Where Are The Wise Men?

When we moved into our house last summer, we knew that the dishwasher would be the first appliance to go. Not only was it old, but it didn’t wash very well. At all. Things were left on the plates that should have been washed off and none of our glasses shined. So we put it on the short list. And, in mid-January just before all of Gina’s family came, it’s pump quit working. We didn’t replace it immediately — we decided to wait and see if Uncle Sam was going to return some of our money to us. Well, he is and so we started on our hunt.

We got on Consumer Reports and figured out what we needed to spend to get the things we wanted and what brands to avoid. In case you are wondering, just because Dishwasher A is more expensive than Dishwasher B doesn’t mean that A is better. It may have more features, but it may not clean as well over the long term.

We looked at a few different stores, but we couldn’t fine any knowledgeable sales people. We ended up going to Sears and found a very smart salesman. He recommended the Kenmore Elite 16264. It was quiet, has many features and differnt kinds of wash cycles. He compared it to a Bosch, which is the cream of the crop in dishwasher these days, and you pay for it (we couldn’t afford one with some of the things we required.)

So, after some debating, we bought it then. Why the rush? Because we were able to have an intelligent conversation with the sales guy about that dishwasher and the sale ended that day. However, Sears didn’t have the cream color we wanted, so we chose black.

When we got home, we looked at that model’s Consumer Reports rating (yeah, after the fact!) They rated it as an excellent, so we knew that we were in good shape.

I picked it up and installed it this weekend. When I took it out of the box, I didn’t note that it was cream instead of black, but Gina did. We think the sales guy found a cream one after the fact and switched the order. Plus one for Sears customer service!

The installation was pretty easy (once I got the new supply valve on, but that’s a different story and really has nothing to do with a dishwasher). Loading it was much easier than are old one — no hole in the middle to load around and the plates fit in very well. Even our bowls, which have been a pain in our last three dishwashers loaded very nicely in the top rack.

But how does it clean? Very, very well. We haven’t seen our coffee cups, plates and glasses shine like this before. Gina noted that it is a pleasure emptying the dishwasher now because you don’t have to worry about your dishes being clean — you know that they are.

Really, you can’t judge a dishwasher after one weekend of use — instead, you should do it a year or two after you get it. But on first impressions, we highly recommend a Kenmore Elite to anyone looking for a higher-end dishwasher.

This entry was posted on Monday, February 13th, 2006 at 1:35 pm and is filed under Life. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.