Kenmore Dishwasher

We made our first major post-wedding purchase. We bought a dishwasher, because ours had been on its way out for awhile. Being research fanatics, we bought a subscription to Consumer Reports to research brands. After learning about some of the checklist features, we liked the LG a lot for its low water usage and lower energy usage. We also really like our LG washer and dryer. After talking to some of the salespeople at Best Buy and S.K. Lavery (a local appliance store), we were convinced about the unknown history of LG dishwashers. Funny how it didn’t bother us when we bought the washer and dryer. Ultimately, we had some gift cards for Sears, so we decided to buy from there.

When you’re looking for a dishwasher, you’ll pretty much find they’re all very similar. The major things to look out for:

  • Efficiency: Water and energy usage vary a lot, so keep an eye out for these statistics.
  • Stainless Steel Tub: Stainless doesn’t hold odors or stain like ceramic or other types of interiors
  • Heating coils or not: The Bosch models don’t have a heating element exposed in the tub. We’ve melted a number of stirrers, Nalgene bottle caps, and other things that slip out of the bottom rack, so we dislike the exposed element.
  • Adjustable top racks/utensil trays: Flexibility is the name of the game here. Some models, the Kenmores in particular, have racks that can be adjusted without removing it.
  • Noise: This seems to be a big selling point but we think it’s overrated. The quietest models will cost you a bit more.

There are incidental things, too. Appearance is one place you have choices. There are stainless exteriors for those of you that want to match your Viking stove, and there are hidden controls for those of you that want to have your appliances just blend into the cabinets. You can get panels for many of the models to really blend into your cabinet finishes.

One other thing: most modern dishwashers have a grinder that chops up food. The Bosch models have a filter system that gets most food but also needs to get cleaned out.

We looked at the various options and the different came down to a Bosch or a Kenmore. Kenmore appliances are actually appliances made by other major manufacturers with Sears specific tweaks or additions, so we were actually looking at a couple of Kenmores made by Whirpool and one Kenmore Elite made by Bosch.

After finding out about the $100 rebate on delivery for buying a Kenmore Elite, we decided to get a Kenmore Elite. The two models we considered were a Kenmore Elite (#13752) made by Whirlpool (with a stainless steel interior, some water saving features — sensor wash, which Consumer Reports says may not be all that water saving) and a grinder OR the Kenmore Elite (#16302) made by Bosch with the sensor wash, a stainless interior, no heating coil inside, and the food trap/filter instead of grinder. Both had adjustable top shelves and numerous other fancy features.

After considering both, we went with the Kenmore/Bosch. We liked the no element design and the simplicity of the look. The Kenmore version of the Bosch was a bit cheaper. The adjustable top rack was also a big draw because it could be adjusted without removing the whole rack. Since we load our dishes over two or more days before running the dishwasher, this made the most sense. We’re not going adjust the height with a half-loaded top rack if we have to take it completely out.

So far, we’re pretty happy, but have found some reasons to second guess our purchase. We did our first load last night, and it does clean pretty well. One glass had some schmutz on it this AM, but overall it seemed to do a nice job of cleaning. One drawback is the drying. The dishes seemed to mainly be dry, but the whole interior of the machine was quite wet. It stayed wet, too. The manual suggests propping the door open after the cycle to help the dishes in drying, so we’re wondering if this is going to be a recurring problem. We’re worried that it might start smelling in there with water droplets on everything, stainless steel or not. We’ll write an update when we find out more.

The salesman did mention that the Bosch doesn’t have an exhaust vent (for the air inside) unlike most of the other dishwashers. Perhaps it’s more important than we realized.

Speaking of the salesman, our salesman was one of those guys who says, “I’m not pushy, because I want you to be customers for life,” but at the same time, he maybe had a bit too much info, info that wasn’t 100% accurate. Some of what he said didn’t match up with what we’d read on Consumer Reports. He also seemed to be pulling water usage quotes out of thin air.

We were pretty dissatisfied with Sears’ service. On top of the less than fully informed salesman, he assured us we would have our new dishwasher installed by Friday (we purchased on Wednesday. He said we’d get a call the next day. We didn’t. We got a call Friday afternoon after we called Sears, and delivery was set up for the following Tuesday.

– Heidi & Sujal