Siemens Dishwasher – 2nd Opinion

Our Siemens dishwasher SN65M031GB/03 is 4 years old and a few days ago the heating element failed.

We called out a local repair man and he confirmed that the element is dead. I asked him if Siemens were a good brand. I had read at the time of purchase a few years ago that Which? magazine rated Siemens in a brand reputation no. 1 for dishwashers.

The chap was very nice and said that Siemens used to be good but now they are very unreliable. He said that Miele are very reliable and Electrolux not bad.

We now have to decide whether to replace the element and motor (they come as one unit) costing £100 parts and £40 labour, or buy a new dishwasher. I would think that repair is the best idea, but his comments left me wondering if Siemens really are prone to breaking down. Is this true?

This is only the second time our dishwasher has broken down in 4 years. The previous time was about a year ago when it flooded. At the time, a technician suggested over email that it might be the float getting scaled up. Running with limescale removal powder seemed to fix this issue for a while. Then the flooding reoccured, so I ran the powder again and it worked again. I have repeated every 2 months and the issue has not come back.

The repair chap seemed to think that dishwashers don’t need any descaling because they have salt, unlike washing machines. Is this good advice?

Would appreciate any opinions.