Voltas Beko 14 Place Setting Dishwasher, AquaFlex, AquaIntense (DF14S2,Silver)

The dishwasher with a faulty detergent tray was delivered to me. Please do not buy from Dawntech Electronics pvt ltd. This is the worst seller and is selling faulty or rejected pieces online.

Good product and nice looks. Noiseless with high quality & performance

 I purchased this model from a Croma outlet about 3 weeks ago for a little over 37k (including 5k for additional 2 yrs warranty), after store and HDFC card discounts. I’ve decided to upload a review here for the benefit of other customers.
First off, unless absolutely necessary, I would not purchase big kitchen/home appliances above 25k (barring computer parts & electronics) online. My experience has taught me that walking into a store is a better way to get additional benefits like discounts and one-in-a-while deals. If you strike up a good rapport with the store manager, you’ll get even a better percentage on the final bill. Bless my father, he always has a wonderful way with people and thanks to him, we bagged a great deal that included the additional warranty.
On top of that, big stores like Croma, Reliance etc have a reputation to defend and always take up any follow-ups, including installation, demo, repairs calls etc on our behalf; so no need to run around calling the brand.

We’ve not had maids on a regular basis even before the lockdown, and only now decided to buy a dishwasher to ease our work load. So the good thing was the prices came down a lot post lockdown dishwasher inflation. I was told this particular model had in fact sold for 50k in lockdown among several other!
The first thing to look for in your purchase is the heart of the appliance – the motor (or in case of other class of appliances, their compressors and condensers). If the brand gives any reliable information on it, that’s the first peace of mind, and if additional warranty is given on it, that’s a sweet deal. LG and Voltas dishwashers are the only ones giving extra warranty on their inverter direct drive motors; LG 10 and Voltas 12. And 2 years on the whole appliance.
This was my first filter. I was aware of the big daddy Bosch, but despite their name, only 2 yrs warranty and 10 for rust on the tub(!) made no sense. They give a plastic tub on the base and it’s not ideal, especially considering many others give entire stainless steel tubs for way less. Seimens and Bosch are both owned by the same parent company and are manufactured in the same facilities, so you’ll find they share similar features, warranty and price. LG was nice, but my research made me aware of the slew of heating element errors customers were facing and the lack of auto resume after power cuts was a total thumbs down for the premium price. At one yr warranty only, Samsung was a glance and go for me. IFB and Faber were alright, but I wasn’t convinced about their after sales service and their 2 yr warranty and no mention on the motor technology didn’t make me feel too confident in them. Midea with their low prices was definitely an eye-opener, but being Chinese and no way to confirm the quality (they weren’t on display on any offline stores that I visited) and low warranty made me look towards others. Toshiba caught my eye and I’ve always been a softie for Japanese tech. I love their dedication and high quality! They offered 5 yr motor warranty in addition to 2 on the appliance and the machines looked very nice with the red accents in the racks. More research and I realised Toshiba home appliance division was sold to Midea and they now manufacture all Toshiba appliances in China and they are responsible for their marketing and after-sales service. I wasn’t too thrilled. I would’ve gone for it nonetheless if Croma’s Pine Labs machine hadn’t show an error and failed to display a single Toshiba dishwasher, despite their online store selling 3 models.
All this while I kept coming back to Voltas Beko again and again, and I read and watched whatever I could find about it online. I made a small sheet of all the finalists and Toshiba and Beko were the final two in my budget of 40k for a 14 place dishwasher. It was clear that Beko was way ahead in its features, warranty and reliability (Beko is a top seller in Europe and Middle East for a long time and they recently entered the US appliances market in 2016). Plus they aren’t Chinese made. They are all manufactured in Turkey, just like Bosch and Seimens dishwashers. So although I had not previously owned any Voltas or Beko product, I knew the quality was going to be top notch, and I was not wrong.
In addition, this model has the additional ‘aqua intense’ arm on the base with a 180 degree rotating high pressure 4 hole nozzle head for extra tough stains and burnt utensils. No other model in the markets has this feature. There are quite a few videos that show this feature in action and it’s worth watching. This and other programs that give the option to have variable washing power for each level (aqua flex cycle), fast + (reduces time by increasing water pressure), half load and more made it obvious to me that at this warranty, price and feature list, there really was no competition for it at all.

The machine arrived within 8 hrs of the order placement. Prepping the kitchen for the electrical and plumbing took a week, plus getting a sturdy one foot high stand made locally took another few days. Finally it was ready to be installed. The installation person came within a day of the request and he arrived with a big bag of tools and attachments, if needed. We had originally planned to connect the machine to the kitchen tap, but the 1 meter inlet pipe that came with the machine was too short and the water pressure wasn’t strong enough (error E02). After we modified the connection to directly connect the geyser outlet to the machine, the pipe length and water pressure was perfect.
Let me add that the machine is best mounted on at least a foot high stand to help easy loading and unloading of the dishes. Floor level placement causes a lot of strain with the constant bending down, so keep that in mind.
The machine comes with an exhaustive manual which is also available as a pdf download on their website. As you can see I printed out the programs list for easy reference and attached it with magnets. It also comes with a U bend to attach the drain pipe and hook it behind the top of the machine. It is paramount to know that if your dishwasher (and 90% are) has a drain pump, you should always have your drain pipe 50-100cm above the machine base level, and NOT left at the floor level. This critical angle helps to keep water in the machine while operation and ensures water does not flow out with gravity, unless the machine pumps it out during the cycle.
A nice touch by Beko is that they’ve included a water hardness level strip and details in the manual of what each reading means. Alongside the salt level being set in the control panel, there is also a physical adjustment to be made inside the tub.
Now, my water is soft. And despite that, time and again I’ve seen white residue on my stove and vessels after the filtered water is boiled. So I knew even with the municipal drinking water supply in my taps, I had to ensure the salt level is set to at least 1. I’ve read people say if you use 3in1 tablets you don’t need salt or rinse aid. Rinse aid maybe not, but salt, definitely you do. That’s because the salt softens the water BEFORE it even enters the tub and touches the dishes. So if you
use the tablets alone, the water flows in its original state throughout the machine’s inner pipes and in the tub until AFTER the pre-rinse cycle is over, which is when the tablet is dispensed and activated. So yes, pretty soon you will have limescale deposits in your machine’s inners, if not also on your dishes. So for the sake of the machine’s health, unless you have distilled water connection to the machine, soft water or not, tablet or not, use the salt!
My research on several platforms and reading reviews and comments and replies brought me to Eureka Frobes water softening salt. Now this brand sells big capacity water softening systems and their regeneration salts are sold on their website as well. 99.4% pure sodium chloride or salt tablets in a 10kg packet for rs350! I was dizzy reading this at first, but did more research. Every dishwasher salt IS a regeneration salt (as it regenerates the resin in the dishwasher’s built-in water softener), and every dishwasher salt IS pure sodium chloride. So….Eureka Forbes water softener salt and dishwasher salt is the exact same! The Voltas technician nearly freaked out when he saw the tablets as he had no idea and then he said they will not dissolve and you need branded dishwasher salts etc. I didn’t contest him (pure salt will anyways easily dissolves in water irrespective of size and shape) but I did more research that day and yet again I was proven correct about my finding so far. They are the exact same. I ordered it from their official site and it was delivered within 2 days. And I’ve loaded up about a kg of salt with water and the salt indicator promptly turned off and I’ve had no hard water stain issues. So do your research people and do it well.

The machine also comes with a cutlery basket that I rarely use and 4 foldable resting ‘hooks’ on the bottom drawer to load large baking trays. This model has a third high pressure spray nozel on the roof, which is rare and I’ve recently seen only on one Faber model that advertises it as 3D washing. It has fan drying and an additional steam drying option.
The machine is quiet, and I’ve noticed some programs have different sounds than others. The auxiliary programs that you can add to the regular 7 programms are quite nice (Aqua intense, Fast +, Half load, Steam gloss) and there’s a tub clean program that is to be run every month or so. The delay start function of 24 hrs has increments of 30 minutes which is thoughtful as all other brands have only 1 hr increments and nothing in between.
There are foldable tines on both the top and lower racks and the top rack has an easy 3 level height adjustment button. Even with the default height, I’ve regularly loaded 6 litre cooking pots in the top drawer and they have always comes out clean.
As you can see in the video, I loaded an 11.2 litre biryani vessel and its 12″ diameter lid in the lower rack. That’s right! The foldable tines and the ample space between the two racks is a blessing if you correctly place your dishes. You can fit a lot! The only down side is that aluminum and hard anodised vessels will loose their polish and start turning blue even in a single wash. So for these black babies, unless they are specified to be dishwasher safe, they are best washed by hand.
As for the tablets and detergents, I’ve decided to take the natural route to cleaning agents. This was my personal decision as I wasn’t too comfortable with the idea of the additional strong chemicals making contact with the dishes we eat out of, and having to rinse them again before use is counter productive. (Disclaimer: using natural ingredients means you are forgoing the harsh chemical agents that clean robustly and vigorously, so therefore, you’ll need to ensure your dishes are wiped clean of food residue, and oily and burnt dishes are scrubbed. This is a small trade-off to using natural alternatives. You cannot expect sparkling results if you put in dishes with burnt or thick stuck-on dry residue AND also use these natural gentler cleaning agents; you WILL have to pre-rinse /scrub.)
I did a lot of reading and am still slightly on the experimenting side, (I’m posting updates about it) but this is what has worked for me so far. For a full load, I use 1.5-2 tbsps or 30 ish gm of 1:1:0.5 ratio of washing soda + baking soda + salt (kosher or pure salt. I use powdered dishwasher salt) sprinkled some on the door (or in pre-rinse compartment) and the rest alongwith 1 tbsp of citric acid in the main detergent compartment and straight vinegar (previous trial with diluted vinegar was not effective) in the rinse aid compartment.
Ceramic, glass and steel were spotless and gleaming bright and streakless.
Edit in Dec: Thanks to the affordable prices of the salt (I refill about every 1.5 months) 10kg washing soda pack, 1kg citric acid (both from Amazon. Edit in March: I found a 5kg citric acid pack on Amazon for just Rs1100 and this will last me more than a year!) and baking soda (Rs 50/kg) and vinegar (Rs 30 for 900ml) purchased cheap locally, my cost of consumables has been insanely low. The citric acid has to be purchased in Jan (it actually lasted me till March!) after nearly 4 months of use. The salt and soda will go on probably for more than 2 yrs and the vinegar I refill about 25ml every 4-5 weeks. I am still trying out different combinations of the natural ingredients and will update the same here.
Most recently I tried to omit the citric acid completely (it’s the most priciest of all consumables) by adding the Steam Gloss option to the normal wash program. Although this will use a lot more rinse aid than normal, it’s fine with me as white vinegar is dirt cheap and if it gives as good results as citric acid, then why not?
First attempt seemed a success. There was no apparent difference in omitting the citric acid and the utensils had the same brightness and shine like before, mainly because I started using straight vinegar rather than diluted unlike before, and the extra usage in the gloss option seemed to compensate for the citric acid very well. I’ll update about this further and also try without the gloss option.
Edit I’m Feb: Omitting the citric acid doesn’t give consistent results. When the dishes are dirtier, the vinegar rinse aid and the Gloss option doesn’t seem to be enough. The cleaning is not as effective and consistent as with citric acid. So now I’ve gone back to using the tbsp of citric and don’t use the gloss option. The dishes are once again well washed and clean.
Edit in March: I decided to test the washing quality with just washing soda and citric acid. The results were not the best. The dishes were clean, no doubt, but they didn’t look fresh and sparkling, despite the citric acid. Then in the next batch I added salt to this mix (with washing soda+citric acid in the same ratio mentioned above). The results were not yet satisfactory- clean dishes but not the freshest shiniest finish. Finally I re-introduced baking soda to the mix again in the next batch. Well, what do you know, dishes are back to their old sparkling self! I don’t quite know how or why this is the case, but looks like the chemistry between the original combination of ingredients works best! I seem to have found what finally works for me and feel like a chemist on high! My research was zeroed down on and inspired by the site momnypotamus among others, and although I didn’t indulge in the essential oils which were optional in some recipes, her simple formulae alongwith some of my own modifications worked very well for me. Be sure to read the comments after her posts.
White residue on dishes: I faced this issue twice recently. The first time I loaded the dishwasher with full capacity and detergent and selected the 30 min cycle just to see the outcome. Half of the detergent was still in the detergent compartment, undissolved and clumped up. I didn’t discard this lump of leftover detergent. Instead I added some more and ran a full cycle, expecting the clean dishes like always. What I got instead were dishes covered with a cloudy white residue and the state was so bad that the tines and even the top drawer bearings were covered in it and the drawer movements had become rough as if there was friction in the bearings. I was appalled and had to scrub every single dish in the sink (I found out later spraying vinegar on them would have worked better before scrubbing with just water). There was a thick white trail of the detergent from the compartment running down and I was not sure how I could remedy the whole situation. I got the idea to run a tub clean cycle with vinegar, and hoped it would work. It did! The tines were clean and the drawers were smooth once again and the detergent trail went away. So I learnt my first lesson, and that is not to re-use leftover undissolved detergent (it hampers with the dispersion of the new detergent leaving behind a film of undissolved white residue), and to run the proper length (30 mins cycle are best used for a few very lightly soiled dishes).
The second time it happened was when the salt was low. I had a few dishwasher salt tablets on hand and instead of loading 1kg of it, I popped these few peices inside the salt chamber and mixed it in. The indicator turned off and I ran a cycle. The dishes had a coarse thin white film which I had to again wash off by hand. But this time the tines and drawer bearings were all clean. I couldn’t understand what caused this and after more research, I could only suspect the salt issue (I hesitated to accept this initially because of my soft water supply). Then before the next cycle (always top-up the salt just before running a cycle, otherwise the salty overflow water staying in for hours before the next cycle will damage the inners of the tub) I properly loaded the salt chamber, refilled the water and hoped everything would be fine. The dishes came out clean and clear again! I couldn’t believe how much just the level of salt in the salt chamber makes a difference to the washing output, even with my soft water! So it wasn’t the machine’s fault both the times for the white residue, it was mine!

Also I run the tub clean program every 1.5 months with a mug full of vinegar on the top rack.
Tip: To make vinegar’s cleaning power even more potent, I cut up the peels of 2-3 lemon/orange/tangerine and put it into the vinegar bottle for a week to release their oils. I use this infused vinegar as a rinse aid and for the tub clean program which also leaves behind a faint but nice citrus aroma. Btw, around the kitchen as well, this vinegar is very effective with a bit of dishwashing liquid added to it for scrubbing burnt vessels, cleaning stoves, sinks, ceramic, chimneys and glass surfaces.
The good thing with these natural ingredients is that every little change makes an instant difference in the resulting wash, so you can go on modifying and seeing what works best. Also, there’s been no increase in my electricity bill these past months even with 70° intense cycles being run regularly. Natural is definitely the best decision I’ve made; no dent on the pocket, no chemicals in the body!
I’ll make sure to edit as my experience goes along as I am a fairly new to the all natural route. But so far the dishwasher has been top notch in its performance, build quality and ease of operation. The total package from buying to installing and using it has been a game changer for my family. It’s been the best decision we’ve made so far in the recent past for our kitchen. I heartily recommend this brand and this model to anyone looking to buy a dishwasher of this capacity and price!

Using for 2 month. Have not face any problem still now.