Dishwasher woes

floofmonster

Hello

We bought a Miele dishwasher in Feb 2023 via John Lewis online. It was very fiddly to set up with the water hardness etc and I wasn’t all that happy with it but my husband persuaded me that we should persevere so we missed the 30 day return window (that won’t happen again!)

It seemed to work for a while but then we got a couple of dishwasher loads with limescale deposits left on them, which indicated a lack of salt, but the salt indicator light had not come on.  However the salt dispenser was in fact empty when we checked it. We contacted John Lewis who asked us to get a Miele technician out to check it.

He came a couple of weeks ago, checked it over and fiddled with the settings.  He apparently did not find any fault with it.  It was fine until this weekend when yet again we had scale on our dishes, empty salt dispenser but no indicator light.  I now want to return it for a replacement or (preferably) refund but John Lewis keeps trying to tell me that we have to get it ‘repaired’ first via Miele.  But if there is apparently no fault, there is nothing to be repaired! 

Am I right that under the Consumer Rights Act that JL is responsible for dealing with this, not the manufacturer? It’s still less than 6 months old and I don’t consider it to be fit for purpose if I can’t rely on it to clean my dishes properly in line with how it is supposed to work - mainly not indicating when it needs salt.  

Many thanks for any advice.

Alderbank

You are correct that JL is responsible under Consumer Law.
They are using the manufacturer's technician to carry out their investigations which is reasonable.

They are allowed one attempt to repair. They can't keep trying over and over. If it fails after that one repair they must refund.

I'm sure you consider that visit when he 'fiddled with the settings' to be a repair, and possibly a judge would agree. But I suspect the report he sent to JL said something like 'No fault with machine. User had input wrong settings.' That would be why JL are now asking to carry out a repair.

I think you have to allow that.
Next time the technician might actually find a fault and fix it. But if he fiddles again and it works for a time and fails a second time you would certainly be entitled to a refund.

DullGreyGuy

Alderbank said:

Next time the technician might actually find a fault and fix it. But if he fiddles again and it works for a time and fails a second time you would certainly be entitled to a refund.

It will be harder than that if the technician returns again a verdict of "not faulty"  @Alderbank. 

If we ignore the economics of court, you'd have the OP saying that they think its faulty on one side and a qualified engineer on the other side telling the judge it isnt faulty but user error instead. Not personally convinced that it'd be a home run for the OP... they'd normally need their own engineers report to confirm there is a fault.

OP - which model of dishwasher is it? When you say the salt dispenser is empty you mean it's got no water in it either? 

Alderbank

If I was the OP I'd get the technician back but make sure he explains to me how the water softener works, how the dishwasher chemicals I use affect hardness and the significance of the pH of my mains water.

Some Miele machines require you to input the pH value of the mains. If the pH is less than 7 the machine will override the salt sensor so the low salt indicator never comes on even when the reservoir is empty. This is not a fault. Some machines also do the same if you program to say you use Miele's own tablets because they contain a suitable softener.
If your machine is like that then a change in the alkalinity of your mains water or a change of dishwasher tablets would need some reprogramming, what some might call 'fiddling with the settings'

Don't let him escape until you understand how it all works.

tightauldgit

DullGreyGuy said:

Alderbank said:

Next time the technician might actually find a fault and fix it. But if he fiddles again and it works for a time and fails a second time you would certainly be entitled to a refund.

It will be harder than that if the technician returns again a verdict of "not faulty"  @Alderbank. 

If we ignore the economics of court, you'd have the OP saying that they think its faulty on one side and a qualified engineer on the other side telling the judge it isnt faulty but user error instead. Not personally convinced that it'd be a home run for the OP... they'd normally need their own engineers report to confirm there is a fault.

OP - which model of dishwasher is it? When you say the salt dispenser is empty you mean it's got no water in it either? 

Even if it's not faulty though it could still be not fit for purpose or not of satisfactory quality. If it doesn't get the dishes clean then it probably isn't - so evidence might just amount to before and after shots of a few loads of dishes although there is always the back and forth over user error. 

It may well be worth running over with any engineer how exactly you are using it to get them to confirm you are not doing it wrong. 

As for the bigger question - yes your rights are with JL but they still have the right to offer a repair rather than a return at this stage. Just make sure that you confirm with JL they are attempting a repair in line with the CRA2015 and not a warranty repair.

floofmonster

DullGreyGuy said:

Alderbank said:

Next time the technician might actually find a fault and fix it. But if he fiddles again and it works for a time and fails a second time you would certainly be entitled to a refund.

It will be harder than that if the technician returns again a verdict of "not faulty"  @Alderbank. 

If we ignore the economics of court, you'd have the OP saying that they think its faulty on one side and a qualified engineer on the other side telling the judge it isnt faulty but user error instead. Not personally convinced that it'd be a home run for the OP... they'd normally need their own engineers report to confirm there is a fault.

OP - which model of dishwasher is it? When you say the salt dispenser is empty you mean it's got no water in it either? 

Hi

Thank you for taking the time to reply.  

It’s the Miele G5223SC Freestanding Dishwasher. I should just add that my husband works regularly with dishwashers & autoclaves so between us we do have a pretty good understanding of how they should work. We also went through the manual step by step to ensure that everything was set up correctly (or at least as the manual said it should be).  

When the issue arises, the salt dispenser has water but no salt in it and our dishes are covered in limescale.  We live in a hard water area at 16 German degrees which is the measurement we need to program the machine per the manual. The technician actually put this setting up when he came, which should have meant that the warning light comes on more frequently but it’s not happening at all.  Does beg the question of why the manual tells you do a particular setting if it’s apparently not right! 

So it seems like I have to get them to come out again.  If there is apparently no fault again, where do we stand? This is the first (& probably last!) time we went for Miele, we were hoping that it would last longer than our previous machines as we have a large household so they do get a battering.  

Thanks again.

tightauldgit

floofmonster said:

DullGreyGuy said:

Alderbank said:

Next time the technician might actually find a fault and fix it. But if he fiddles again and it works for a time and fails a second time you would certainly be entitled to a refund.

It will be harder than that if the technician returns again a verdict of "not faulty"  @Alderbank. 

If we ignore the economics of court, you'd have the OP saying that they think its faulty on one side and a qualified engineer on the other side telling the judge it isnt faulty but user error instead. Not personally convinced that it'd be a home run for the OP... they'd normally need their own engineers report to confirm there is a fault.

OP - which model of dishwasher is it? When you say the salt dispenser is empty you mean it's got no water in it either? 

Hi

Thank you for taking the time to reply.  

It’s the Miele G5223SC Freestanding Dishwasher. I should just add that my husband works regularly with dishwashers & autoclaves so between us we do have a pretty good understanding of how they should work. We also went through the manual step by step to ensure that everything was set up correctly (or at least as the manual said it should be).  

When the issue arises, the salt dispenser has water but no salt in it and our dishes are covered in limescale.  We live in a hard water area at 16 German degrees which is the measurement we need to program the machine per the manual. The technician actually put this setting up when he came, which should have meant that the warning light comes on more frequently but it’s not happening at all.  Does beg the question of why the manual tells you do a particular setting if it’s apparently not right! 

So it seems like I have to get them to come out again.  If there is apparently no fault again, where do we stand? This is the first (& probably last!) time we went for Miele, we were hoping that it would last longer than our previous machines as we have a large household so they do get a battering.  

Thanks again.

Do you know if the people coming out are coming under Miele warranty or from JL instructing them to come out as part of your consumer rights as it may matter? 

In short if they say it's 'no fault' then I presume Miele and JL will say you aren't entitled to anything and you would have to pursue the claim through court or at least threaten to and see if they cave.  

zoob

I would check if the wastepipe is installed properly, height and length off run accordingto instructions, if Miele have stated there's no dishwasher fault its highly likely the waste is causing the issue and the dirty water isn't draining fully away
Not a fault off the machine but a installation issue
Not a common issue but if the machine is not at fault it's highly likely this is the problem 
Was it a plumber that installed the machine?  

floofmonster

Thanks again for your helpful comments. We have Miele coming out again next week, so let’s see what they say! 

With regards to the waste pipe, it’s a good shout but it’s been checked and in all honesty I think if this was the problem we’d see the dishes coming out dirty more frequently/intermittently.  We can definitely tie the scaly dishes to a lack of salt in the dispenser so we think the issue is here.

Best wishes all.

m0bov

I am in a hard water area, we use a rather old dishwasher and I've never added salt, can't you try an all in one tablet?? Don't know if that helps...

floofmonster

Hello

i have a good update! The 2nd engineer came out and reset the settings to what we had ourselves before the 1st technician changed them! He also put a Miele cleaner in the dishwasher as he wondered if it just needed a clear out of the scum and then also said that he wouldn’t generally recommend the eco programmes, but we should run it using the high temperature programmes which I was most definitely not happy about - again never an issue in our previous machines. 

He left the machine running with the cleaner in and on an hot wash and asked me to contact him to let him know if the machine was clean when it finished. Well it wasn’t, the inside of the door and cabinet were all covered in smears and ‘baked on’ scum.  I took photos and sent them to John Lewis along with the report where he had said to use the hot programmes and said that as far I was concerned it was not fit for purpose - a decent machine these days ought to be able to run mostly using the eco programmes and that following a clean I would have expected the dishwasher to be spotless which it wasn’t. I asked for a full refund on that basis.  I do know that it is good to run dishwashers/washing machines through with hot washes occasionally but it should not need to be done most of time.  

They first of all said they would follow up with Miele, which took some time, but I eventually got a phone call a couple of days ago to say that they agreed that we could get a full refund and they would collect the machine, whoop! And actually what we have initially agreed is that we would look into other dishwashers available at JL and if I found something suitable they would arrange a swap and refund any difference.  

So it was definitely worth pursuing, given how expensive Miele is as a brand and how disappointing we found the dishwasher.  Now to research an alternative - we have tended to use Bosch in the past so will almost certainly go back to them. Our main reason for going for Miele this time was its reputation for being longer-lasting compared to other brands and so we thought the extra spend was worth it, but frankly I can accept a machine that doesn’t last quite as long if it actually cleans my dishes! 

Thanks again for taking the time to reply.