Product review (1 stars): @#*% this Dishwasher
We needed an 18 inch dishwasher. We looked at the comparable 24 inch machine at Lowes. The reviews on Lowes and some other sites have this dishwasher rated very highly. We also looked at Amazon and considered buying it from here, but Sears at the time was offering 15 percent off the sales price so we bought this dishwasher from Sears for about $650 (excluding taxes).

For starters, it took 6 weeks to arrive, as it needed to be special ordered. That is fine as we knew about that going into the deal. Some stores, like Lowes had told us it would take about two weeks. When I asked the guy at Sears about that, he alleged store like Lowes got the dishwashers from the same place as Sears and they liked to give people a lower than probable estimate as to when the product will likely arrive and then adjust the estimate later whereas Sears tells you when the product would actually arrive. Based on past experiences with Lowes, and with what the Sears guy said, I suspect that this is probably true.

When the dishwasher arrived, it was light and compact enough to easily put in a small SUV (I didn't pay the $50 extra dollars at Sears to have it delivered). I lifted it myself into the back of a Subaru. The dishwasher is beautiful to look at and seems to be sturdy. It is stainless steel inside and out. However, it is not exactly the same as the 24 inch model (as some pictures on Electrolux suggest). For instance, it is missing handles on the inside trays. For me, that was not that big of a deal.

Second, installation was easy enough. However, unlike with the last dishwasher I bought from Fisher Paykel about two years ago for a different house, I had to purchase some hoses and an electrical cord. Apparently, you are supposed to use the hoses and electrical cord from the old dishwasher, but there was no dishwasher there before. Not that big of a deal, but still a pain. We ordered those things on Amazon for better quality parts at a lower price than the boxed stores by us.

After installation, the dishwasher worked great. I really loved this machine. For its size, it holds a lot of dishes, and does a real nice job cleaning them. In some ways I found I preferred this small dishwasher to the large ones. I found we were filling the dishwasher up every day, and running it. That meant there were no dirty dishes that we wanted to use just sitting dirty in the dishwasher. Another nice feature I like about the dishwasher is it displays this pretty blue light underneath the unit to tell you when the dishes are done. It also is fairly quiet as far as dishwashers go.

This love affair lasted for about six weeks. '

All the sudden the electronic control panel froze after running a load, and after about ten minutes the lights started blinking. Resetting the machine by unplugging it did not solve the problem. Moroever unlike the Fisher and Paykel dishwasher I purchased before, the instructions did not tell you what the various combinations of blinking lights meant. I couldn't find this information anywhere.

So, I called up Electrolux. To its credit, the customer service was friendly. The representative spoke English. She gave me a list of repair people in the area to call, which I did. About three days later the repair guy came out. About two hours before he came, I plugged the machine back in and all the sudden it was working. Go figure. Shortly after the cycle started, however, water came rushing out from underneath the unit. This didn't happen before, but I had removed the floor plate earlier to look under the unit, and suspected that maybe it was releasing water before, but I just didn't notice it.

So, the repair guy came, and found that the basin holding the filter was not properly secured. He speculated that the water was coming out the basin, and it caused some sensor that detects low water to trip thereby shutting off unit and displaying the blinking lights I encountered. So, he secured the basin, and the dishwasher did in fact operate properly. That is until later that night, when the blinking lights and frozen control panel problem reoccurred. We called the repair people again. Three days later, another guy showed up and said he thought the control panel was toast. He said he had to order the parts, which would take about 5 days. Currently, we are waiting for the parts to arrive. So, we waited a month to get this dishwasher. It worked great for about six weeks. Then it was out of commission for about a week. It then worked for half a day. Now we are waiting for a week for it to possibly work again.

I called Electrolux to express my dissatisfaction. The representative claimed that at this point all they could do is repair the machine. She, however, did agree to extend the warranty by six months.

I read online that some other people are experiencing the same problem. For some of them, they had to remove the dishwasher, tip it on its back, access some panel, and tighten it. I am capable of trying that myself, but I don't think I should have to for an $800 dollar dishwasher (even though I paid less). It will be interesting to see if replacing the control panel fixes the machine.

UPDATE: I raised my review one star. The machine is fixed, and working great again. Three weeks running now. Had I not had issues I would rate it five stars. When working it really does do s great job.

The repair guy told me it likely was a design defect the company knew about and fixed with the new part it sent. He also told me a Korean company makes all of the 18 inch dishwashers and the name brands just design things like the trim and controls.

As previously said, Electrolux did pay for repairs and extended the warranty by six months. They also gave me an extra year warranty that covers just parts on top of that.

UPDATE 2: OK this thing has to be the worst dishwasher on the planet. When it is working it is great. However, now every few days the control panel has a light that lights up and freezes. When this happens nothing one can do will fix the issue. Generally in about a day it will start working again. Right now it has been out of commission two days. This machine makes me want to do unspeakable things. It has to be the worst overpriced purchase I have ever made. Go with the BOSCH.