I know we've talked a bit about appliances recently, was hoping for some more insight.

I've posted here before about how our dishwasher is the worst. It's the cheapest GE model you can pick up from Lowe's/Home Depot. This is also the same for the range and the above-range microwave.............cheapest GE appliances you can get from the big box stores. 

We'd like to replace the dishwasher sooner rather than later, but we'd like to replace the range and microwave at the same time so everything still matches. 

As opposed to suggestions for an individual appliance, I was curious about brands as a whole since that's what we'd like to do to keep everything matching in Stainless steel to match the stainless fridge and farmhouse sink.

I would probably say Bosch is the only brand I would be against. The apartment I lived in, in Tulsa when I first got divorced was all super-high end Bosch. The microwave was underpowered (could have just been the wattage, I don't remember now), and I hated cooking with the electric, glasstop stove. The cheap GE glasstop here cooks much better. 

I'd say budget around $2000 for all three? Could go higher. 

We recently replaced with all Frigidaire (dishwasher, range, microwave, fridge).  Would not recommend.  The range is nice; microwave is neither here no there, build on the fridge is so-so, and the dishwasher is a joke.

I've never heard anyone complain about their Bosch dishwasher.  

And I cook on gas so I'm no help there.

KyAllroad (Jeremy) (Forum Supporter) said:

I've never heard anyone complain about their Bosch dishwasher.  

And I cook on gas so I'm no help there.

I have a Bosch dishwasher that I dislike for a number of reasons.  I'm not sure if any of the other brands are any better though.

My GE Microwave is ok.  My whirlpool fridge gets 2 stars.  Kenmore stove gets 3.

KyAllroad (Jeremy) (Forum Supporter) said:

I've never heard anyone complain about their Bosch dishwasher.  

And I cook on gas so I'm no help there.

Small sample size, but my parents and my in-laws have Bosch. Neither like it. 

Z31, how set are you on matching the brand? Do they all need to have the same logo, or just identical looking stainless?

I don't know if that opens up anything more, if there are any with identical stainless, but just throwing it out there as a possibility if you're ok with that. 

Lastly, we are limited to fridge selections by the space that it sits in. I think there were only 4 for us that even fit, last we looked (about a year ago). It may make sense to start there, as you could find that you only have a few options.

The house we just bought is all full of Kenmore stuff. Until now, I've never had a dishwasher that actually worked. 

The in wall oven is too small to cook a turkey in, the electric coil cooktop SUCKS because it's a coil cooktop, but everything does work.

On the flip side, we bought an LG fridge because it was the cheapest available, and my LG microwaves have been spectacular for years. The fridge is fine for a stainless base model top freezer, no ice maker. My biggest complaint is the temp controls take up a E36 M3 load of Room on the top shelf by butting down from the top instead of just being on the back. Can't fit a gallon of milk under it.

Side note... I bought my  recent washing machine (Maytag Commercial) and Induction Cooktop from the website AJ Madison.  No one else could touch their prices.  Most notably, this NYC company did not charge me Ohio (or NY) sales tax.  

For the cooktop, it was just a big box left on my doorstep by FedEx but the washing machine was delivered to my small town by 2 guys in a truck who also brought the unit into the laundry area and hooked up the hoses.  

The huge selection of this site might help you with staying "all one brand." 

KyAllroad (Jeremy) (Forum Supporter) said:

I've never heard anyone complain about their Bosch dishwasher.  

And I cook on gas so I'm no help there.

The Bosch dishwasher was nice as was the fridge. It was an old building from the 20s that had been converted to apartments. So think 12' ceilings and more "loft-style," with wood floors and the super-quiet dishwasher was a blessing. The small washer/dryer sucked too. Couldn't hardly fit any clothes, and the dryer usually took two cycles.

I bought a fridgidaire stove and a GE fridge from a guy who buys and fixes scratch and dent and display models and stuff. 1500 dollar stove for 500 and a 3200 dollar fridge for 800.

I like them both, the stove is really nice but it's gas so that niceness might not apply to their electric stuff.

mtn (Forum Supporter) said:

Z31, how set are you on matching the brand? Do they all need to have the same logo, or just identical looking stainless?

 

I don't know if that opens up anything more, if there are any with identical stainless, but just throwing it out there as a possibility if you're ok with that. 

Lastly, we are limited to fridge selections by the space that it sits in. I think there were only 4 for us that even fit, last we looked (about a year ago). It may make sense to start there, as you could find that you only have a few options.

The reason for the same brand, and then even possibly the same "line" in the brand, is just because we want them to match in stainless steel, but also the design language. 

I bought the house almost 3 years ago, and it was completely renovated before I purchased. It has smoke damage throughout the whole house from a small fire in the attic above the garage. So EVERYTHING is fresh and new, HVAC/water heater/paint/coax cables, dishwasher/range/microwave, matching granite in kitchen, bathrooms, bar area.......................so I really want to maintain the clean, new modern feel of the home. 

Yeah, we had to send our initial fridge back to Lowe's after I mis-measured and we couldn't open the left upper door all the way because of how the door hinged. 

If only I could find a fridge, with a hinge that didn't pivot the door outward as much, but kept the outside surface of the door equal with the outside of the fridge. We really wanted a bottom freezer fridge with dual-doors up top, but couldn't find anything that would fit. And we only need like 2" more clearance. It's frustrating.

Whirlpool Gold

Electric Range: Just fine

Dishwaher: YES! Great!

Fridge: Berk No.

I bought all new Whirlpool Gold appliances in around 2013.  I ordered online during memorial day sales & saved a ton of money. 

The dishwasher was ~$600 and is exceptionally quiet.  All stainless interior.  You don't even know it's running...it's amazing.  The drain pump died a few months ago and I replaced it myself for ~$40 in 10 minutes.  I've broken clips and rollers on the racks, but they were easily replaced.

The Whirlpool stove is fine (has convection feature). Nearly burned my house down shortly after buying it, but they replaced it under warranty.  The tech suspected the ground wire was connected incorrectly (my contractor was awful, so I wouldn't have been surprised).

The Whirlpool Gold french door refrigerator has been awful.  It was relatively expensive (~$3k) and the latest/greatest thing when SWMBWO insisted she must have it.  Bad design (avoid ice in door setup), engineering flaws that create issues. I've bought the extended warranty in three year chunks (<$90/year) since new, which has been amazing.  It's a pain when to have it fixed every six months, but the repairs have cost me nothing (warranty is through Whirlpool/AIG)...so I'll keep patching it up.  It does have an awesome feature where it'll custom pour water w/the click of a button. You can place a glass in the fill shelf, click the button, and it'll fill your glass w/the number of ounces you type.  Silly...but really nice once you have it.

I honestly believe that all residential appliances have been value engineered so hard that they all are terrible.  What I mean is that every brand will have someone who has had a bad experience because every single aspect of the machines have a Safety Factor of 1.01 to failure so they work great if you have good water, load the right amount of stuff in them, don't leave the door open too long, and don't cycle the microwave door to much. 

Case in point:

For laundry We have duet sport front loaders that have been adequate however after 8 years of use the pushbuttons on the touchpad are cracking and the panel is just coming apart.  Like the membranes the buttons are made of has fatigued and is now failing.  This isn't abuse, or bad environment (they are in an airconditoned laundry room) but they need replaced and the boards are $140 each so tape will do.  Otherwise they are excellent machines.  

For a microwave we have a wirlpool over the counter that has a special flush open door.  I've had to replace the momentary switches in the door closure 2* in 5 years or the thing won't work.  But it will Microwave the E36 M3 out of things when it works.

We have a LG glass top convection oven. It cooks food so fast and good.  But a known problem with them is you can only use self clean 1-2X before you melt the control board / display on the back panel  and it fails.  We've replaced it once and just don't clean the oven with self clean anymore.

My brother has a Samsung refrigerator with in door ice maker.  If you leave the door open for more then about 12 seconds the ice maker will start to accumulate moisture and freeze the agitator mechanism that dispenses ice.   You have to leave the door open for about 30 minutes to get the ice maker warm enough to not just refreeze..

My recommendation is buy from a store that actually services appliances and has a 10 year in house warranty.  Generally they are $50-100 more then Home depot but if they fix something for you 1x per appliance you will be money ahead.  Also buy the model that offers the least features for a given $$.  Basically inverse value shopping.  If you can't believe that GE can offer 2 ice makers for the price of a Samsung with 1 it's because they can't.  Some aspect of the GE will be garbage to get the zippy feature..

Sorry that turned into a bit of a rant.

Related dishwasher rant.  My Bosch is pretty quiet.  One of the new(ish) silent style dishwashers.  But I noticed as it gets older, although the motor and everything is fairly quiet, the sound of water splashing inside it is quite noticeable.

I can't imagine water splashing has gotten any louder, and the insulation is all intact.  Is this just a case of me noticing it more as time goes on?

z31maniac said:

KyAllroad (Jeremy) (Forum Supporter) said:

I've never heard anyone complain about their Bosch dishwasher.  

And I cook on gas so I'm no help there.

The Bosch dishwasher was nice as was the fridge. It was an old building from the 20s that had been converted to apartments. So think 12' ceilings and more "loft-style," with wood floors and the super-quiet dishwasher was a blessing. The small washer/dryer sucked too. Couldn't hardly fit any clothes, and the dryer usually took two cycles.

By washer/dryer do you mean a single unit? As in a hybrid washer dryer? Because those things suck in pretty much any brand. I'm yet to see one that has a drying capacity of much more than half of it's washing capacity. Meaning that to have a hope in hell of drying anything you need to take half the load out so you can dry half a load at a time.

On dryers, we just picked up a Bosch heat pump dryer. Reviews had us a little uneasy because there seems to be a bit of chatter that they don't dry things properly. As suspected though, it seems to be that people have an inability to read and follow instructions and adjust to 'different', which is where alot of the bad feedback comes from. It's definitely not the same as a standard clothes dryer, so that hot, crispy dry feeling you get used to with a standard dryer isn't there, to the point that the first load we both felt like "E36 M3, people were right, these things don't dry too good" After a couple of cycles though, we learned that everything is dry, it's just not cooked, things are softer than they've been in years. It's also stunning to see just how much water we used to have steaming up our laundry.... removing all that moisture and condensation from the laundry room is worth the entry price alone.

As for keeping things all one brand, outside of asthetics, I don't see any advantage to it. Few, if any appliance manufacturers make an awesome everything. In our last kitchen nothing matched brand wise, but the stainless was all close enough. Unless you're planning on selling the place soon, I wouldn't worry about being matchy, and even then, I don't think it's a deal breaker if you use that things look similar.

In reply to daeman :

The were separate, but stacked units in a tiny apartment closet. When I say they sucked, they could effectively was a few pair of socks, boxers, a couple of shirts, and one pair of pants.

So I was basically doing two days worth of clothes every two days, so I didn't spent an entire weekend day, trying to wash a weeks worth of clothes in 3-4 loads. Because on top of the tiny capacity the cycles were really long too. And the dryer still took two full cycles even with that small amount of clothes.

So no, it wasn't a hybrid unit. 

"As suspected though, it seems to be that people have an inability to read and follow instructions and adjust to 'different', which is where alot of the bad feedback comes from."

Trust me, I know to the read the manual.

ProDarwin said:

Related dishwasher rant.  My Bosch is pretty quiet.  One of the new(ish) silent style dishwashers.  But I noticed as it gets older, although the motor and everything is fairly quiet, the sound of water splashing inside it is quite noticeable.

 

I can't imagine water splashing has gotten any louder, and the insulation is all intact.  Is this just a case of me noticing it more as time goes on?

I often do this with noises in a car.

"Has it always made that sound? Has it gotten louder?" Etc

We bought a Kitchenaid gas range, dishwasher, refrigerator and over the range microwave new in 2004.   Everything was still working when we did a major kitchen renovation/ family room addition in 2019.   One of the cabinet guys took the range, the fridge is now in the basement utility room and someone else took the microwave.   Only thing to land in the dumpster was the dishwasher, the racks were starting to rust out. 0 repairs in 15 years.   

We replaced the range, dishwasher and fridge with Kitchenaid.  Microwave is a Sharp drawer type below the counter.   I wasn’t a fan of the microwave over the range, the exhaust fan wasn’t great and they get pretty dirty over the range.   New set up has a 300 CFM stainless hood with a wood surround that matches the cabinets.    One year in, so far so good.   The new dishwasher is nearly silent, much quieter than the previous one. 

I won't limit my appliance selection to one brand.  Some brands are better at one type of appliance and flat-out suck at others.  My kitchen is mostly Kitchenaid in stainless.  When the dishwasher had been repaired numerous times and took it's last crap, I was shopping for a Kitchenaid in stainless.  This was at a time when it seemed all anyone was stocking was black.  I ended up buying a "high-end" Kitchenaid for $1000.  It may well be one of the worst pieces of design ever implemented.  The buttons on the front panel are prone to accidental activation.  The main pump unit required replacement inside of two years in service. 

Appliance manufacturers hope they can convince you to buy all their E36 M3 so it matches.    Don't fall for that.

1988RedT2 said:

Appliance manufacturers hope they can convince you to buy all their E36 M3 so it matches.    Don't fall for that.

I don't like stuff that doesn't match. Others may not care, I do. I like things to be and look a certain way. 

But the gist of this thread seems to be:

"Buy whatever you like, it's all junk. Make sure to get extra warranty/service agreements for when they eventually break."

I usually buy a one or two year used version of whatever CNET says is good.

You might be surprised.  My awesome 2015 model Whirlpool fridge might be great, but by 2017 they were awful (for example).  I remember another thread about dishwashers and I was talking about the wonders of my awesome GE dishwasher and everyone else was talking trash about them.  Turns out, they kinda started sucking a couple years after the model I bought.  It's also important to note that many times it's academic.  When CNET says Kenmore is the best fridge this year and Whirlpool next year, it could be an incredibly narrow margin and for reasons that don't matter to you like adjustable shelves or price.

Add to that the mix-n-match brand associations and it's all a crap shoot sometimes.  Kenmore might make their own dishwashers, but their stoves are made by GE this year and Frigidaire next year.  Since about 1975, there is no brand that is its own brand except maybe Bosch and LG... but even those lines get blurred sometimes.  For that reason, it's really hard to talk about brands.

You also might find that GE is really good at dishwashers but terrible at microwaves.

My whole kitchen is full of whatever CNET recommended in a slightly used version.  Whirlpool fridge from 2015, GE dishwasher from 2014, Whirlpool range, and Kenmore microwave.  The Whirlpool fridge was actually my second choice, (was looking for a Kenmore I think) but it was the right price and the right configuration.

z31maniac said:

 

But the gist of this thread seems to be:

"Buy whatever you like, it's all junk. Make sure to get extra warranty/service agreements for when they eventually break."

That's pretty much true.  I go for simplicity.  I shopped hard for a fridge with an auto ice maker but not a dispenser.  The dispensers always seem to break.  The only bell/whistle I got was the in-door filtered water dispenser.

z31maniac said:

1988RedT2 said:

Appliance manufacturers hope they can convince you to buy all their E36 M3 so it matches.    Don't fall for that.

I don't like stuff that doesn't match. Others may not care, I do. I like things to be and look a certain way. 

 

But the gist of this thread seems to be:

"Buy whatever you like, it's all junk. Make sure to get extra warranty/service agreements for when they eventually break."

Add to that the fact that even if you're reading the newest Consumer Reports to get a general idea of the quality, manufacturers have usually phased out that particular model number, like they're a berkeleying mattress company, making it impossible to know if the newest SKU is substantially similar or not.

I hate shopping for appliances as much as I hate shopping for cars. At least with appliances I'm generally out less than a challenge car if I get pissed at it.

When we did our kitchen over in 2009 / 2010, I wanted to have all the appliances to match so we went with all Kitchenaid stainless - electric double convection wall oven, counter-depth french door fridge with bottom freezer, stainless interior DW, and built-in microwave.  The only exception was the cooktop (Wolf gas 4-burner unit).

They've all been pretty good over the last 10 years and none have needed major work.  A few review comments:

1) The electric ovens seem to run a little cool, like maybe 15 dF.  I assume there is a way it can be calibrated but TBH we've just gotten used to it and adjusted cook times.

2) The fridge is fine and has an interior chilled filtered water dispenser.  We absolutely DID NOT WANT any of that through-the-door crap because it takes up an incredible amount of space in the fridge.  Items placed right near the cold air outlet at top center back of the fridge may get slushy.  I had to replace the door gaskets ($50 online) after about 7-8 years.  It has a little condensate drain in the freezer that eventually gets plugged with dust and cat hair, then freezes up.  I've had to do this once, earlier this year, and don't expect to have to do it again for another 10 years.  I will note that apparently there is a revised part but I just cleaned the old one instead of replacing it.  Wasn't hard to do, just time consuming.

3) The DW heating element is right below the plastic silverware rack and cooks it to death.  It lasted about 7 years before I had to replace it ($40 online).  Other than that, no complaints.  The controls are concealed when the door is closed.

4) The microwave works fine but is a little underpowered for what it cost.

In reply to Duke :

Thank you for the extra feedback. We aren't in a hurry to do anything, so I suspect I'll do more research, try to figure out exactly what we want and wait for one of the big sales. 

I know places are having them this weekend, but don't want to jump in quite that soon.