll be washing up the old fashioned way for at least the next week (also not fun: we have a one-month old baby, whose bottles and related paraphernalia generate a lot of washing up).

So, my conspiracy theory is this. If a manufacturer has a model of reasonably big ticket domestic appliance that they know has a faulty part of a known design flaw, but still needs to shift several thousand of them, do they do a deal with one or more big home improvement retailers to get rid of them in sales and special offers, factoring in to the math that, say, 15% of them are likely to fail under warranty and need a service call? Maybe we've just had an unlucky coincidence in that two of these things have broken down (all we need now is for the clothes washer and the fridge to go out, to make it a grand slam). But the fact that on both occasions, it was clearly a widespread problem that the service tech had encountered many times before, plants a seed of suspicion in my mind.

Posted by Harold Hallikainen (Member # 5405) on 03-18-2016, 12:13 AM:

And, will you ever buy that brand again? Brand loyalty used to be a big thing. Now stuff is very price driven. Remember "Zenith... The quality goes in before the name goes on..."

Harold

Posted by Frank Cox (Member # 6258) on 03-18-2016, 12:23 AM:

Most appliance brands don't actually mean anything any more. Anyone who's making appliances can rent a respectable brand name to put on it, since people are more likely to purchase a known brand of washer or air conditioner than they are if it's a Hong Fi Sing Electric appliance, even if it was made on the same assembly line.

For example, both Westinghouse and Electrohome now exist only as a brand name for rent; they don't actually manufacture or distribute anything any more (as far as I know).

Posted by Harold Hallikainen (Member # 5405) on 03-18-2016, 08:38 AM:

I wonder if there's any sort of quality requirement when you rent the name. The owner of the trademark would really lose the value if someone rents it and ships crap.

One line of defense on this is the retailer. If consumers would just return stuff that doesn't work instead of throwing it away, the retailers MIGHT stop buying the stuff.

Harold

Posted by Dustin Mitchell (Member # 372) on 03-18-2016, 08:43 AM:

That goes for a lot of things, Frank, not just appliances. The summer after I graduated from high school (more than a couple of years ago now...) I worked at a canning factory. We canned green beans, and I worked in the canning house (very hot and noisy, not an ideal job for July!). Anyway, the beans would come in from the building where they were sorted for size and the bad ones were picked out, then, in the canning house they were cooked and either cut into your normal cut green beans or sliced lengthwise to make French cut beans. Once they were in the cans and sealed they went on to the warehouse where they were labeled and placed on pallets.

I was curious what brand of beans we were canning (it wasn't obvious from the name of the company) so I asked one day. It was explained to me that we canned several brands, usually in the same day from the same trailer load of beans. When the warehouse was supposed to switch from putting one brands label (say a store brand) to another brand on the can, the supervisor in the canning house would use a can of spray paint to mark one of the cans in red.

I almost always buy store brand goods now. Occasionally I will notice a difference between the store brand and name brand of a certain product, and if it's important enough I'll buy the name brand instead, but that doesn't happen often.

Posted by Mitchell Dvoskin (Member # 751) on 03-18-2016, 09:08 AM:

Sharp flat screen tv's in the USA are not longer manufactured or sold by Sharp USA. They licensed the name and related trademarks to a Chinese company. I'm not saying the Chinese versions are necessarily bad, but they are not Sharp.

Posted by Rick Raskin (Member # 1561) on 03-18-2016, 01:58 PM:

Ditto for pineapple. My brother-in-law once worked at a canning house in Hawaii. Same pineapple, different labels.

On knowingly selling defective goods: Think of the class action lawsuit possibilities if it could be proven. You see these ambulance chasers all over TV when it comes to drugs.

Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 03-18-2016, 03:30 PM:

Why didn't you mention what brands/models they were so others can avoid them?

Posted by Tony Bandiera Jr (Member # 2365) on 03-18-2016, 03:39 PM:

Leo, this is one time when you need to name names...which brand of appliances? Some are notorious for issues, others not so much.

As for dishwashers....make sure you google search "dishwasher fires" there were several brands made by Whirlpool that suffered from frequent control board burnouts (sometimes severe enough to damage more than the appliance.) The problem was hopefully solved...it seemed that most were made from 2004-2010 or so..

Oh, and all of the new "Energy Star" dishwashers, as Joe would say, suck ass. They take 2-3 times longer and don't get the dishes clean as well as the older ones. I just picked up an older GE tall tub model at the thrift store for $20 in very good condition. It is a circa 2005-2007 by my best guess. It is not an Energy Star model so I expect it will do a decent job.

I have a Samsung front load washer going on six years old with no real problems (only thing was a drain pump that failed, most likely because it froze in the moving truck when I moved up here, cracking the impeller magnet..but that was a $60 DIY fix, part was easy to get and install). My sister has used LG for washer, dryer and fridge with no issues.

It all depends on brand, but as others have pointed out, many brands are really made by one manufacturer and rebranded. (I am pretty sure that Samsung and LG are made by the same Korean manufacturer.)

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 03-18-2016, 04:04 PM:

When we got married (in 2000) we bought a Maytag refrigerator. It's been repaired 4 times, each time being a problem that made it just stop cooling. After losing a fridge-full of stuff for the 3rd time, we bought a small fridge that we now keep in the garage in case the big one craps out.

The icemaker on the big fridge still works, but the water dispenser will not currently dispense any water. We're holding off getting that fixed until something else quits.

About 6 years ago we bought a Whirlpool washer/dryer. After about 3 years the washer started being really noisy whenever it would spin. I thought it was just a bearing going out or something, probably simple. But rather than calling the repair guy in, we visited the store where we got it, and described the symptoms. He said it indeed sounded like the bearings in the motor were going, but you can't replace just the bearings, you have to replace "the whole assembly" and he said given the machine was 3 years old, it'd make more sense to buy a new one than fix the old one, since it would only be a couple hundred bucks difference. I said, "You mean washing machines only last 3 years now?" He said they can last 3 or 10 or 15 years, but "when they go, they go." But he also said we should keep using it until it just quits -- which could be tomorrow or two years from now. So we decided to go that route. Now, it's three years later, and the thing is still working fine, except it's still really noisy during the spin cycle.

There's only the two of us in the house -- I hate to think how quick the washer would have gone down if we had several kids and were doing laundry every day.

On the brighter side, there was a KitchenAid dishwasher already in the house when we moved in almost 16 years ago, and it's still working like a champ, as is the equally-old Hotpoint water heater. I have no idea how old either one of them really are.

Posted by Leo Enticknap (Member # 534) on 03-18-2016, 04:12 PM:

Tony - I'm reluctant to name names (either the store or the appliance brands) because I've speculated about the possibility that both may have known that these things had known reliability issues, but sold them regardless. I've got absolutely no hard evidence for this - just smelling a rat, because both breakdowns were due to a part failing that the repair tech had seen fail many times before and told me was a well known problem with that particular model.

However, were I to name names, I wouldn't be surprised if a nasty lawyer's letter were to follow. The megacorps all have software bots trawling the net for anything negative said about them, alerting their lawyers if they find anything, and that's not a risk I want to take.

quote: Mike Blakesley
On the brighter side, there was a KitchenAid dishwasher already in the house when we moved in almost 16 years ago, and it's still working like a champ, as is the equally-old Hotpoint water heater. I have no idea how old either one of them really are.

My mother moved into her current house in 2000. It had previously been a rental, and a Zanussi washing machine and a Hoover dishwasher were left there when the landlord sold the house to her. They were clearly nowhere near new at that point - I would guess of early 1990s vintage, and well over two decades old now. Both machines are still going strong (or at least they were, when I was over in England last December).

Posted by Steve Guttag (Member # 268) on 03-18-2016, 04:22 PM:

Why worry? If what you say is true, it isn't slander. More like the brand should worry about how fast their negative actions would go viral in this internet/social media world.

Posted by Mark Hajducki (Member # 1732) on 03-18-2016, 08:35 PM:

In the UK there have been a number of incidents with Hotpoint, Indesit and Creda (owned by Whirlpool since October 2014) tumble dryers catching fire.

Whirlpool's response has been criticised:

From BBC News

quote:
Owners of tumble dryers requiring repairs in a fire safety campaign are being told they must wait 11 months for their appliance to be fixed.

In November, Whirlpool - the owner of the Hotpoint, Indesit and Creda brands - revealed the massive repair campaign following fires in owners' homes.
Initially, those with affected models have a 10-week wait for a call from the company.

They then face a long waiting list for a technician to visit their home.

Posted by Leo Enticknap (Member # 534) on 03-18-2016, 08:47 PM:

Oh, what the hell. The tumble dryer is a Samsung, and the dishwasher a GE.

I wouldn't mind guessing that a lot of the tumble dryer fires were caused at least in part by their owners failing to clean out the crud filter ... ever.

Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 03-18-2016, 11:00 PM:

YOU FELL FOR OUR TRAP! I am a lawyer representing Samsung and Steve represents GE. Guess who's getting sued? We'll wait until Monday though.

Posted by Rex Oliver (Member # 7593) on 03-19-2016, 02:16 AM:

Besides movies adn movie equipment-I regularly visit an appliance forum site-they too love or hate new machines.I don't care for them-what is with a dishwasher or washer that takes 2-3 hrs to complete a cycle-Isn't the machine supposed to save you TIME by you not having to do the job?TIME is a more precious resource than the water or power as far as it goes to me.I now shop for appliances at the thrift shop-or swap shop as they are called here.Esp for dishwashers or washers.and in the NC area thunderstorms kill many circuit boards in machines.And the "spin-sploding" incidents involving both LG and Samsung TL washers.Most of these are user errors--but since the machine is "sophisticated" shouldn't it at least prevent iteself from being destroyed?

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 03-19-2016, 08:58 AM:

quote: Rex Oliver
what is with a dishwasher or washer that takes 2-3 hrs to complete a cycle-Isn't the machine supposed to save you TIME by you not having to do the job?TIME is a more precious resource than the water or power as far as it goes to me.

The point is, you don't have to spend your own time doing the dishes. Who cares if the machine takes longer than a human? I'm watching TV while it does the work.

Posted by Tony Bandiera Jr (Member # 2365) on 03-19-2016, 11:14 AM:

That is true Mike, but the problem I have with the new gen dishwashers is that because they have to run longer, they use over DOUBLE the electricity of an older model machine....

In many areas, the electricity costs a LOT more than the water does. (Very true here where I live.)

And as I mentioned before, they don't clean worth a damn. (To get truly clean dishes from a new d/w, you HAVE to pre-rinse so much that you've now wasted MORE water than the old units used ..so double whammy.) And THAT is also more wasted time. (also note that they "save water" by using half of what the old ones did, so your dishes are simply being run longer in twice as dirty water.)

Leo, thanks for naming the brands. I am surprised that the Samsung dryer had issues..

And to everyone who has newer appliances....a very wise investment is to add whole-house surge protectors to your main breaker panel (and if you have a subpanel serving any appliances, add one there too) as well as point of use (ie plug in) surge protection to 120v appliances.

Most brands of breaker panels make "plug-on" or circuit breaker style units that use two spaces in the panel. Those are an easy DIY install. If you have no open spaces in your panel, there are "hardwired" versions, but those require an electrician to install. (Even so, that added cost is, IMHO, still worth it to protect your appliances ...as a bonus, ALL of your home electronics get protected as well.)

Total cost for the protectors will be around $100-200 total, well worth it.

Posted by Randy Stankey (Member # 64) on 03-19-2016, 12:44 PM:

The way I understand, most household appliances are made by two companies, Electrolux or Whirlpool and they are basically all the same except for, maybe, exterior design and the brand label. All the companies we used to know like General Electric, Westinghouse, Tappan, Amana, etc., etc. have been bought and sold so many times that nothing remains but the name and the label that gets slapped on as the product rolls off an assembly line.

It's same with the consumer electronics brands we all used to know like RCA or Zenith. They exist in name only. The same with Polaroid. You can't really buy an RCA product, anymore.

So, it doesn't surprise me to hear somebody say that "XYZ" brand appliances suck... because they ALL suck... they are all the same except for the label.

Posted by David Buckley (Member # 2600) on 03-19-2016, 02:48 PM:

These American brands, yeah. But Samsung are a Korean company, and thus aren't part of this conglomeration of brand names.

Posted by Justin Hamaker (Member # 2165) on 03-19-2016, 03:31 PM:

I'm currently shopping for a washer and dryer, so I've been paying attention to product reviews. Especially looking for anything which suggests any particular brand or model has a high failure rate.

In the big picture, I think this is a product of using the public to beta test your product. Putting it out for the general public without having taken the time to test it and make sure it works - especially in a real world environment under normal day to day usage.

Posted by Leo Enticknap (Member # 534) on 03-19-2016, 04:09 PM:

I'm not passing judgment on the reputation of individual brand names, here. An otherwise reputable brand that usually has good quality control associated with it can have a bad day with a design decision on an individual model (Ford Pinto, anyone?) or a part that went into a complete production run, and started to fail prematurely once in the field. I'm not willing to write off an entire brand on the basis of one bad experience, even if the brand name were a reliable indicator of who actually made the thing.

I have to confess that I was wondering if this was what happened here. This model of Samsung dryer was released, sold at the full price as a gleaming new model, then the motors started to go out in significant quantities, and Samsung thought, "Oh, bugger - we've got another 256,098 of these sitting in the warehouse - what do we do with them? I know - make Home Depot and Lowe's offers they can't refuse to take them and sell them as sale or special offer items. Let's say that 20% of those then fail under warranty and we need to pick up the tab for someone to come out and replace the motor. OK, so we split the cost of that service call and motor across every 5 units that we sell wholesale - job done." 80% of the customers end up happy, and the 20% that don't are a PR bullet that just has to be bitten.

As for dryer fires, I can't believe that the filters don't have some sort of air flow sensor in them that shuts the things down if the filters get clogged. I once tried to use ours after my wife had run it for 5-6 cycles without cleaning the filter. I couldn't understand why my clothes were still a bit damp after an hour on the "hot as Hades" setting. Then I investigated the filter, and the lint coating on it was literally too hot to touch. No air had been getting out, and so it was basically circulating superheated steam in the drum. I thought at the time that this can't be particularly safe.

Posted by Louis Bornwasser (Member # 3063) on 03-19-2016, 09:22 PM:

Consumers Reports is your friend in these matters.

Posted by Randy Stankey (Member # 64) on 03-19-2016, 09:23 PM:

quote: David Buckley
These American brands, yeah. But Samsung are a Korean company, and thus aren't part of this conglomeration of brand names.

The same with Dishlex, Simpson, Volta and others. They are all owned by the Electrolux Group, based in Sweden.

Samsung is but another worldwide conglomerate that owns many industries from consumer electronics to shipbuilding and construction. I don't know which arm of the "Samsung Group" makes home appliances but I don't think it's the same part of the conglomerate that makes cell phones.

In the U.S., Sears company sells the Kenmore brand of appliances and in Britain, the John Lewis company sells their own house brand. Both of them are just OEM by Electrolux.

I bet you a nickel that, if Brad wanted to sell a line of home appliances, all that would be necessary would be to pay the right monies to the right people and sign a stack of contracts then, in a short time, we could all be buying "Film-Tech" washing machines and refrigerators. Brad (or whomever the hypothetical businessman) wouldn't have to lift a finger to do any manufacturing or logistics. If he played his cards right, I bet he wouldn't even have to do his own advertising.

Today's consumer appliance industry is, literally, "Lick 'Em and Stick 'Em." Items roll off an assembly line from some factory in a third-world country where they literally slap labels on the boxes before they load them into shipping containers bound for parts unknown.

Posted by Leo Enticknap (Member # 534) on 11-16-2016, 06:58 PM:

Our Samsung washing machine, bought as the same too-good-to-be-true Black Friday sale last year, has been recalled, because there have been incidents involving this model self-destructing during the spin cycle.

What with this and the incendiary batteries in their new cellphones, Samsung's brand image has gone from reliable if unspectacular, to avoid-at-all-costs deathtrap in less than a year. Out of morbid curiosity I'd be interested to know if anyone was involved in the design of both products, if just a senior executive signing them off.

I am also very unimpressed with the way that they're handling the recall. You complete a form on their website and are then emailed a PDF form to complete, print and mail in, onto which you're supposed to stick the serial number label from the bad machine, and enclose a copy of the receipt for the replacement you buy. Then they send you a check. Disposing of the bad machine is entirely up to you: they do not collect it. So I bet that there will be lots of people out there who mail in their labels, buy a new machine, and then give the old one to a friend, sell it on Ebay, give it to a thrift store ... in short, it remains in use and capable of disintegrating and hurting someone, or worse. Samsung should have been more proactive in making sure that the bad machines are actually taken out of use, IMHO.

Posted by David Stambaugh (Member # 1102) on 11-16-2016, 10:12 PM:

I have a GE front load washer that has a serious bug in its vibration-control software. Once in a while it gets stuck in an infinite spin cycle loop where it thinks it can't rebalance the load. It stays in a very slow spin indefinitely. When this happens you cannot interrupt the cycle or pause it or anything. The front controls are dead and the washer will continue in this mode for hours. The only way to stop it is unplug the power cord or flip the circuit breaker. Then you can start a spin-only cycle.

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 11-16-2016, 10:26 PM:

When we got married, our house had a water heater that was already pretty old just going by the looks of it. The former house owner didn't even know how old it was. It finally bit the dust last week, after we used it for 16 years. I'll be curious to see how long the brand-new one lasts. Anybody want to put any bets?

Posted by Martin McCaffery (Member # 37) on 11-18-2016, 08:08 AM:

^^^^ Warranty plus one month [evil]

Posted by Sam Graham (Member # 2889) on 11-19-2016, 04:46 PM:

quote: Mitchell Dvoskin
Sharp flat screen tv's in the USA are not longer manufactured or sold by Sharp USA. They licensed the name and related trademarks to a Chinese company. I'm not saying the Chinese versions are necessarily bad, but they are not Sharp.

That's true about most TV manufacturers not named Samsung, Sony, or LG today. But in most cases, the manufacturing is all the Chinese companies are doing...the design and specs are still with the manufacturer.

I have one of the last Philips TV's actually manufactured by Philips in my bedroom.

Posted by Jim Cassedy (Member # 4115) on 11-19-2016, 06:10 PM:

Waaaaay back in the early 1970's, when I was in High School, I worked,
for a short time, I worked in the "small electronics" section of
a regional department store.

One of the things we sold were a line of not too expensive clock radios
sold under names like Soundesign, General Electric, and the store brand.

But if you opened them up. . . they were all EXACTLY the same radio, but
sold under different brand names. The only difference was that the chassis
was punched with multiple holes so that one brand could put the knobs on
the top, or another one could put them on the side, in various configurations.
Same with the loudspeaker placement. The chassis was designed so that the
small speaker could be on top, the side or the bottom.

But electronics-wise, they were exactly the same radio.
(But you paid more for the "GE" radio than you'd pay for the Soundesign
or store branded version of the same radio)

I suspect this was true of many appliances. Some time in the late 80's,
Consumer reports published a chart which in which you could look up the
model number of your TV and find out where it was made.

Once again, the chart documented that a couple of Japanese and Korean
companies (at that time) were making the bulk of the TV sets sold
under various electronics and department store brand names.

And, just as in my 'clock radio' story- - the difference between many of
the brands were simply cosmetic and a model number change.
Internally, many were exactly the same.

Posted by Louis Bornwasser (Member # 3063) on 11-19-2016, 08:32 PM:

I've got a Fridigaire STOVE. Think about it. Seems to work OK though.

Posted by Dustin Mitchell (Member # 372) on 11-21-2016, 01:04 PM:

In defense of contract manufacturing (and to contradict my earlier post, somewhat), it is true that often times the difference between brand names is simply cosmetic, but it isn't necessarily the case all the time. Just because two products are made in the same factory doesn't mean they use the same parts, even if the designs are very similar.

Sometimes they are, of course.

Posted by James Wyrembelski (Member # 9037) on 11-21-2016, 01:35 PM:

I intentionally find older appliances for this reason.

I have a Kirby vacuum I use regularly for the house. Model dates it back to 1963 and have used it continuously for 10 years with 0 problems other than replacing the belts. Cleans just as well as any new model and actually lifts the carpet up for proper cleaning. Everyone else i know has to replace theirs every 1-2 years at 200 a pop or has to buy expensive new filters. No thanks.

We had to replace our old fridge last year. This new GE already has a fan with a bad bearing....caught that after seeing the inside temp at 60 degrees. Ugh.

Posted by Sam D. Chavez (Member # 1841) on 11-21-2016, 03:08 PM:

quote: Louis Bornwasser
I've got a Fridigaire STOVE. Think about it. Seems to work OK though.

So you are cooking with an oxymoron?

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 11-21-2016, 03:57 PM:

quote: Louis Bornwasser
I've got a Fridigaire STOVE. Think about it. Seems to work OK though.

My mom had a Hotpoint refrigerator while I was growing up. I always wondered about that.

A house I rented had an International Harvester fridge. That thing was a workhorse... I don't even know how old it was when I moved in there around 1986. I lived in that house 14 years and never had to repair the fridge. It's probably still there.

In contrast, our state of the art Maytag (The Dependability People®) fridge that we got for a wedding gift in 2000 has had to be repaired 4 times and the water dispenser on the front is currently not working. We just got our 3rd washer/dryer set and a new water heater. I'm expecting the stove or dishwasher to go next. Hopefully not both at once.

Posted by Mark Gulbrandsen (Member # 72) on 11-22-2016, 04:40 PM:

quote: Harold Hallikainen
And, will you ever buy that brand again? Brand loyalty used to be a big thing.

Brand loyalty in this buisness is still a very big thing. When I arrived on the cinema scene in the Mountain States I was very much pushing Dolbly equipment. Come to find out that a (very) higher up at Dolby had treated some of the larger customers out here rather poorly. So they all bought USL instead. I believe I did just two 8 screen multiplexes with all Dolby out of the close to 50 locations I worked on. When it was time for everyone to go to D-Cinema I still could not get Dolby into any of these customers theaters and the JS processors all got replaced with JSD-100's and later some JSD-60's. People remember being treated poorly, and then people always buy the same where they had tremendous luck with the product and support.

Mark

Posted by Bill Brandenstein (Member # 7758) on 11-22-2016, 11:03 PM:

Ouch. Was Dolby ever the wiser for how effective their anti-salesman was?

Posted by Marco Giustini (Member # 4544) on 11-26-2016, 06:32 PM:

it's quite clear to me that manufacturers these days just try and cover issues which they fix with the 'next model'. If they are lucky the customers will give up and not create too much hassle and they go on and put the costs of R&D to fix the issue on the following model.

Possibly, they also give that new "feature" a fancy name so they sell more.

I usually spend ages online before I buy something and sometimes that is not enough. I usually only look at bad reviews, looking for trends. If 50 people are all complaining about the same issue, it does not matter whether there are 2000 people saying the appliance is fabulous, those 50 people are probably right.

Posted by Scott Norwood (Member # 30) on 11-30-2016, 09:13 AM:

Online reviews are great, in principle. In reality, sometimes people get defective products and/or get quality products that they don't know how to use or use for the wrong purpose. These people tend to be the loudest voices in any list of online reviews. People who buy a product that works as intended are less likely to post a review than people who are unhappy and want a refund or replacement unit.

On the topic of appliances, my dishwasher (a late-1990s Whirlpool-made Sears) died about six months ago (it started to get noisy and leaky). My landlord replaced it with a Bosch. So far, the Bosch has been terrific. It is very quiet and does a much better job of cleaning the dishes than the Whirlpool model. My only real complaint is that it is much slower (150-minute cycle time vs. 90-minute cycle time). It holds more dishes, though, so this is not a big concern for me.