OK Lets try this again. second times the charm?
On my dishwasher setup, my machines are fed with a booster heater set to 160F(with a digital controller that kicks on at 159F and kicks off at 161F) from a main water heater set to 150F. My dishwasher is about a year old. Hot water, age of cleaning hardware, and disrepair are not problems that exist here. This is about as ideal of a setup as you are going to get when testing automatic dishwasher detergent.
I've now tried several different dishwasher detergents (at several dosage strengths) including:
- Cascade Complete powder (Greasy dishes no matter how much I used in a given wash - total waste of time)
- Finnish powerball tabs (COMPLETE WASTE. I was to the point of putting 4 tabs in each wash. May as well have added none with all the dirt and grease left on my dishes)
- Cascade boil-out(hard to find, NOT CHEAP AT ALL, but highly praised by many folks. I tried it - it was no better than cascade complete)
- Cascade Platinum pods (No better than the members mark tabs while costing 2.1x as much)
- Member's Mark Ultimate Clean Automatic Dishwasher Pacs (This stuff cleans GREAT. even with one tab, though thanks to my experience with the other detergents I've tried, I often run two for extra insurance. Who has time to run their dishes twice in the event of an incomplete clean? Not me.)
HOWEVER, Buyer beware, they recently changed the packaging to a design where the lid is flimsy and not even airtight. This means if you live in a humid climate you will have to transfer the the product to an airtight container so it doesn't get wrecked before you have a chance to use it. Also this new design is EVEN LESS tolerant of Sam's TERRIBLE shipping practices. When it arrives, it will be all over the bottom of the box(if you're lucky) and possibly all over the bottom of the carrier's delivery truck and facility sorting floor as well. Sam's, You guys seriously need to pack your stuff better. Also weakening your product packaging is a very bad idea as my experience has shown. Minus 2 stars for poor packaging, resulting in damaged product to my door. Minus another 2 stars for deleting my previous review of this product. Is the cost savings really worth the bad press?