When did GE stop making this crappy dishwasher?

December 30, 2015 1:25 PM

Our apartment's old dishwasher, a GE Americana model, is no longer manufactured. Any idea how to figure out when it stopped being produced? I'd like to know what's the youngest possible age for the washer. GE was unresponsive to my queries.

Context: this old dishwasher was clogged. After trying multiple manual uncloggings, I used Drano. This was apparently really dumb, and led to the current situation. The new-used dishwasher the landlady just had delivered is a Kenmore Ultrawash QuietGuard4. I can't find a model number, but the date "01/09/06" is printed on the back. It looks vastly more modern than the one that was removed.

I basically am looking for ammo if my landlady tries to charge me a bunch for this, i.e. "The old washer was 20 years old anyway."

posted by HeroZero to Home & Garden (4 answers total)

The U.S. Department of Energy requires manufacturers to certify energy efficiency compliance prior to distributing certain appliances in the United States. GE first reported the energy usage of the ADW1100Nxx model in 2007. In addition, the user manual at the page you link to is dated April 2007 and the installation manual is dated October 2006. So, your old GE Americana dishwasher is very likely to be no older than 2007, newer than your used replacement.
posted by RichardP at 1:47 PM on December 30, 2015

You probably shouldn't have to prove that it is 20 years old. Most rental property appliances are depreciated for tax purposes over a five-year time span. So theoretically even after five years, your landlord has probably already been able to deduct its full value from their taxes.

Then again, the entire property gets depreciated over several decades, but if you rented for 30 years then burnt the place down, you would surely be liable, so my "depreciation" argument may have some flaws.
posted by slidell at 2:30 PM on December 30, 2015

Looking at the manual and the picture on the website, this looks like almost exactly the same dishwasher as the GE GSD2030 in my apartment, and I have seen this style of dishwasher under other brands as well, like Hotpoint (which GE apparently owns now). It's a bog-standard cheap dishwasher and has been manufactured in various forms for decades now (I had one growing up, though I don't remember what brand/model that one was) and I hate it, but you can still apparently get it or ones like it new. I would not count on age being able to save you, and presumably unless the dishwasher came with the unit when they bought it, they probably would have a record of when the old one was purchased anyway.
posted by Aleyn at 7:46 PM on December 30, 2015

As another data point, this GE GSD2100VBB is the likely successor model to your old dishwasher.
posted by Aleyn at 8:02 PM on December 30, 2015