Thread Number: 36068
Is the "18" R-E-A-L-L-Y all that? |
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Post# 537673 , Reply# 1   8/17/2011 at 20:00 (4,607 days old) by firedome (Binghamton NY & Lake Champlain VT)   |   | |
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Post# 537906 , Reply# 3   8/18/2011 at 15:07 (4,606 days old) by mrcleanjeans (milwaukee wi)   |   | |
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But WHY is the 18 the most revered, despite these flaws? |
Post# 537938 , Reply# 5   8/18/2011 at 17:21 (4,606 days old) by mrcleanjeans (milwaukee wi)   |   | |
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Tom, your posts are SO interesting, I just love them. What was so bad about the 19s if they were slightly better than the 18s? And didn't you say 7 years ago that the way the 18s drained was not the most satisfactory? |
Post# 537955 , Reply# 7   8/18/2011 at 18:43 (4,606 days old) by gansky1 (Omaha, The Home of the TV Dinner!)   |   | |
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I've had about nine different dishwashers in my kitchen since we bought this house in 1998 and I always go back to the KDS-18. It's by far the most versatile and best cleaning machine. The 14 series, I've had the Superba and the Custom at different times are awesome performers but a bit limiting in capacity. I have a KDS-14 in the garage next to the TOL Maytag and almost never let it sit more than a week without using it. A great second machine. I've had a KDS-17 in the kitchen as well but while being a stellar performer, is still not as versatile as the 18. I had a Whirlpool Power-something from around '88 that was an outstanding cleaning machine but the racks were crumbling and the build quality wasn't as heavy as the KA. Nothing else feels like a KitchenAid, remember the advertisement of people slamming the door of their dishwashers? You really can't do that with any other machine. Here is a KA shell holding up an Amana convection Radarange that seems like it weighs about 8000 lbs.
The 19 series was largely regarded, even by Hobart-KitchenAid as their least successful model because of the water heating cycle profile and the lack of any heated drying. The drastic temp changes of the heated water on cooled glassware also left a lot of etching. |
Post# 537956 , Reply# 8   8/18/2011 at 18:45 (4,606 days old) by gansky1 (Omaha, The Home of the TV Dinner!)   |   | |
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Post# 537957 , Reply# 9   8/18/2011 at 18:52 (4,606 days old) by gansky1 (Omaha, The Home of the TV Dinner!)   |   | |
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A Hipstamatic 70's style pic of my dishwasher sportin' beautiful Stainless Steel panels that Ben brought for me. These are heavy SS panels, nothing like what you see on the new stuff today. They were pretty dirty and had paint on them, a little scrubbing with BonAmi (remains of the process on the counter) and they were shining like new again.
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Post# 537966 , Reply# 11   8/18/2011 at 20:09 (4,606 days old) by peteski50 (New York)   |   | |
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My family had the kds19 for 25 years. I agree the main wash should have had the delay and it should have had a heated dry, but it was a really good dishwasher. We never had a problem with glasses etching. The drying performance was still better than todays heated drying dishwashers. If you used the jetdry on the 19 series the drying improved to top notch. It probably would have went over better with a SS tub. It was a DW before its time. One of the complaints was the cycle time was to long. Compared to todays machines it by far was a time saver!
Peter |
Post# 538196 , Reply# 12   8/19/2011 at 23:23 (4,605 days old) by mrcleanjeans (milwaukee wi)   |   | |
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I would rather have the 19 than any of today's machines |
Post# 538467 , Reply# 13   8/21/2011 at 08:21 (4,604 days old) by Tomturbomatic (Beltsville, MD)   |   | |
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The drain valve in the 18 was smaller in diameter and thus slightly more prone to clogging or jamming on trapped small bits of hard material than the drain valves of previous models. |
Post# 538473 , Reply# 14   8/21/2011 at 09:13 (4,604 days old) by bajaespuma (Connecticut)   |   | |
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Post# 538475 , Reply# 15   8/21/2011 at 09:19 (4,603 days old) by bajaespuma (Connecticut)   |   | |
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Had all the cycles you would ever want, had a very effective rapid-advance timer and did a bang up job even in the rock-hard water that they had in that house. You could load anything anywhere, but because it was my Mother's machine, few pots, pans or anything else ever got loaded into it. I'm a hold out; I still prefer the elegant old-fashioned racking of the 17 and 16 series. When KA put in the upper wash arm and moved the large plate racks to the LH side, they should have totally redesigned the top rack. But, as usual, no one listens to me.
I should have taken this machine with me, but at the end of a long drawn out sale with very difficult buyers, I decided to save everybody, including myself, the grief of trying to remove a built-in dishwasher from a very tight hole with a dedicated drain for the previous gravity drain GE front loader. |
Post# 538478 , Reply# 16   8/21/2011 at 09:34 (4,603 days old) by peteski50 (New York)   |   | |
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Post# 538486 , Reply# 18   8/21/2011 at 10:47 (4,603 days old) by appnut (TX)   |   | |
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I remember just after I had graduated college and had begun working at my new job, there was a secretary who got a new dishwasher and it was a KA. She was rightfully excited to have the KA, I didn't blame her one bit. I'd not heard of the Patrician and when she was describing it to me, I kept saying, you mean Superba? She finally brought in the brochure. I was pretty surprised and also prettty much had a let-down feeling. I mean, the Superba wws THE model KitchenAid to have if you were going to buy a KA. Remember comparing the cycle sequence between the Patrician and the Superba. I kept thinking, why would anyone settle for the Patrician, it just dind't quite have all the pizzaz and unique features of the Superba. And I think the Patrician only existed from the 18 to the 20 series. What I find interesting is KA later came out with an Imperial model in the 21 series, I odn't think in the 20 series, which had the adjustable top rack, rapid advance timer, and the 3 cycles associated with the Imperial since the 17 series--Pots/Pans, Normal, and Rinse & Hold. Soem friends' parents had that model, didn't know it existed, and I immediately thought, hmm a Patrician in disguise lol.
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Post# 538501 , Reply# 19   8/21/2011 at 11:45 (4,603 days old) by DADoES (TX, U.S. of A.)   |   | |
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When I bought my KA Superba 22 in January 1992, I distinctly recall seeing a Patrician at one of the dealers I investigated. Have no way to know what was the series of it ... current series at the time or an old-stock previous model. I just tried a wildcard model search at SearsParts. KUDP22 and KUDP23 both get results. KUPD24 does not. |
Post# 538588 , Reply# 22   8/21/2011 at 16:52 (4,603 days old) by peteski50 (New York)   |   | |
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Post# 538590 , Reply# 23   8/21/2011 at 16:53 (4,603 days old) by peteski50 (New York)   |   | |
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Post# 538644 , Reply# 27   8/21/2011 at 21:49 (4,603 days old) by combo52 (50 Year Repair Tech Beltsville,Md)   |   | |
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Post# 538645 , Reply# 28   8/21/2011 at 21:49 (4,603 days old) by appnut (TX)   |   | |
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Post# 538650 , Reply# 29   8/21/2011 at 21:57 (4,603 days old) by peteski50 (New York)   |   | |
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Post# 538790 , Reply# 31   8/22/2011 at 13:46 (4,602 days old) by peteski50 (New York)   |   | |
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Post# 538791 , Reply# 32   8/22/2011 at 13:50 (4,602 days old) by norgeway (mocksville n c )   |   | |
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DU945PW500. |
Post# 538847 , Reply# 33   8/22/2011 at 18:56 (4,602 days old) by bajaespuma (Connecticut)   |   | |
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Whirlpool machines, although great performers, lacked "pizazz" since the early Seventies.
When you think of a KitchenAid dishwasher, you immediately think of a prominent and distinct chrome-plated handle in the middle of the control panel, the KitchenAid brand lettered in its unique font, and a clear strong layout of knob, buttons and escutcheon. Jet Clean dishwashers featured a humble but solid embossed aluminum escutcheon with strong clear white buttons and a knob that was exquisitely simple and placed, either in the center, like the washers, or on the bottom right. Maytags proudly acknowledged their washer ancestry and all their appliances were a sculptural rendering of the Midwestern United States. Waste Kings, Frigidaire s all had distinctive styles that were consistent with and proudly promoted the brand. Now everything looks like it came out of the same factory (LOL, they did).
If I've learned anything from these experiences its that even the lowliest household appliance needs to have some style. The problem with almost all contemporary smalls and majors is that they lack aesthetic details that attract buyers and add something to our homes. They conform to a diminished identity of a commodity. They are dull.
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Post# 538850 , Reply# 34   8/22/2011 at 19:22 (4,602 days old) by appnut (TX)   |   | |
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I'll take cleaning performance over lack of pizzaz any day.
Hans, I would venture to say there is something definitely not working right with your WP dishwasher. It may not be getting enough water for each of the fill periods due to calcium buildup in the water valve. If that's not the case, if you tell me you are using Normal Wash cycle without high-temp option, then that's the reason why you're getting such piss poor results. That's just a main wash, a purge, and a rinse. That's a wash fill going into a cold machine with cold load contents. it doesn't have a chance. Even if ya purgeed the water line before you start the machine. My minimum suggestion is use Heavy Wash and high-temp wash. Pots & Pans will clean the chrome off a trailer hitch with its 2.5 to 3 hour cycle. Lemme tell ya a story. Golittlesport moved into a new hours around the time of the 1st or 2nd washin. He was complaining his powerClean wasn't getting peanutbutter off his knkives. He had water heater set fairly high. He was not selecting the high-temp wash option for the Normal Cycle. Once he did what I suggested, they were very happy with their dishwasher. |
Post# 538856 , Reply# 35   8/22/2011 at 19:55 (4,602 days old) by firedome (Binghamton NY & Lake Champlain VT)   |   | |
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"They conform to the diminished identity of a commodity" Well, that's because dishwashers ARE commodities... and while it's crazy people like us that elevate them to some Icon-like status, the real diffentiation between then, when there actually were well made dishwashers, and now can be defined by a missing but real inherent quality which once was considered mandatory in a high end ie: "aspirational" product, before the bean-counters took total control, and is now lacking in ANY new machine, having been replaced with marketing hype and image and the illusion that technology can replace true inherent worth in quality desgn and construction... the Mad Men have triuphed!!!
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