Is anyone else's dishwasher as crummy as mine is?

In My Humble Opinion (IMHO)
#1

I have a 4 year old dishwasher, from Admiral. Since its installation (I installed it myself – this could be the problem, see below), it has regularly redeposited food particles on the dishes. At first, I had to use only Cascade Complete Advanced soap (any other brand, and I had to put in roughly twice as much soap, filling both buckets and dumping some in the bottom), and all was good, as long as it was loaded properly. Now, it is pretty typical that I have to re-clean (ie soak and wash) probably 25% of the dishes that come out of the washer.

I have made sure that the washer hose arcs up higher than the disposal drain.
I have run the water until it was blazing hot (even though I have a heated wash option, which I use) out of the tap.
I have run a dishwasher cleaner through it (Dishwasher Magic).

The problem seems to be worst in the right front (top rack) corner, where glasses go. There is almost ALWAYS something redeposited there, sometimes so much it’s like “EW” because it’s all over inside the glass.

Now, I installed this washer myself. I am pretty sure I remember levelling it when I put it in, and it still seems level. I hooked it up to the old washer supply line, which worked fine for our older, less efficient, washer. What other tips does anyone have? Do I just have a crummy washer? It is not a “builder’s grade” model, with only one spinny washy thing…it has three, one on the bottom, one in the middle (under the top rack) and one on the top (above the top rack).

If I can avoid paying $500 for a new washer, I will be happy. If I have to pay $500 to get a decent new washer, I will be less happy.

Thanks in advance!

#2

Do you rinse and scrap off crud from the dishes before loading the dishwasher?

That’s all I got!

#3

Is it then downhill all the way to the drain? No dips where water collects? I had to go out of my way to accomplish this when I put in our dishwasher.

Also, is there some food filter screen in the dishwasher that could be plugged with bits of food?

#4

You’re not supposed to have to, with a modern dishwasher.

ETA - sorry, you’re not supposed to have to rinse.

#5

I have a dishwasher that is not even 2 years old, that I had a lot of the problems that you describe with.

No matter what I did, this stupid thing would NOT get dishes clean. I’d put coffee cups in the @#$@# thing and they wouldn’t come clean. It seemed to get worse over time, too. I had paid nearly $1K for the stupid thing, so I was very mad.

I called the manufacturer, and they told me that this particular model required rinse aid. WTF? I’d never used rinse aid in my life. But it was worth a try. I bought rinse aid, and I bought those little Finish brand gel capsules that include rinse aid in them instead of the Cascade liquigel I’d been using.

It fixed everything. I couldn’t believe it was so simple. The thing works like a beauty now.

So if I were you, I’d check your manual and see if your model also requires rinse aid. If that fails, call the manufacturer, explain your problem, and see what they say.

#6

Mine doesn’t work very well, either. It’s kind of old, although I’m not home right now and can’t check what make it is. I have to wash about 1/4 of the stuff that comes out of it after washing, but I think that’s more because I live alone and run it once a week at the most, so the stuff sits in there for a while.

#7

Yeah, if I have to stand there and rinse a plate within an inch of its life, I figure I might as well add some soap and wash it.

#8

I have a friend that actually does this. I literally watched her with my mouth hanging open cause I could not believe my eyes. She fills the sink with hot soapy water and uses sponge to wash off every dish and then puts it in a dishwasher. She said she had always done it that way. :confused:

#9

Cascade Advanced Power already contains a rinse-aid. This is the only detergent I use.
So far as I can tell, there is no cleanable food filter thingy. It is self cleaning and not accessible. There is nothing in my manual about how to clean it. Beleive me, I looked.

I am scraping large hunks of stuff off, and if I have oatmeal or something particularly nasty, I do rinse it out first. The manual does recommend rinsing off dishware that has tomato sauce on it, I assume because it can cause discoloration of the inside of the dishwasher.

The hose does have a dip, it practically forces you to have one because of the way they route the hose and zip-tie it to the little hanger areas on the washer itself. So, yes, it does dip below the disposal area, but it connects to the disposal at a 60 degree angle or so from above (in other words, the dip is well ahead of the area where it cinnects to the disposal. Regardless, I typicaly run this wwhen the disposal is clean clean clean, because if I don’t, the water doesn’t drain fast enough and I get a bunch of icky crud backing up in my sink.

#10

Also, I have used rinse aid in the past, but it does not seem to make a difference in the cleanliness of the dishes.

#11

Ahh, you’re a friend of my mom’s. According to her, dishes are not clean unless you’ve done that and run them through the dishwasher. I hold to the “it’s not clean if it hasn’t been through the dishwasher” part of that philosophy, at least for dishwasher-safe items. But that’s probably just because I hate hand-washing dishes.

#12

I realize asking this question makes me like those tech help people who ask you to check that your computer is plugged in, but do you rinse out the crud-trap thing often? I don’t know the real name, but there’s a little basket thing that should be filtering out solid particles, and if it gets clogged, our dishes don’t get clean.

#13

a) That’s what the advertising staff would like you to believe. It’s too good to be true. Pre-washing is the key. As Gallagher jokes “Dirty dishes in, hot dirty dishes out!”
b) Our poorly-designed Whirlpool (sold under the Sears brand) is smartly made so your dirty dishes will block the dish detergent dispenser from opening. The door used to be made to swing open parallel to the inside door’s surface. But no, some boob decided to re-design this door so it swings open perpendicular to the door where it is readily blocked by the dishes. The only way around this eats into precious loading space! But, hey, who needed dish detergent, anyway?

#14

Mine’s useless. It takes forever and doesn’t do a good job. I run it once a year to make sure it still functions. Otherwise it doesn’t get used.

#15

You’re buying the wrong dishwasher then. I’ve never had a dishwasher (except the one I mention above before I figured out my issue) that I’ve had to pre-wash anything except for really chunky stuff. Like, say, plates with bits of lasagna noodles & tomatoes on them. Even then, I don’t really need to rinse, it’s just that I risk finding bits of noodles stuck in my silverware basket or something.

And yes, sometimes really dirty pots with roasted-on food won’t always come clean. But it’s a 50/50 thing; if I wash on heavy duty a lot of the time what I thought would not come clean does.

If I had to pre-wash, I’d get rid of the dishwasher and buy a new one.

#16

Do you use an actual rinse aid? Like, fill up the little rinse aid thingy with liquid rinse aid? That’s what I wasn’t doing. Switching from Cascade to Finish was a minor change.

At the very least, check your manual and see if a rinse aid is required. Honestly… I can’t tell you how huge of a difference this made in my dishwasher. I was ready to throw the thing out, now it works like a charm.

#17

I wish I could remember what brand my last roommate’s dishwasher was. It was AWESOME. It wasn’t new either, was second hand, at least a few years old, but you could put absolutely ANYthing into it and it would come out sparkling.

My current dishwasher consists of my hands and a sponge and good lord, does that dishwasher suck.

#18

My dishwasher works perfectly: my own two hands.

Actually, I have room in my kitchen for either a dishwasher or my 19th-century Singer treadle sewing machine (in working order). The sewing machine won.

#19

My dad is morally offended that I don’t rinse dishes. I tell him it’s a waste of water and that a modern dishwasher isn’t supposed to need it, but he thinks it’s just because I’m a slovenly slattern or something. (He also thinks that the reason I don’t go to church is that they have it in the morning and I’m lazy. Possibly that I’ll go to hell because I think making beds is stupid.)

#20

Do you have a rinse and hold cycle? Mine has, and it is recommended if you are not going to use the washer sycly for any length of time.