I'm totally sold on the concept of the dishwasher, it was one of the first things we bought when we got a house, though for no greater reason than I'm really fundamentally lazy*. It's just chucking out the existing appliance when it may only need a small fix. That said, it's about seven years old and has done a lot of washing up, and it is Italian (though probably made in the same factories as all the others).
I'll ring a few people, absolution is that way. I can wash up by hand for a few days, though it'll take a toll. Modern kitchen sinks don't seem big enough to wash up in, when I was a child I used to be bathed in one. That said, I was a bit smaller back then.
*as students, to avoid the toil of washing-up, we went through a stage of cheap paper plates, so cheap you had to eat your beans really quickly before the plate dissolved and you were eating them off the table.