We bought our Bosch Serie | 4 Free-standing Dishwasher when we redid kitchen counter and cabinets in 2018. It has been 4-years since. Our dishwasher recently stopped working and we had to get it repaired. So now is certainly a good time to write a Bosch dishwasher review. In this review, we cover the after-use review AND also a support service review of the on-site repair service from Bosch. Hah!
1. Context & After-use Review: Why we chose this free-standing 45cm dishwasher from Bosch
Why a dishwasher at all?
We redid our kitchen cabinets in a hurry when we were expecting Little P. We expected to offload the time washing dishes to the dishwasher since baby P will be demanding a lot of our time.
Personally I am also the type to spend a long time scrubbing and a lot of running water washing dishes because I needed to ensure they are CLEAN. (Here’s a video on Asian dishwashing just for fun.) So, I do believe it when dishwasher companies say dishwashers will help me save more water. Haha!
Countertop dishwashers only use around 2 gallons (around 7.5 liters) of water. Portable and built-in dishwashers use can use as little as 3 gallons per load (around 11 liters). Handwashing uses up to 27 gallons of water, so any dishwasher is better than suffering through washing dishes in the sink.
Consider this before buying a portable dishwasher – cnet.com
Free-standing vs Built-in
Since it is our first dishwasher, we didn’t know how long it will last. Or not last. So we decided to go with the free-standing model. If it lasted, we have the option of taking it with us if we need to move to a different flat somewhere down the road.
Now why didn’t I get a white refridgerator also??? Hahaha.
And if it did not last, at least we will have less worry about finding a dishwasher of the exact size to place in the gap in the cabinetry left by the original dishwasher. On hindsight, I wish I had thought to ask the serviceman who came more about this matter. More knowledge will certainly help me make a more informed choice about freestanding vs built-in dishwashers next time!
Why a Bosch dishwasher vs other brands
I don’t think dishwashers are that popular in Singapore, at least not in my part of the community. PL and I certainly did not grow up with a dishwasher in the house. There was only one person I knew who had a dishwasher that I could talk to. LOL. Hers was a Fisher & Paykel.
We settled for Bosch because we found it more affordable. In addition, it was a known brand name and had a product that worked for us in terms of dishwasher size and it being free-standing. (Note: At that time there were no countertop dishwashers so they were not part of my consideration set.)
Dishwasher Size & Set up
Our flat’s kitchen is a tiny Galley Kitchen. An additional large appliance like a dishwasher will take up precious storage space. That is why we decided to get the narrower 45cm dishwasher rather than the full size 60cm dishwasher.
At that time, I reasoned that if we had that many dishes to wash, we can run it more times a day if necessary. Unfortunately, it was after we started using the dishwasher that I realised it actually takes hours for it to wash dishes. This is especially when on Eco mode.
How can a programme like the Eco mode save energy when it takes longer? It’s surprisingly simple: with the longer wash-cycle, the water doesn’t need heating up as much when compared to shorter programmes. Plus, your dishes are soaped longer, which means your dishwasher doesn’t need as much energy to clean them as other programmes. That’s how we save energy and decrease water consumption.
Bosche-home.com.sg: How eco-mode saves energy
On top of that our dishwasher shares the same water outlet as our washing machine. This means only one machine can run at any one time. As a result, running the dishwasher more times in a day may not work out that well if we needed to run the washing machine as well.
We ended up usually running the dishwasher on Auto 45 °C – 65 °C with the VarioSpeed (reduce running time by 20% to 50% by increasing water and energy consumotion) and Half Load (less load = less water, energy and time) options selected. We don’t overload the dishwasher so generally we get away with clean dishes at these settings.
But with this situation, I’m not sure if we’re still saving a lot or a little water. At least the dishwasher generally takes about an hour 15 minutes more or less to wash the dishes. So yes, I prioritised time savings over water and energy consumption.
2. Maintenance Service for Bosch Dishwasher Review
Bosch support service level
So like I said, our dishwasher stopped functioning recently in its fourth year of service. It was easy to contact Bosch Customer Care to schedule a service person to come down to our flat. I found the phone number to call right at the bottom of their homepage – https://www.bosch-home.com.sg/ – in the our service section.
It also helped alot that I diligently registered my product in their database in the past. Otherwise retrieving that information could be troublesome since I wasn’t sure where to find the product number on the dishwasher itself. 😅 The website says you can find it on the door when you pull it open but I totally DID NOT see it. I had to pull out the entire dishwasher and take a photo of the label at the back of the product to find it.
That said, I am happy with Bosch’s Customer Support’s turnaround time. I called on Thursday. They arranged for someone to come down the very next morning (Friday). The service person also resolved our dishwasher problem within that trip so it was hassle-free and we had a working dishwasher again with negligible downtime.
Why our Bosch dishwasher stopped functioning
It seems the two problems you can encounter with Bosch dishwashers if they malfunction like ours is: (1) door lock not working (2) sensor not working. This conclusion is based on my enquiries with the service person.
I’ll also help you vacuum up the food remnants! 😎
The service person explained that the door lock can stop working if the frame of the dishwasher somehow gets warped or deviates from it’s original shape.
But in our case, our dishwasher’s sensor malfunctioned. Repairing our Bosch dishwasher is simply a matter of replacing the old sensor with a new sensor… which was literally just a chip.
Bosch dishwasher repair – warranty & service charges
Our Bosch product warranty only lasts 2 years from date of purchase so certainly it is no longer covered by warranty. The final charge for the on-site repair plus parts is SGD$157. You can see the breakdown in the picture below.
Bosch Dishwasher Review : Final thoughts
With no prior experience with other dishwashers to compare, I have to say our dishwasher did its job in the last 4 years. Of course, it being an appliance new to all of us, it took some time to get used to using it in a way that fits our lifestyle and the way it is set up to share the same water outlet as the washing machine.
Based on my conversation with the serviceperson, we are on the right track with regards maintaining the dishwasher.
- We scrape off the food into the dustbin but we don’t rinse the dishes.
- We also use rinse aid, in addition to the dishwashing tablets when washing the dishes.
- The filters are rinsed of any food residue after every cleaning cycle.
- We run the dishwasher through a cleaning cycle with dishwasher cleaner regularly. The serviceman advised that frequency of this cleaning depends on the cleaning product we buy and also how often we use the dishwasher.
Dishwasher tablets – Finish (94 tablets) | Ecover (68 tablets)
Rinse aid – Finish
Dishwasher cleaner – Finish
It will be interesting to see if the entire dishwasher can last another 4 or even more years and if the sensor will give out again in another 4 years.
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