When your dishes start coming out of the dishwasher looking worse than they did when you put them in, it is not necessarily time to call the repair man or purchase a new dishwasher. As I mentioned here, the Handy Guys have a podcast (embedded below) which explains how a person might be able to get their dishwasher working properly again. According to the handy guys, the basins of Kenmore, Kirkland Signature, and Whirlpool dishwashers usually need to be cleaned every two to three years. They are probably accurate, as we cleaned our basin two and a half years ago and again on the last Saturday of June.
Once again, thanks to the handy guys, our dishwasher is cleaning the dishes and we didn't need to spend a penny.
Dishwasher Repair Bonus: At one point, our dishwasher completely stopped working and the display showed an error. As luck would have it, this was right after the warranty was up. We looked up the error on Google and quickly found how to reset the dishwasher and get it running again. Over the years, we have learned that with a little research, we can often fix things around our house ourselves.