The first thing consumers want to know about a dishwasher is how quiet it is, and store displays do not typically allow you to see, or hear, the units in action.

Sales personnel may tell you that certain models are quieter than others, but you have to get a dishwasher home, install it, and run it to really tell how a particular unit will perform in your home. Fortunately, the Whirlpool GU3100XTVS is relatively quiet.

Comparing our old dishwasher to the Whirlpool, we think the new Whirlpool we purchased makes much less noise and seems to run for a shorter time when washing. The cleaning results are excellent, and the times that dishes haven't been sufficiently cleaned has more to do with loading dishes with dried on particles than the ability of the dishwasher itself.

At $540, this dishwasher isn't the lowest priced, but it is much less than the Bosch, LG, and KitchenAid models we saw.

Efficiency wise, Whirlpool was not rated as high as some models, but their products are not rated the worst, either. We use ours everyday so the Whirlpool might cost a few dollars more per year to operate than the most efficient ones. I figure that in ten years time, a $1,000 dishwasher might have saved enough money to make up the difference.

The Whirlpool has something called a soil sensor to determine how much cleaning the dishes actually need. I can't tell how this works, but some wash cycles are shorter than others. There is also a sanitizing rinse cycle that the book says kills 99.9 percent of all bacteria.

Many of the dishwashers we saw had stainless-steel tubs, which are supposed to be much better than the plastic ones like our Whirlpool has. If there is some huge advantage to the stainless steel, I don't know what it might be, other than it might be more durable over time.

I recommend this dishwasher because it does a good job of cleaning and it is priced economically.