I've found US dishwashers pretty easy to fix, but Korean and German ones can be a bit more of a pain, and these are the ones built for the US market. I've heard that European models often have water softeners built in.
Yeah I was wondering if there was perhaps some regional differences. The one time I did a DIY fix of my dishwasher I was pleasantly surprised with how easy it was. They're largely very simple devices, and aside from a couple screws to keep them from tipping, they slide right out of the opening they're in.
> [...] German ones can be a bit more of a pain
I did replace my dishwasher a few years ago with a Bosch. Uh-oh!
Not sure about dishwasher but our Bosch washing machine was fixed with little real fuss other than needing to have torx screw-bits. I quite admired the engineering.
We too have a Bosch dishwasher so - like you - we'll see how that goes...
Looking at their designs, this seems to be the case with other white goods too; I suspect it's because US designs are relatively old and simple since they were among the first, while foreign designs are more highly space- and cost-optimised at the expense of repairability and possibly robustness.
All German ones have water softeners I think, also most modern ones have a large flat water tank at the side that acts as a heat exchanger and condensation surface, and also saves water from the last rinse cycle to use in the first wash cycle the next time it's turned on.
