Dishwasher recommendations?

I hate to buy appliances, it seems like the newer ones don't have the long-term reliability that we would have expected in the past.
 

I need a new dishwasher, anyone have suggestions?

Don't know about new stuff, but we are happy with our Amana dishwasher, 10 years with no problems.  Our dryer is also Amana, also no problems, and so is our washing machine.  None are fancy versions, just the basics.  I'm a believer in simple for reliability, don't need or want a million different cycles.

This seems to come up every year or so and Bosch is always the winner. 

About a month ago, I brought home a Maytag and so far it's amazing.  The sound rating isn't as quiet as others - 50 dBa - but it's basically silent, even directly under it.  Stainless tub, chopper blades, a removable filter basket right in the front, and nylon coatings on the racks.  My mom & dad have a Bosch and it's a great unit.  Slightly quieter than the Maytag and it has a third rack at the top for the silverware.  It's nice, but it's also about $400 more.  And I don't think it's $400 nicer.

There are 9 people in my household.  Nine.  We dirty a lot of dishes and the dishwasher routinely gets ran 3 times a day.  We've bought new & used of several different types and brands over the years.

Trust me, a gently used Bosch is the answer.

(The only downside to Bosch is no heating element to dry the dishes.  We just pop the door open after the cycle and let them air dry)

Bosch has a terrible rack design too. The kitchenaide I replaced with a Bosch last year on forum recommendation could fit way more stuff in at a time and had heated drying. Liked it a lot better than the $1100 Bosch. About the same noise level as well. 

Bosch

In reply to Indy - Guy :

Bosch says keep the door closed and the heat from the cycle dries them quicker. Kitchen Aid used to sell against no heating element, now 80% of their models don't have one...

Our current dishwasher is a Bosch 500 with the 3rd rack. It's pretty awesome. 

I replaced a high-end Kitchenaid (which was perhaps the world's worst ever piece of product design) with the $1100 Bosch model about a year ago.  The only gripe I have with the Bosch is the racks, but part of that is getting used to loading it differently.  At first, I thought the skinny top 3rd rack was useless, but I'm finding things to put up there and it's a pretty handy feature.  Both dishwashers were quiet, the Bosch almost amazingly so. 

My recommendation is Bosch, but the cheapskate in me would also be looking at whatever Costco is selling in the $600 range.

In the last 3 places I've lived I have replaced the plastic tub dishwashers with models that had stainless tubs.  There is a huge reduction in noise going from plastic to steel; I'd never go back to plastic.

I am sure you all know, but at least on my Bosch, the racks are height adjustable. You can move them up/down with a button on the side. 

Bosch dishwasher pump: 

Viking pump:

I kinda love my viking dishwasher. 

Our 10 year old KitchenAid started acting up recently and repeated diagnostics and parts cannon blasts failed to get it to work repeatably.  Wife liked the three rack Bosch units so that's what we have now.  Very quiet though racks to some time to get used to.  

I recommend the electro-hydro-mechanical types of dishwashers, because they make their biological back-ups less grumpy.

I'm probably the only person to stump for GE. I paid a little bit more for mine to get stainless inside rather than ceramic but its 44 db of superb washing. I installed it myself 3 years ago and the only downside I have found is where you pour the liquid jet dry into starts to leak out a bit right before it gets full. It convinced me to get a GE range and front load washer and dryer. All were great out of the box except for the clothes washer. We fought with the supplier through 4 units. The first was DOA the 2nd and third made crunching sounds when washing and the 4th is good.

Hit up a website like CNET and search.  The problem I find is that manufacturers keep upping their game, which means they're adding features and tweaking performance.  It seems like every few months the top rated washer is a GE/Bosch/Whirlpool/whatever.

I buy appliances like I buy cars.  I don't buy new, and I research the crap out of them.  Any test website can take 10 brand new dishwashers, run some dishes through, and test how clean the dishes are.  They can report about how they like the buttons, how well it cleaned peanut butter off a plate, and how it looks, but they can't report about how well they work after 30, 90, or 300 loads.  CNET has unbiased ratings on some used appliances, but the real thing you can look at is how new brands performed over the years.  You might find that Bosch is consistently good while Kenmore has been up and down.  When I bought a new dishwasher with the ex in 2012, Bosch was the favorite.  When I bought a used one for my house in 2018, I got a used GE that was a darling for its time.

Above all, look at the trends for parts availability.  Kenmore (and related) is notorious for proprietary parts.  Most dishwashers have a generic hookup for things like water supply and drain, but Kenmore likes to make you buy only their parts.  They make adapters, but I don't like to play those games.  All of them drop parts supply after a while, but Kenmore makes it so hard to use regular, $10 hoses from Home Depot.

Given the fact that we all likely have an upscale neighborhood in our area, there is someone selling a top-notch appliance with high reliability ratings somewhere near you.  There is someone in everyone's neighborhood who bought a dishwasher three years ago and then did a kitchen renovation and they just have to have the latest trend in smudge-free stainless (or insert whatever trend)

Having said all that rant, I ended up with a used GE.  It works.  It cleans dishes.  It doesn't have bells and whistles.  It takes in hot water, squirts it on dishes, and shuts off.  I paid $100 for it because some swanky couple 20 miles away decided that they didn't want black appliances anymore.  Fortunately, I did.

I've been happy with our LG. The tub is stainless, and the upper rack is adjustable, and it's quiet enough that I need to pay attention to know if it's running once the fill cycle ends. 

I think it was about $400-500 several years ago so it's probably more now. 

Depending on settings the cycle times can be long (3.5 hours for heavy and extra dry, 2 hours for normal) due to lack of heating element, but it does have a night dry setting to cycle a fan periodically and move air around the tub. I normally run it at bed time so the cycle time isn't an issue  

The only times I have trouble with something not coming clean is if someone loads it in a way that the arms aren't able to rotate.