Prematurely Old Reason #82598

Geoff and I bought a new dishwasher last night and were really excited about it!

Here's the story: After work we went to our friend's Kendra and Beau's new house - it is great! It's on a fairly large lot and only 2 miles from our house which is a lot closer than they were. Our friends Addy and Brett just moved to SE Portland (we're going to their housewarming party tonight!) so while we "lost" some friends we "gained" some other ones. :) I go to a girl's night at Kendra's house once or twice a month so it will be nice to just be able to ride my bike over there.

After that we decided to go dishwasher shopping. Our current dishwasher is reasonably new - no more than 10 years old and is certainly still functional. About a year ago, there was a recall placed on the dishwasher due to potential overheated wiring and/or fires. GE was offering 2 options: a serviceperson to come to your house and swap out a part, or a credit towards a new dishwasher. We did nothing at the time since we didn't really know if we wanted a new dishwasher or not. (yes - we have lived with the threat of a fire for a year) Well recently I've noticed some rusting in the dishwasher (like on the racks), just in a couple of little spots, but it was getting worse and about to start breaking through the rack. (like one part was so rusted that the metal of the rack was literally just hanging by a thread). So we decided now was the time for a new dishwasher!

We went to Home Depot and they were running some pretty good promotions and had some good prices - but unfortunately they had nothing "mid range". They had like the $300 - $450 models and then $1000+ models. We were thinking maybe something in the $500 - 700 range, that had a few options (mainly we were looking for a nicer interior - some are really kind of cheap feeling plastic and some are a little nicer... as best we could tell it's the nylon racks that seem to make it "nicer". Hopefully that means it won't rust through in the next 10 years. :) ) So we told the helpful man there that we'd thank about it. Then we went to Best Buy - we have a new one near us and we thought we'd try it out. Unfortunately, it's the smallest Best Buy in the world. I seriously think it is! It had 6 dishwashers, and none of them were GEs. So we went to the "normal" Best Buy (the one that used to be closest to our house). They had 5 or 6 GEs including a nice midrange one that seemed like it would be appropriate. But they weren't running any sales or special promotions or anything and since we aren't desperately in need of a dishwasher we again said we'd think about it. Then Geoff suggested going into Standard TV and Appliance since it was right there. It's a local joint so I figured it'd be expensive, but I'd never been and always wanted to, so I said sure. We went in and a salesguy immediately jumped on us. He kind of breathed down our throats but then said "actually, you should check out our Clearance center. most people think it's just this little nook, but look back here..." and it was a GIANT ROOM. They had about 4 GE "scratch and dent" dishwashers - including one that was black (the color we wanted to match the rest of our kitchen) and really fancy and nicely discounted. The man offered to check the price to see how long it had been there and if it was already near cost and all that. He came back with a little lower price and I thought "what the heck, I'm going to ask for an even lower price" so I did. It was already a little more expensive than we were looking at, and we certainly don't NEED the fanciest dishwasher in the world (this one was the 2nd or 3rd from the "top of the line" out of GE's approximately 50 different styles). So he went back to the manager and then asked us to come up $25 and we did. So now we have this dishwasher (well, the prior production run of it, but essentially the same thing). It's very fancy and pretty. AND we will get a $300 rebate from GE and a $10 rebate from our water company (because it's more efficient). Geoff mostly installed it last night, but the lights are not coming on so he's going to pull it out and make sure he has all of the connections tight tonight. And then I will post pictures of the installation process and the new prettiness!

Oh - and the "scratch and dent" part about it? There's a small dent on the little kick plate at the bottom - nothing on the actual door or anything, and nothing structural/mechanical. It has the full GE one year warranty with it. And it actually took us a while to even figure out what the scratch and dent was! The salesman finally saw it for us!