In our former home in Maryland, the Kenmore dishwasher we had was amazing. We replaced certain minor parts in it, like a rack element or a water-spinning arm, but the appliance was over 25 years old and worked well, day in and day out. We could find the parts needing replacement ourselves online and could do the repairs when needed.

The folks who bought our home may still be using that Kenmore dishwasher for all I know.

In our new Florida home, we replaced our dishwasher at the end of November, 2021 with a Whirlpool unit from Loew’s. It got pretty good reviews, it fit the space, and it was white, like our other appliances. We couldn’t find a suitable Kenmore.

The Whirlpool dishwasher cost $496.44 and the install was an additional $175.00.

This new Whirlpool dishwasher has never seemed as good as our old Kenmore, or the Frigidaire dishwasher it replaced. The Whirlpool is noisy, finicky, and the cleaning cycles were very long. Once the machine did its thing, it seemed that the dishes weren’t really clean.

A week or so ago it finally stopped working at all. One month after the warranty expired! Seems like a tired old punchline, doesn’t it?

The repair (replacing the motor) cost us $454.75, which was 91.6% of the purchase price!

So far, so bad. But here’s where it gets good: The very next day after the repair, I got an email from Lowe’s Protection Plus, with this banner promoting an extended warranty on this dishwasher!

As Lincoln used to say, I didn’t know whether to laugh or to cry. But don’t bother to ask me if I’ll ever buy a Whirlpool product again.

Here’s some parting advice to Whirlpool:

Don’t let your customers be in charge of your quality control. They already control your reputation.