Dishwasher - repair or replace?

[Marcel Birgelen]

To be honest, no, I don't think it's fine if I'm spending like EUR 2000 on a washing machine to get a sealed, cheap-o plastic drum that needs a complete replacement for any failure, including the bearings... And it's not like this is made from some space-age composite material that's 5x as light and 100x as strong as a classic stainless steel construction, it's just sad and another formerly good brand down the toilet.

[Marco Giustini]

£2000 for a SEALED drum is not good for sure. I'd hope at least Miele would have the bolted one.

In terms of sturdiness, I'm not a material engineer but wouldn't think that metal is necessarily better than plastic?

[Marcel Birgelen]

I'd also not call myself a material engineer, but I've done stuff with materials. . According to the guy who replaced those it's quite clear that the plastic ones fail far more often than the metal ones. Since they're not extruded from one piece of plastic, they're glued or otherwise welded together. It's one of those seems that failed. You see, those things are subject to quite some centrifugal forces over the years... The glue coming in contact with aggressive cleaning agents probably also won't help.

Anyway, they've traditionally constructed those out of metal for ages and only quite recently swapped over to plastic. It's clear it's a cost cutting measure, not a technological improvement...

[Harold Hallikainen]

I think consumers are very price driven and will often buy the least expensive product available (unless it's an iPhone). Manufacturers used to promote reliability to gain brand loyalty and future sales. Now the brands are licensed out to whomever will pay with no concern about destruction of the brand's value. A more reliable product can probably be made for a higher price, but with consumers tending to buy the lower priced product, production volumes of the higher priced products increase, further increasing the sales price. Can a manufacturer make it by advertising reliability (like a 10 year standard warranty) instead of useless features (like WiFi on your refrigerator)?

A company that rates products for repairability, supplies tools, parts, and instructions for repairs is https://www.ifixit.com/ . They are located in San Luis Obispo, CA, where USL was located. I'm very impressed with them.

[Leo Enticknap]

...instead of useless features (like WiFi on your refrigerator)?

Wandering round Lowe's a few weeks ago, I was astonished to see a fridge with a full sized TV built in to the door! Yours for the bargain price of around $3K. They didn't have the L6-30 plug I was looking for, but at least they also sold a "smart toilet," that can be flushed from an app (it also tracks water usage) and automatically detects whether a number 1 flush or a number 2 is needed, in case the user should forget.

[Frank Cox]

You'd have to be pretty flush to spend your money on something like that.

[Marcel Birgelen]

I do actually like those Japanese space toilets... once you go Japanese... but yeah, local control only please. Although... consider the possibility to pre-warm your seat? :P

Can a manufacturer make it by advertising reliability (like a 10 year standard warranty) instead of useless features (like WiFi on your refrigerator)?

There once was a time, somewhere back in the 1990s when I thought how cool it would be if EVERY device would've have IP connectivity and how you then, could control it remotely...

When I recently bought a new dishwasher, I bought the least high-tech one on purpose. It came with free installation service and the guy who installed it, congratulated me... he had the same at home...

A company that rates products for repairability, supplies tools, parts, and instructions for repairs is https://www.ifixit.com/ . They are located in San Luis Obispo, CA, where USL was located. I'm very impressed with them.

Haven't visited their site in a while, but I have used their instructions before to fix stuff. I also have one of their tool sets, I guess it must be like 10 years old by now.

[Harold Hallikainen]

On toilets, many years ago, the tank was far above the toilet so there was sufficient gravity fed water pressure to do a good job. We've installed Flushmate "jet powered" toilets in our past three homes. Throw away the plunger!

[Marco Giustini]

Can a manufacturer make it by advertising reliability (like a 10 year standard warranty) instead of useless features (like WiFi on your refrigerator)?

I think Miele used to advertise their products as "designed to last 20 years". I am not a Miele owner but I had a look at pictures of one of their high-end ovens with "steam" option and "self cleaning" (not pyrolitic). It failed during the washing cycle, two technicians had to attend and they didn't know what to do. One of them "found" a software update which they weren't aware of and said "see if it works now".

The oven is full of wires, boards, pipes... come on, it's a bloody OVEN!

I can only imagine it's simpler to sell a new gimmick than saying "we used very sturdy materials for the chassis".

Same with software these days. Easier to day "we have this new exciting (and useless) feature" than "We worked hard to polish the existing software to make it run faster and smoother".

On the other hand, my BEKO dishwasher (the cheapest you can find) is clearly "designed to fail". I keep fixing small issues which keep surfacing because of how parts were built. In a normal household it would have been disposed many years ago.

[Marcel Birgelen]

Miele always advertised itself as a German, premium brand, like the Mercedes of the household appliances. And at least their washing machines used to be built like a tank. It's sad to see how so many brands flush their hard earned reputation down the toilet for some quick wins.

Getting back a little onto topic: When I needed a new dishwasher, I read many reviews and bought the simplest ones that got the best reviews on repairability that I could buy over here. Like I said, the installer actually congratulated me... He told me: It's the cheapest and most reliable thing he's bought in a while... It doesn't have wifi or any fancy LCD displays, but it gets my dishes clean without a fuzz and that's all I really care for.

On toilets, many years ago, the tank was far above the toilet so there was sufficient gravity fed water pressure to do a good job. We've installed Flushmate "jet powered" toilets in our past three homes. Throw away the plunger!

Actually, not a bad invention... Saves water since you don't need to flush 5 times, saves time, since you don't have to wait for the water tank to fill up five times...

Yeah, we used to mount them high and let gravity do the work... Those things were still pretty common around here until the 1980s, but those went out of style rather quickly... Nowadays it's hip to hide the water tank into the wall, so that if something goes wrong, nobody can reach the damn thing without destroying the tiles on the wall... Which makes me think that if you built those tanks into the wall already, why not mount them higher? Probably because that would complicate the flushing mechanism....

[Mark Gulbrandsen]

My wife and I were married 25 years ago in June, and as of now we are on:

Our 2nd hot water heater
Our 3rd dishwasher
Our 2nd furnace
Our 2nd refrigerator
Our 3rd kitchen stove*
Our 3rd washer/dryer set

(* - our 2nd stove was still functioning, but we switched to gas and sold it to some friends and as far as I know, they're still using it.)

At the theater, our 1996 popcorn machine is still poppin'. But in my 46 years of theater ownership, we're only on:

Our 2nd furnace (current one is about 20+ years old....knock on wood)
Our 2nd rooftop air conditioning unit (previous one lasted 16 years)

At the store, I have a little mini-fridge (that I originally bought for the theater in 1981) that is still working great. We got all new HVAC when we moved into this building in 2015, and all of that is still working.

So I guess this tells you that yes, home appliances are a little bit crappier than industrial ones.

If you have hard water, that can cause calcium build up and early failure of critical parts like pumps, nozzles, and rotating water connectors. The British seem to be on top of that issue by having a built in water softner. My second home when I lived in Salt Lake City had a water softener, and we never had any appliance issues there over the 15 years I lived there. All I had to do was dump two bags of salt in the Softener tank about every month...

[Leo Enticknap]

I noticed that - dishwashers in the UK have a salt dispenser in them, and supermarkets sell large bags of what is specifically branded as dishwasher salt. I haven't seen either here.

[Marcel Birgelen]

What about this?

Maybe they only sell it on-line...

Over here we have "pre-softened water", as in the entire province we're living in has essentially the same water hardness by mixing several sources together and removing excess calcium before it enters the network. Still, dishwasher salt is essential not just to keep the internal systems free from calcium buildup, but also to have a far better and constant washing result.

[Marco Giustini]

Not just the British, Mark. All dishwashers I've seen around Europe have the built-in softener. I didn't know you could have a dishwasher without it.

That said, the first thing I did when I got my house here in the UK was to install a whole-house water softener. Keeps your appliances clean and saves you cleaning time!

[Leo Enticknap]

My grandparents also had a whole house softener. They lived in a village near the Essex/Suffolk border (specifically, Stambourne, Essex) where the water was infamously hard, and would destroy appliances within a few years without one. They weren't commonplace, though, unless that has changed since I emigrated.

Interesting that Walmart has dishwasher salt online, but the price! The same bag at a Tesco or Morrison's in England would be GBP 2-3. This says to me that there might be a small number of very specialized dishwashers (ones intended for use by restaurants, perhaps?) that have a salt dispenser, but that it is not sold on a significant scale. Dishwashers sold for domestic use certainly don't. I've never had a limescale problem with any of our water-using appliances, including in kettles and the dishwasher in our last home before this one, which had a heating element in the washing compartment itself (our current one does not: it's replaced with a combined water pump and heater that sits underneath the compartment), which is where you'd expect to see limescale build up if it's using hard water.