Bosch SPV68U53UC Dishwasher

This is the second time I am buying an 18", 800 series dishwasher. They are simply great. They offer plenty of space for everyday use, have minimal footprint and are really quiet. The express mode is quite useful but compared to the last one (the one with a regular stainless steel door) I miss the larger display that allowed me to select programming and alerting me to what needs to be added (salt, etc.) The panel ready version has a few features that while very useful could benefit from design improvement. 1- There is a utensil rack on top; extremely useful and a brilliant idea. The placement of the rack prevents you from putting a tall glasses on the second rack. The second rack is adjustable and can move down to remedy this issue. When you move it down, a regular dinner plate no longer fits in the bottom rack. Looks like they tried to use an existing "tub" for this product. A deeper tub would have been great to address this issue. 2- There is some sort of a black piece of rubber under the door. The placement of this rubber prevents you from having a door panel the same size of any other cabinet door. you can't open the door if you try to put a regular height door panel. The door panel for the dishwasher needs to be about 2 inches shorter in the bottom which makes it look totally weird and defeats the "concealed" look all together with one of your cabinet doors suddenly 2" shorter than other ones.

[This review was collected as part of a promotion.] We purchased this as a test 2 years in advance of doing our kitchen project in our old home with a tight kitchen to see if it was workable. Honestly, I can't believe that people still purchase 24" dishwashers and call them standard. We will be buying another of the same Bosch model for our kitchen remodel and installing this test unit elsewhere. While we have made adjustments on some larger glasses, we have found that this machine can do our Thanskgiving dinner plates, bread, salad, and glasses for 10 folks, and have room for some serving dishes. Ordinary weeknights, we have a family of 4 that eats at home daily, and we run it about once a day. The real comparative joy to 24" is the unloading; silverware is presorted in the silverware drawer, and unloading the entire thing is under a 5-minute task. Incredibly quiet. Dishes are clean. Nobody hates unloading, so dishes don't pile up in the sink. Great machine, great concept. One item of note: The silverware drawer pic on this Bosh site is not of the actual 18" version. It is not symetric, and you cannot put silverware on both sides. Kinives go on left, forks/spons on right. It's great, but not quite what is pictured. Cons -- not big enought to knock a full star off: - After just under 2 years, some of the lettering on the buttons is rubbing off. - Occasionally, we have trouble understanding how to get it to accept changes of cycle. Shutting the power completely off for a few seconds always tends to free up the cycle change. But it's a little weird and frustrating.. - Center glasses drawer is a little low. We have gotten rid of our largest glasses. - Doing pots in this machine takes much of the first shelf. - On very rare occasions, the soap dispernser does not open.