Bosch has much wider market penetration
Lowes Hardware sells Bosch dishwashers, but not Miele. Bosch parts and repair services are easier to find vs. Miele. And an entry level Miele is priced similar to a TOL Bosch here.
I know of several retailers that sell Miele DW, but they tend to be higher end stores for people doing expensive remodels rather than shopping for one replacement appliance:
http://www.pacificsales.com/kitchen_bath_electronics/
http://www.universal-akb.com/dishwashers.html
Miele dishwashers START at $1100
http://www.universal-akb.com/g2142wh.html
and go up to $2200-2500 for LaPerla.
When Bosch continuously tops the Consumer Reports ratings year after year, and $1100 will buy you their higher end models, people go with Bosch due to reputation. My Bosch DW (purchased 2001) cost $600. It has concealed door controls but otherwise is a basic model with PowerScrub Plus, Regular, and Quick Wash cycles, and only the basic soundproofing (52 or 54 decibels, I believe). It has never had a service call and gets everything clean on Regular wash, even dried on oatmeal. When it goes and can't be repaired, I'd replace it with a similar model which now might cost closer to $700.
PS to favorit re: stainless steel tubs. People over here think it's a luxury item to have stainless steel tubs, their mindset is "a plastic tub won't break"---which is true, but it ignores the fact that a stainless steel tub helps water to evaporate off the dishes (and condense on the steel tub), which allows models like Bosch to be built without heated drying. The typical consumer here sees it as a cosmetic upgrade rather than one that is functional. For that reason, you can buy $300 dishwashers here with plastic tubs. They are noisy but they work, but you usually can't get by with Economy (no-heat) drying, because of the lack of a steel tub.
When I first bought the Bosch DW, my parents were asking "why are you buying a $1400 DW?" and my reply was, "Because it's a $600 DW, same price as a basic KitchenAid" (which they have). They associated Bosch with Miele-level prices. Bosch figured out correctly that the market for $600-700 dishwashers was larger than the market for $1500 dishwashers. That is, you can convince people to pay $600-700 instead of $300-400 if quality is good. So they stole part of the market from KitchenAid, which was considered to be the leading quality brand in USA prior to wide availability of European brands. By the way, my Bosch was made here in USA, not in Germany. Mieles are made in Germany which may explain the added costs due to labor and freight charges.
Another factor here is whether you can get a machine repaired. No problem with US brands, and Bosch is common enough that many repair services can fix a Bosch. If you have an ASKO or Miele, you are probably in luck in a major city, but in a rural area, you may have to fix it yourself if no repair services are nearby. As mrb627 pointed out, some of the stores he visited had never heard of Miele dishwashers.
Finally, Miele has an odd form of distribution over here. In addition to being sold through some higher end appliance stores (like the links I posted), in some cases they are also sold by small stores that are Miele-only---people may tend to stay away from small stores because they fear the store may go out of business (compared to buying from a major chain like Sears or Best Buy or Lowes). Miele vacuums are sold this way: you never see them in major appliance stores, you buy them in small local shops like in Europe....this sort of distribution to us seems a little odd (unless you have visited Europe). There are three vacuum stores in my area that sell and service Miele vacuums. The prices are all identical because if Miele discovers that a store is selling at a discount, their permission to sell Miele will be discontinued. Persil is sold in USA through an exclusive contract with Miele, which is why it costs $50 a box in USA. And why I bring home boxes of Persil or equivalent from European trips, much to the amazement of European friends (if they had to pay $50 for their Persil, they would understand). My "souvenir shopping" is nearly always done at a supermarket, not in stores that cater to tourists, so I can bring home specialty foods and Persil.
This sometimes creates payment problems because many European markets do not accept non-EU credit cards, their system is not set up to verify them. Tourist stores DO accept non-EU credit cards, they have to in order to survive, but they pay a higher commission than stores that accept only EU cards. I remember Europe being years behind USA in the transition from cash to credit cards, in particular a visit in 1989 to Cologne's largest bookstore (Mayerisch) and they accepted only CASH. Then in the 80's and 90's, you could use credit cards everywhere, but now I see a change to EU-only verification systems, particularly in places where tourists don't normally shop (supermarkets, etc.). A shopkeeper in the main square of Aachen explained this to me. I asked her why her store took my credit card while I could not use it in a market, and she explained she paid a higher commission to be in the world-wide verification system, whereas the markets are in an EU-only system because they pay lower commissions (and have few customers outside the EU). The shopkeeper said she had to be in the worldwide system to survive, since most of her customers were tourists. I saw the same system in rural Sweden last fall. All of the stores selling textiles or crystal (Kosta Boda, etc.) accepted my credit cards, but they wouldn't work at the supermarket. I have found that usually American Express works in markets more than non-EU MasterCard or VISA, but even then I run into problems, and I have to remember to carry cash. I rented a car on that Swedish trip, and was unable to use any credit card (AmEx, VISA, or MC) at any gas station over the course of a week. The locals' cards worked, mine did not.
ps I don't always agree with Consumer Reports evaluations, but many people who aren't well informed will use it as a buying guide. CR evaluates current cleaning ability and price, but cannot test long-term durability with its testing program. They may put their machines through a rigorous testing schedule, so their cleaning ability recommendations may be valid, but they don't test machines for ten years to see which ones hold up and which ones don't last. [this post was last edited: 5/3/2010-10:59]
