Product review (3 stars): Extremely quiet dishwasher, but doesn't always get your dishes clean
We bought this dishwasher because the one that the builder included with our house in Florida, another GE model, was too noisy. GE consumer affairs offered to buy back the builder installed unit, and asked that we pay the difference, which was about $200. The major positive about this unit, is that it's so quiet; you'll question whether or not it's actually running. As for cleaning capability; I'd give it a C+, as it doesn't always get the dishes completely cleaned. We called GE and they sent a representative to our house to determine why the dishes weren't always coming out as clean as we would like. I had to endure a 10 minute lecture by the technician, who stated that the reason why the dishes weren't being completely cleaned, was because the water temperature going into the dishwasher was only 118 degrees. He stated that ideally the water temperature should be around 140 degrees. When I mentioned that it would be dangerous to set the hot water heater at this high of a reading, he said that if I wanted the dishes clean; I had no choice. Out to the garage I went, and raised the temperature on the hot water heater. Since it didn't have a setting for specific temperatures; I kept raising it, than checking the water with a probe type thermometer. When it finally reached 140 degrees; I loaded up the dishwasher and let it run the entire cycle. There wasn't any change at all. The dishes still came out with residue left on them. Now, I completely wash off any food debris from the dishes prior to putting them in. I also lowered the hot water temperature to its original setting. Now, since the dishes are basically clean when I put them in the dishwasher, they come out clean. The bottom line is that the only advantage to using this dishwasher over the original one that we had, is that it's almost totally quiet. Other than that; it does a mediocre job at cleaning our dishes. Our Florida house has hard water, so that may be an issue, however our NY house also has hard water and we don't have the same problem with the dishwasher we use here.