Indesit DFO 3T133 F UK Review: Quality cleaning for less

It might not be the cheapest dishwasher to run, but the Indesit DFO 3T133 F UK is well priced, and has lots of room inside. I found it a little fiddly to get the right load, but once used to the dishwasher, I could fit a lot in it. Most importantly, this dishwasher cleans brilliantly.

Introduction

With a dishwasher, there are two things you need: lots of space inside and quality cleaning performance. They’re two things that the Indesit DFO 3T133 F UK delivers, which is incredible given the mid-range pricing.

There are a few rough edges, including a fiddly-to-use Push & Go mode, and open shelves at the back that can make it easy to get items stuck. Still, once you get used to this dishwasher, you can’t fault its quality or performance.

Design and features

• Highly adjustable shelves
• Good range of washing programmes
• Needs a bit of thought to get everything loaded neatly

With space for 14 place settings inside, the Indesit DFO 3T133 F UK is one of the larger dishwashers that I’ve tested, although a little behind the Sharp QW-NA26F39DW-EN. Indesit has arranged the space inside over three individual racks.

The bottom one is for larger items, such as plates and pans; the middle shelf is for glasses and other smaller items, and the top drawer is for cutlery. Each drawer moves well on its sliders, easily pulling in and out.

Flexibility is key for a dishwasher, so the middle shelf can be raised or lowered. A simple set of clips on either side let you do this without having to remove the shelf, although it makes sense to only adjust while it’s empty.

On the side of the middle shelf are fold-down cutlery holders, that have cut-outs for wine glass stems. These holders can be put into multiple positions, adjusting to suit the type of wine glasses you have. I have very tall ones, yet I managed to get them stored neatly.

The back of this shelf is open, with the wire holder sticking out a little. Be careful how you load at the rear: I found it easy to get a mug caught around the wire, making it hard to get out.

With the bottom shelf, you get a set of different sized plate holders. I found that the wider ones were ideal for dinner places, as it kept them out of the way of the spinning shower head above. I did find that putting dinner plates in the smaller holder didn’t work, as the showerhead would hit them. Moving the middle shelf up solves this problem, but doesn’t leave much room for glasses.

The top shelf has tonnes of room for cutlery, and it’s very easy to load up. While it takes a bit of practice to work out what items should go where, once you’re used to this dishwasher, there’s a lot of space.

There’s a standard salt container at the bottom of the Indesit DFO 3T133 F UK, which should be filled with salt and water the first time you use the dishwasher. Using the control panel, you have to set the water hardness in your area, so that the right amount of salt is used.

You also need to set the right amount of rinse aid to use. Rinse aid goes in the compartment on the door, next to the washing tab holder.

On the top of the door, Indesit has put a guide to the wash programmes available. The Eco wash is likely to be your main programme, but there’s a more intensive 65C wash, a dishes mode, glasses mode and a rapid 28-minute wash for lightly soiled items. Plus, there’s an extra hygiene mode and more intense wash.

As with its washing machines and tumble dryers, the Indesit DFO 3T133 F UK has a Push & Go mode, which is a wash designed for everyday dishes. To use this mode, I had to turn the dishwasher on, wait for a second and then press and hold the Push & Go button; it’s far easier to let the dishwasher default to Eco mode and then just hit the go mode.

Depending on the cycle you’ve selected, you can select which zones you want to use, reducing water consumption if, for example, you just want to clean items on the bottom shelf.

Thanks to the LCD screen on the front, the dishwasher shows you how long remains on the cycle. Once finished, the door is slowly pushed open by a robotic arm (similar to that used on the far more expensive Miele G 7160 SCVi AutoDos integrated dishwasher). It’s neat and means you won’t get hit by a spring-loaded door pinging open at the end of a cycle.

Performance

• Excellent cleaning performance
• Be careful how you stack to get the best results
• Average running costs

To test out cleaning performance, I load all dishwashers with the same test load of items and stains.

First, there’s the coffee cup test, loading up a mug with dried-on stains, and placing it on the middle shelf. Here, the Indesit DFO 3T133 F UK did brilliantly, leaving no mess behind.

Likewise, the dishwasher got rid of the red wine stains from my wine glass, leaving me with shiny, streak-free glass.

As a tougher test, I put ketchup onto a plate and leave it to dry. This proved no problem for the dishwasher, and it easily removed the stains.

Likewise, my dried-on Weetabix test proved no problem in terms of stain removal. However, as the dirty bowl was touching the one in front of it, some Weetabix remained on it. A quick rinse was enough to remove it, showing that the Indesit DFO 3T133 F UK had cleaned the mess, but just hadn’t managed to rinse it out.

Finally, there’s the tough egg test: the remains of scrambled eggs made in the microwave. I put the dirty bowl onto the middle shelf. This test often presents problems for dishwashers, but not so here: the bowl game out virtually clean, with just a tiny bit of egg left behind. This is one of the best performances that I’ve seen.

Measuring the power and water usage for the Eco setting, I found that the dishwasher used 0.812kWh of power and 11.7-litres of water. Water usage was competitive but the power usage is a little higher than on the more efficient competition – this explains the B energy rating.

Based on the energy label, I worked out that it costs around 16p per cycle to run this machine, which is a little higher than with an A-rated appliance. That works out to just over 1p per place setting, with an average running cost per year of £39.48. There are cheaper dishwashers to run, but they’ll cost you more money to buy.

I measured the dishwasher at 4.59dB, which is exceptionally quiet: you can easily have this on in the kitchen while you’re watching TV and not get distracted.

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