Product review (3 stars): Not bad, but not great
I have been using my Bosch dishwasher for almost four months now and wanted to drop in a review. I will preface my review by saying that I realize this dishwasher got top marks online (on Bosch's site as well as another major appliance vendor). Because my household experience hasn't mirrored others' rave reviews, I tired to post my review on Bosch's web site. Interestingly, Bosh didn't post my review after several weeks. I tried posting it twice with various edits, but my review was never posted. So I'm posting my full review here on Amazon.

I had been using a Whirlpool Gold dishwasher for about nine years. It worked extremely well, but in the last two months of that time, the motor started going bad and it got so loud that my wife and I couldn't hear ourselves talk in the kitchen. So before it finally stopped working, we decided to get a new dishwasher.

I researched Consumer Reports and various online reviews before settling on the Bosch SHE55R52UC. Consumer Reports had this unit rated very highly, but it didn't get the recommended label because it was a bit more money than the sister model. But I elected to go with the SHE55R52UC because it had a better sound rating (I probably just wanted the quietest unit I could find after experiencing the last two months of my Whirlpool's life).

I'm going to list the pros and cons below, but I want people to fully understand that these are my personal views. Some of the cons I list may not be cons for other people. Overall, the unit does what it's supposed to. My one-line summary would be that the Bosch trades off excellent noise and power savings over usability and cleaning ability. If I had to do it all over again, I probably wouldn't choose this same model. And I would definitely try to see, in person, the next dishwasher I buy before I actually buy it.

 Pros:

- This unit is extremely quiet. The noise dampening material is the same material home builders use for high r-value insulation. It's also often used to sound-proof rooms. There is actually a little red light that shines on the floor to tell you when the unit is working. I think this red light is a bit of a marketing gimmick since you can actually hear the unit running if you're standing right next to it, but I can see how it's helpful if you're far away and want to know if it's still running or not.

- The internal construction looks very solid. I'm crossing my fingers that it'll last for more than ten years.

- It holds a ton of plates. The tines for the plates are pretty close together, and this allows for it to hold a lot of plates.

- The silverware basket is nice. It can be long and rectangular or folded to be square. You can also flip a flap so that the silverware are turned upside down (I've found that they get very clean this way).

- The top rack is removable to allow you to wash very large items (this is a nice feature, but I doubt I'll ever use it).

- There is no heating element. The Bosch relies on residual water heat to evaporate and dry off. I like this because it saves energy. I've always just air dried the load in my Whirlpool by opening the door when the wash finished.

- Controls are hidden on the top lip of the door. This is nice if you have small children who like to press random buttons.

 Cons:

- Compared to my old Whirlpool, the Bosch is smaller- both inside and out. I noticed the outside was smaller because it slid into the same space and had a lot more wiggle room than my Whirlpool. The inside is also smaller.

- While having the tines closer together allows me to put more plates into the racks, it makes putting larger items in a little more difficult. I'm finding that the Bosch holds a slightly less overall load then compared to my Whirlpool. We often wash big bowls and Pyrex bowls, and it's really hard to get a lot of them into the Bosch.

- The Bosch doesn't seem to clean as well as my old Whirlpool. The Bosch isn't bad by any means, bit the dishes don't seem as clean when compared to my old Whirlpool. I should note that I've never used rinsing agents and have always just use the Cascade gel detergent in my Whirlpool. I've tried using tablets, powder, and gels in the Bosch and I don't see much of a difference. The end result is that I'll rinse items a little more before I put them into the Bosch.

- I wish the door had some sort of a latching mechanism. To close the door, you just push it hard until it clicks shut. To open, you have to pull the handle hard until it opens. With my old Whirlpool, you would press a latch to open it. I'm mentioning this because if you don't properly secure the Bosch, you could easily pull the entire unit out when trying to open the door. This happened to us where after three weeks of use, the unit detached from the placed we had screwed it into. We had secured the unit at the top to a wood trim that was glued to our soapstone counter top. After too many hard pulls, the wood trim came unglued from the soapstone. So we reattached it on the sides to our cabinets. One could argue that we should have secured it more properly in the first place, but I would reply that our older Whirlpool was used for over nine years and just had simple screw on the top of the unit to a wood trim. I believe that because the Whirlpool's door had a latch, it significantly reduced the pressure on the screws whenever we opened and closed the door.

- Again, this isn't a con, but if you buy this and install it yourself, note that there isn't a pig tail (power cord) on this unit.

As I said from the beginning, this unit does what it's supposed to do. It does a decent job of cleaning and it's extremely quiet. If it was an option, I would give it 3.5 stars.