Miele Little Giant Washer No 1600 RPM and Missing Cycle

[hippo]

I'm considering adding the Miele Little Giant washer and dryer to my stable of laundry machines. I already have the Miele WXR 860 washer which does many things wonderfully but isn't as fast or configurable as the Little Giant and they would compliment each other nicely.

I visited the local Miele dealer and spent a while going through the cycles, options, and settings on the Little Giant washer's touchscreen. I noticed two things that really jumped out at me:

1) There was no option for 1600 RPM for any cycle. 1600 RPM is advertised as the spin speed for the Little Giant on Miele's US website and is listed in the manual as the max spin speed for two cycles: Whites and Cottons Plus. However, Whites listed a number of selectable spin speeds which topped out at 1500 RPM.

2) Cottons Plus, which is listed as a cycle in the "Standard Programs" block in the manual, is not available at all on the machine. I went through all the settings to make sure it wasn't just deactivated and even took the machine out of demo mode to confirm. I could not find Cottons Plus or find any setting to restore it despite going through every option in Supervisor Mode.

The lack of the Cottons Plus cycle is especially odd since it is the only cycle listed in the manual with a 19.8lb capacity which Miele advertises as the machine's capacity on their website. No other cycle has a listed capacity of over 17.6lb.

Any insight into these omissions would be greatly appreciated. Can any current-model Little Giant owners confirm if they have Cottons Plus and 1600 RPM?

 

[henene4]

Set up

When setting up the machine, you are adding what ever cycle package you need so it doesn't get cluttered if your application dosen't need certain cycles.
Cotton Plus probably is part of a not selected cycle package.

Further, as far as I understand, you can also limit the spin speed in the same manner.
Maybe you are a laundromat owner, want to get a bit more life out of the bearings and get more dryer time spending.

 

[hippo]

Thank you very much for your response, henene4.

The cycle packages was the first thing I thought of. You can easily view all the cycle packages and cycles and whether or not they’re active in Supervisor Mode which I checked. Cottons Plus was not in the list of cycles to activate/deactivate. I even took the machine out of demo mode which proceeded through the initial commissioning options and still couldn’t find it.

I also looked through every setting in Supervisor Mode looking to see if there was a setting limiting the spin speed. My WXR 860, for example, has a “Reduce Spin Speed” option in Programming Mode but I found no such option on the Little Giant. Perhaps there is a programming mode I didn’t know how to access of the Little Giant, but Supervisor Mode on the Little Giant seems to serve the same purpose as most of the same options are available there along with a lot more customizability.

 

[bobbins]

Little Giants are the best modern Front Load washers!

We purchased our Little Giants in 2015 and never had any issues. As a former appliance technician for Maytag, Inglis/Whirlpool and CAMCO/GE Canada, hands down for Miele (best modern appliances on the market). We ended up keeping our Little Giants when we recently built and moved into our new house (note in Canada the voltage for these machines are rated for 208V. We had to install a step down transformer).

As for the Cotton settings, I believe we can change the RPMs higher in the supervisory mode. The supervisory mode allowed us to over ride the defaults (i.e. water levels). However, we kept the default (max 1400).

 

[hippo]

Hello bobbins and thank you very much for your response. Very glad to hear you're enjoying your beautiful Little Giant machines so much!

Unfortunately I wasn't able to find the spin speed reduction in the Supervisor Mode on the touchscreen model. Maybe there is another level of menu I wasn't able to access.

 

[launderess]

Am not finding a Little Giant washer on offer by US sellers with 1600 rpm final spin, but either 1400 or 1500...

https://p11.secure.hostingprod.com/@site.us-appliance.com/ssl/pdfs/PWM908DPWH_Specs.pdf

Can you recall model number of unit seen at Miele dealer? Did you ask person at showroom about "Cottons Plus" not showing up on menu?

Miele Little Giant washers are different animals from their W1 cousins. Little Giant washers are Miele's answer to On Premises Laundry (OPL) and or at least in Europe laundromat and other coin operated washers. These machines are designed to withstand daily duty hours that would likely kill off a domestic Miele washer, and or at least shorten lifespan.

 

[hippo]

Thank you very much for your response, Launderess. I do see that 18lb and 1500 RPM is listed in that brochure for the PWM 908. For that same model number, however, Miele USA’s product page lists 1600 RPM and 20lb capacity:

https://www.mieleusa.com/professional/washing-machines-452.htm?mat=11204470&name=PWM_908_[EL_DP_NAM]

That link is also where the manual can downloaded which indicates 1600 rpm, 20lb, and the Cottons Plus cycle. It is the same machine as was at the dealer. There is only one model of Little Giant washer currently available in the US the only option being color.

It would not at all be unlike Miele to incorrectly list features in the manual as they also do for the WXR 860. Since Miele themselves are inconsistent with the information there must either be an error or a change made at some point. Hopefully I can get to the bottom of it before making a purchasing decision.

I didn’t ask the dealership since while they’re very friendly, they have almost no laundry-specific product knowledge. Unfortunately they’re not a servicing dealer so there are no techs to ask in-depth questions to and they have no access to the service manuals.

 

[bobbins]

New Little Giants have new features

Hi, the following link is to the operating manual(note: Canadian Miele site). Page 88 discusses special programs. Seems like the max RPM is 1400.

https://www.miele.ca/pmedia/ZGA/TX2070/11729350-000-01_11729350-01.pdf

 

[hippo]

Hello bobbins, for the special customizable programs the spin limit is 1400 rpm. However, on page 33 of the manual you linked it shows Whites and Cottons Plus with 1600 rpm and Cottons Plus having a 20lb capacity.

I wonder if the 1600 rpm and 20lb capacity features were either added or removed since the launch and that’s why there are contradictory documents from Miele. It seems as though both, particularly since the 20lb capacity only applies to Cottons Plus, could be added or removed via firmware alone.

 

[launderess]

Could be wrong, but seems as if "Cottons Plus" is same ase "Cottons Universal"

https://us.mieleusa.com/MieleMedia/.../PW5105AV_CommisioningProgramsSettings_us.pdf

http://documents.designerappliances.com/Product-Manual-PW6068SS.pdf

From what one can tell "Cottons Plus" like "Cottons Universal" allowed max volume of tub to be used (hence full 18 or 20 pounds total load), and used temps from cold to lower end of hot range.

 

[hippo]

Miele professional service confirmed to me that there was a running change to the current model Little Giant washer that added 1600 rpm and 9kg (20lb) capacity in the Cottons Plus cycle after the US introduction. It is retrofittable via software and the new machines are shipping so equipped.

It is still a bit of a disappointment that, at least according to the manual, 1600rpm is only available on Cottons Plus and Whites which means it is only available on cycles 50C and above. The equivalent UK model allows 1600rpm on ECO 60-40, Whites, Coloured items, Coloured items sensitive, and Drain/Spin.

 

[hippo]

Today I noticed that the manual posted online for the US Little Giant washing machine was updated to a new version which I assume corresponds to new software updates. Key changes include:

- Whites is now listed with 1500 rpm max spin instead of 1600 rpm.

- Colored Items Sensitive is a newly listed "Cotton or mixed fiber textiles" cycle with a capacity of 17.6lb, temperature range of Tap Cold to 90C, a plethora of extra options, and 1600 rpm spin speed.

- In Supervisor Level the number of rinses for Cottons programs can now be set between 1-5. Previously it could only be set between 2-5 rinses.

The addition of the Colored Items Sensitive cycle is a huge positive as it offers a universally oriented cottons cycle with 1600rpm, a full range of temperatures, and much greater customizability than the label Normal cycle.

 

[henene4]

Pretty sure the "Plus" version thing only available at over 40C is due to the Normal cycle being the rating cycle and nothing being allowed to be easily confusable with it.
Cottons Plus then was "Heavy Duty" equivalent.

US testing requirements make that very weird on EU derived washers...